He now leered with a fond and watery gaze upon
Mr. Wrenn's scholarly pursuits, and announced in a whisper:
"They've sighted land."
"Land?"
"Oh aye."
Mr. Wrenn sat up so vigorously that he bumped his head.
He chucked his papers beneath the pillow with his right hand,
while the left was feeling for the side of the berth.
"Land!" he bellowed to drowsing cabin-mates as he vaulted out.
The steerage promenade-deck, iron-sided, black-floored, ending
in the iron approaches to the galley at one end and the iron
superstructures about a hatch at the other, was like a grim
swart oilily clean machine-shop aisle, so inclosed, so
over-roofed, that the side toward the sea seemed merely a long
factory window. But he loved it and, except when he had
guiltily remembered the books he had to read, he had stayed on
deck, worshiping the naive bright attire of immigrants and the
dark roll and glory of the sea.
Now, out there was a blue shading, made by a magic pencil; land,
his land, where he was going to become the beloved comrade of
all the friends whose likenesses he saw in the white-caps
flashing before him.
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