“So we walked along on the dock, and says he, ‘there comes the Samson, Captain John Truesdell, I guess he wants you, for I understood his cook left him in Troy.’
“So the Samson rounded up nigh our’n, and the captain jumps ashore, and says he, ‘boy do you want a berth?’ and I touches my hat, and says, ‘yis, Sir.’ And he says, ‘can you roast, bake, and bile, &c.?’ I says, ‘I guess so.’ ‘Can you reef a line of veal, and cook a tater?’ ‘Yis, Sir, all that.’ ‘Well, you are jist the boy I want; ‘what do you ask a month?’ I says, ‘I don’t know:’ but I’d a gone with him if he hadn’t agin me a skinned sixpence a month. Well, he looks at me, and slaps me on the shoulder, and says he, ‘you look like a square-built clever feller,—I’ll give you eight dollars a month.’
“This colored man looks at me and shakes his head, and holds up all hands, and fingers, and thumbs, and that’s ten you know. So I axed him ten dollars a month. And says he, ‘I’ll give it;’ and my heart jumps up into my mouth. And he claps his hand into his pocket, and took out three dollars, and says he, ‘now go up to the market and git two quarters veal, and six shillin’ loaves of bread, and here’s the market basket.’ Well, I thought it kind’a strange that he should trust me, cause I was a stranger; but I found out arter this, a followin’ the seas, that it was the natur’ of sailors to be trusty. Well, I off to the market, and I goes up State-street and looked across on ‘tother side, and who should I see but _Master and the Sheriff_, a comin’ down; so I pulls my tarpaulin hat over my eyes, for I’d got all rigged out with a sailor suit on the Mohawk, and I spurs up, and the grass didn’t grow under my feet any nother. I does my business, and hastens back as fast as possible, and got aboard, and the captain made loose, and bore away into the wind, and made all fast; and the sails filled, and down the river we went like a bird. A stiff breeze aft, and I was on deck, for I wanted to see, and the captain comes along and says, ‘boy, you’d better below,’ and down I went. Well, we run under that breeze down to the overslaugh, and got aground, and then my joy was turned into sorrow. The captain says to me, ‘boy, you keep ship while I and the hands go back and git _a lighter_, or we shan’t git off in a week; and he takes all hands into the jolly boat and starts for the city again. Arter they’d gone I wanders up and down in the ship, and cried, and thought this runnin’ aground was all done a purpose to catch me; and I goes down into the cabin and ties all my clothes up in a snug bundle, and goes into the aft cabin, and opens the larboard window, and made up my mind that if I see any body come that looked suspicious, I’d take to the water.