Chapter XXVII: Uncle Gideon

The day was well spent when Ralph again came to his senses. He raised his head and looked about in a half stupefied wondering way.

The lad was in a small, but well lighted stateroom, plainly yet comfortably furnished. A grave looking, middle aged man was feeling his pulse, while a sailor, neatly dressed in a blue jacket and white duck trousers, stood behind with a towel over his arm and a bowl of broth in his hand.

The other was in a navy blue uniform. The gold lace on his cap and the shoulder straps betokened one in authority. Outside, the sun was shining brightly, while a sound of measured tramping and an occasional order in commanding tones, indicated something of military precision in the surroundings.

"Where am I?" asked Ralph, noticing that his hands were rather white and wasted.

"You are on the United States sloop of war, the Adams, homeward bound," replied the officer. "You were picked up six days ago, and have been ill ever since. I am the ship's surgeon."

"Is--is----"

"Yes, Mr. Duff is well," said Dr. Barker, anticipating the boy's inquiry; "that is except his leg, which is progressing finely. You must not talk much--yet. We ran upon the Wanderer after picking you up. Duff related his own adventures and yours, and gave us his reckoning, taken just after you and he left her. We found her after a two days' search, partially dismasted, and the blacks thoroughly cowed by the gale. We sent her to St. Paul De Loando, where she will be appraised and sold.

"It is likely that your share and Mr. Duff's of the prize money will be considerable, as but for you two we would not have made the capture. As you were deceived when shipping on her as to the object of her trip, you can not be held responsible for the crime committed by her captain and owner in violating the law against slave trading. The negroes of course will be set free."

The door here opened and Duff entered on crutches, followed by a tall, sandy whiskered officer, who went up to Ralph at once.

"Well, nephew," said he in a cordial, hearty tone, "how are you? Well enough to stand a stiff surprise?"

Ralph wondered weakly, but his perplexity ended in a smile. It seemed as if every one was very cordial and that his lines were falling in pleasant places at last.

He greeted Duff eagerly and looked at the two naval men inquiringly, remembering the surgeon's warning as to talking.

"This is Chief Quartermaster Gideon Granger, Ralph," said Duff. "Now do you know who he is?"

"Gideon Granger was my father's half brother," replied the lad at once. "He left home before I was born. Grandfather thought he went to Texas, but as he never heard from him, we all supposed he was dead. So--you are--Uncle Gid."

"Yes, my lad," said Granger. "You see your grandfather and I didn't get on together somehow, so one day I tripped anchor and made sail, as I thought, for the West; but the sight of salt water was too much for me. I drifted into a sailor's life, got into the navy, was promoted during the war, and--here I am.

"Meeting up with you, however, is about the strangest streak of luck I have happened with yet. But I am none the less glad to fall in with one of my own kin. You're as welcome to me, lad, as I reckon we were to you and Duff, the morning we sighted you off the Cape Verdes. When he told me who you were I was all broke up. You were pretty well done for."

"I guess I must have given you some trouble since then," returned Ralph, reaching for his uncle's hand. "We did have rather a tough time in that old boat."

"You did that. As soon as you were hoisted aboard, Dr. Barker pronounced you down with coast fever. That trip up the river Duff tells me about, probably planted the seeds, and exposure did the rest--eh, Doc."

The surgeon nodded, then the chief quartermaster added: "But we will be at Norfolk in a week, then I'll apply for shore leave and you and I will go down and see the old man."

"He won't want to see me," remarked Ralph, who then briefly related the circumstances under which he had been driven from home, his encounter with Shard, and the latter's mode of placing him at Gary's mercy.

The old warrant officer laughed over the silly feud, while sympathizing with the boy over its sad results.

"You shall take me home," he concluded. "Father will forgive us both and we'll liven the old gent up a bit. Perhaps we can get him down where he can taste a whiff of salt air, especially if I make a man-'o-war's man out of his grandson."

The doctor now interposed, and said that Ralph had talked, and been talked to, enough that day. So the boy was left to another refreshing sleep, after enjoying his bowl of chicken broth.

Two days later he was out on deck, where the neatness, precision, and martial splendor of everything he saw, quite captivated his young imagination. When they entered the harbor at Fortress Monroe and salutes were fired, yards manned, and flags dipped by the Adams and the friendly foreign war ships anchored there, Ralph felt more than ever that his vocation was that of a sailor.

True to his word, Uncle Gideon soon started with his nephew for the old mountain home that he had not seen for more than thirty years. When Ralph stood aside, and the stern old man gazed upon his first born, the meeting and recognition were touching in the extreme.

Ralph was forgiven for outliving the feud, and the final result was that son and grandson carried the lonely old man with them back to Norfolk, where he was made comfortable in the "Old People's Home," his own means, supplemented by Gideon's savings, paying all expenses.

One day the quartermaster came into their boarding-house, and on entering Ralph's room slapped the lad heartily on the back.

"I've fixed it, nephew," said he jovially. "My ship sails in three days, and I was afraid I might not pull you through in time. But our captain gave us a lift. You know he stands in with some of the big bugs in the navy department at Washington.

"What!" exclaimed Ralph enthusiastically, his eyes glowing, "am I really to get a berth on the training ship as a naval apprentice?"

"Better than that. When I made known that your share of the Wanderer prize money, and what I could spare would pay your way, captain wrote to his friend at Washington, and the upshot of it all is you're to go to Annapolis. Think of that! One year to prepare for your examination--four years as a cadet--then an ensign. Ah, lad! If I'd had your chance at your age I might have been at least a lieutenant. During the war there was more than one such rose to be commodore. But bear in mind: I can renew my youth in watching you. So bear a hand, lad, and do your best. You may live to walk your own quarter-deck yet."

"If I do," replied Ralph, seizing his uncle's hard and weather beaten hand, "it will all be owing to you."

The old veteran grinned, then seemed to remember something.

"Put on your hat, lad," said he. "We will lay a course for the old man over at the Home. You must ask him if fighting for Uncle Sam on sea isn't better than bushwhacking your neighbors in the mountains."