The Young Emigrants

It was a lovely morning towards the end of April, and the blue waves of the Atlantic Ocean danced merrily in the bright sunlight, as the good ship Columbia, with all her canvass spread, scudded swiftly before the fresh breeze. She was on her way to the great western world, and on her deck stood many pale-faced emigrants, whom the mild pleasant day had brought up from their close dark berths, and who cast mournful looks in the direction of the land they had left a thousand miles behind them. But though fathers and mothers were sad, not so the children-the ship’s motion was so steady that they were able to run and play about almost as well as on land; and the sails, filled full by the favorable wind, needed so little change that the second mate, whose turn it was to keep watch, permitted many a scamper, and even a game at hide-and-seek among the coils of cable, and under the folds of the great sail, which some of the crew were mending on the deck. Tom and Annie Lee, however, stood quietly by the bulwarks, holding fast on, as they had promised their mother that they would, and though longing to join in the fun, they tried to amuse themselves with watching the foaming waves the swift vessel left behind, and the awkward porpoises which seemed to be rolling themselves with delight in the sunny waters.