The sandman, his sea stories

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...in the little city for a good many years, they changed their office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston. Once, in the long ago, little Jacob and little Sol had gone in the brig Industry on a voyage to far countries; and they had been to the countries and had sailed again for home, but they had not got out of the warm oceans. And one morning little Jacob and little Sol came on deck together. They did n't race through their breakfast as they had been used to doing, because Captain Solomon had put a stop to that. And, as soon as they got on deck, they looked all around to see what was up that morning. Far away they saw the upper sails of a ship that was going the same way they were, but they did n't see anything else except the blue water, although they looked very carefully out ahead and on both sides. But, right astern of the ship, and pretty near, was a great, enormous bird. The bird was so near that the little boys could see it very well, and they could see what color it was, and the shape of its bill, but they could n't see its back nor the top of its head, because the bird was above them. If they had climbed up on the mast they could have seen its back, but they did n't think of that then. The bird was all white, so far as they could see, and it had a bill that was rather long and straight, and was hooked at the end. And the bird just sailed along and waved a little, up and down, but it did n't move its wings, so far as the boys could see, and they watched it for a long time. Its wings were enormous. Little Sol thought they were almost as long as the main-top-gallant yard if you could measure them spread out, as the bird was sailing. And little Jacob looked very wise and he said that he did n't know how long the...