Write to me; am doing well. I send you a
photograph of all there are of the Howell outfit. _No half-breeds
for your uncle this time._
"WM. HOWELL."
THE POLAR ZONE
Very few of my friends know me for a seafaring man, but I sailed the
salt seas, man and boy, for nine months and eighteen days, and I know
just as much about sailing the hereinbefore mentioned salt seas as I
ever want to.
Ever so long ago, when I was young and tender, I used to have fits of
wanting to go into business for myself. Along about the front edge of
the seventies, pay for "toting" people and truck over the eastern
railroads of New England was not of sufficient plenitude to worry a man
as to how he would invest his pay check--it was usually invested before
he got it. One of my periodical fits of wanting to go into business for
myself came on suddenly one day, when I got home and found another baby
in the house. I was right in the very worst spasms of it when my
brother Enoch, whom I hadn't seen for seventeen years, walked in on me.
Enoch was fool enough to run away to sea when he was twelve years old--I
suppose he was afraid he would get the chance to do something besides
whaling.
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