December 9th.—Everybody is busy packing and getting ready to go home, but my packing must wait until I write up my log once more. I mean to tie it up and put it away until I go to sea, for I am really going after all. The news came yesterday; my mother wrote to say that, as I had had the moral courage to confess having done wrong, half her fear about my going to sea was taken away, for she felt sure I was less likely to do wrong now I had felt so much unhappiness about it than I was before. Dear mamma! she is mistaken here, but I wonder whether I shall ever be able to tell her that God alone can keep me from the evil she fears?
I could not think much about this yesterday. It was enough for me that I was going to sea, and when I had read that much of the letter, so as to understand it, I tore round the playground, holding up the letter and shouting, "Hurrah! I'm going to sea—I'm going to sea!" Some of the fellows pretended to think I was mad when I rushed at Chandos and hugged him, and shouted, "It's all your doing, old fellow. I'm going to sea! I'm going to sea!"
"Let him alone; let him blow off steam," laughed Chandos when some of the fellows tried to stop me, and I went round the playground again like a steam-engine. Everybody in the house knew it five minutes after the letter came. Luckily lessons were over for the day, or there would have been an imposition for me, but as it was nobody interfered.
To-day I can think more about it, and finish my log, for I shan't come here after Christmas, and if I write another I shall get a new book. But I mean to keep this, for I shall like to read it by-and-by; and if ever I am likely to forget how God has been my friend, and how I learned to know it, or if ever I get into a scrape and am unhappy again, I shall read what Chandos said to me a day or two ago, that I may never forget: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." We only meant to laugh over it, Tom and I, but now I think I shall remember some wise and good words when I read up "Charley's Log."
sailing ship
LONDON: R. K. BURT AND CO., WINE OFFICE COURT.