WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Sea yarns cover

Sea yarns

Chapter 16: THE VALUE OF A GOOD MOTHER.
Open in WeRead

About This Book

A Cape Cod master recounts a lifetime of maritime service through episodic first-person recollections of fishing trips, ocean passages, and coastal work. He relates voyages aboard schooners, barques, clippers, and yachts, describing storms, a wreck, encounters with sea mammals and a pet baboon, shipboard labor and provisioning, and the camaraderie and conflicts among crew. Practical notes on seamanship and daily life at sea appear alongside reflective observations on the passing era of sail and the character of old-time skippers. The collection reads as compact anecdotes combining adventure, technical detail, and personal memory of nineteenth-century Atlantic and South Pacific cruising.

I could not close the pages of this book without the mention of her, whose love has been the guiding star and inspiration throughout my life.

To the boys and girls who are growing up into manhood and womanhood who are destined to become the fathers and mothers of another generation, I would say, “Never forget your mother.”

The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him when he needs it most. Man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.

Often the son or daughter that he has reared with loving kindness may become ungrateful.

But through the rift in the clouds there always shines the silver lining of mother’s love.

The one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful, is his mother.

And so I have inserted her picture in the pages of this little book, as a tribute to her memory and in the hopes that the mind of the reader may turn back with kindly thoughts to the old fireside, where mother was always queen.

JOSHUA N. TAYLOR.

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Table of Contents has been modified to better reflect text contents.

Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Notation of a.m. and p.m. has been standardized.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and compound words have been retained as printed.