Jack Mason, the Old Sailor

Jack Mason, the Old Sailor is a fiction short story boook. Jack Mason had been to sea a great many times when I first knew him, and he has been a great many times since. He has sailed in a ship almost all over the world. Such a host of stories as he can tell! Why, I do believe if he could find little boys and girls to talk to, he would begin in the morning as soon as he had got through his breakfast, and do nothing but tell stories about what he has seen, until it was time to go to bed at night. I don't know but he would want to stop once or twice to eat. Jack loves a good dinner as well as anybody. Jack is the one that you see in the picture, with his pea jacket on, and a book in his hand. He is in a ship, telling his stories now to that boy sitting on a coil of rope. See, the boy is looking right at the old man, hearing all he says. I wonder what Jack is talking about now. He must be telling one of his best stories, I guess; for the boy lifts his head up, as much as to say, "Dear me! who ever heard of such a thing!" Jack is a good man. He is not like a great many sailors that I have seen. He does not use bad words. He never drinks rum, or any thing of the kind. Sailors are apt to swear; but Jack Mason never swears. He is a Christian: he loves to pray and read his Bible. The book which he holds in his hand, as he is talking to that boy, is a Bible. He often has a Bible in his jacket pocket, when he is on board of his ship; and once in a while he stops telling stories about what he has seen, and reads some of the stories in that good book.