All were full of hope for the future,
and showed an inclination to innocent gaiety. Some were heard to
sing, and all began to scrape acquaintance with small jests and ready
laughter.
The children found each other out like dogs, and ran about the decks
scraping acquaintance after their fashion also. 'What do you call
your mither?' I heard one ask. 'Mawmaw,' was the reply, indicating,
I fancy, a shade of difference in the social scale. When people pass
each other on the high seas of life at so early an age, the contact
is but slight, and the relation more like what we may imagine to be
the friendship of flies than that of men; it is so quickly joined, so
easily dissolved, so open in its communications and so devoid of
deeper human qualities. The children, I observed, were all in a
band, and as thick as thieves at a fair, while their elders were
still ceremoniously manoeuvring on the outskirts of acquaintance.
The sea, the ship, and the seamen were soon as familiar as home to
these half-conscious little ones. It was odd to hear them,
throughout the voyage, employ shore words to designate portions of
the vessel.
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