It was Frank's first aboard a warship made of steel (the USS Dolphin was the first steel battleship of the U.S. Navy). Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Dolphin, though small as if it had not been built for adults, was well-equipped, built very strong, and more powerful, and could withstand the storms of the storm better than the large wooden boats with sails.

Now in his room, there is also a model of the "Dolphin".

The sun, the sand, the waves, the battleships, what an unforgettable day!

And now, he has to endure that role......

No one else's children need to play his kind of role. Now he was thinking more resolutely than ever about a rebellion, so that he would never have to show his head again like he did now. If my sister is willing, then let her go; Anyway, she likes this set. My sister and brother are too young to be careful. But what about him......

"I think the attention is a little more than usual tonight," said the former Captain Cooper as he walked along, to his wife. The intoxicating breeze of the autumn night made him feel refreshed, so he was more accommodating when explaining the usual indifference of passers-by.

"Yes, on Thursday there were only eighteen people who asked for the booklet, but tonight there were twenty-seven."

"The love of Christ will prevail in the end," said the Father, both comforting his wife and comforting himself, "worldly joys and sorrows dominate many, but when they reach the point of grief, some of the seeds we have now sown take root." ”

"I believe this. It is this belief that often keeps me from falling. Grief and deep sin will finally lead some people to see that they have gone astray. ”

Then they walked into a narrow side street, from which they had just come out. They walked straight around the corner to a dozen or so houses, and they entered a yellow wooden bungalow, its wide windows and the two pieces of glass on the door, both painted gray and white. The two windows and the two small squares on the double doors read: "The Gate of Hope." American Independent Mission. Prayer times: Wednesdays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 8 p.m. Welcome to join. Underneath these words, on every window, there is the phrase: "God is love", and at the bottom there is a small line: "How long has it been since you wrote to your mother?" ”

The family's home and mission was miserable enough to keep even the slightest angry boy or girl in their spirits up. It was a bleak, artless dilapidated wooden house; They occupy the entire long ground floor. It is located north of Boulevard and west of Smithwell Avenue in the downtown area, and the exact street name or place name is Swell. The street is short and leads to the slightly longer, but equally indescribable, Edri Street. The area around the mission is a vague reminder of the bustling business of the past, and now the central business district has long since moved to the southwest. Five blocks from here, there are religious zeals and proselytists who hold open-air meetings twice a week.

On the ground floor of the house, right across from Swell Street, you can see the somber backyards of some equally gloomy timber-framed houses. The front part of the ground floor had been divided into a hall forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, in which about sixty wooden folding chairs, a prayer altar, a map of the Holy Land, and twenty-five printed and unframed proverbs were placed as decorations for the walls.

Forty feet behind the very ordinary ground floor, an intricate, but chic space, it became three small bedrooms and a sit-up room with a view of both the backyard and the wooden fence of some of the adjacent yards that were not much different from the backyard. There is also a kitchen that is exactly ten feet square, which also doubles as a dining room; A storage room with pamphlets and hymns for the ministry, as well as boxes, chests, and bits and pieces of goods that were not used at home but were considered valuable. This special little room, right next to the back of the mission hall, was where the Coopers routinely came before or after the sermon, or when they had something important to discuss—but there were other times when they came to meditate or pray.

Frank and his sister, and his brother, saw their mother or father twice in three days, sometimes alone or in two, talking to an abandoned or slightly repentant person. These people come here for counsel or help, and often most of them do so. Sometimes, when his parents were particularly strapped for money, the children would see them both sitting here in contemplation, or, as their father often said when he was at a loss, to "pray that God would show them a way out." Later, Frank began to think in his heart, and this really didn't help.

The whole area around his house was so dark and desolate that Frank was tired of the thought of living in it, not to mention that he had to be involved in it, often begging for help.

But today, it is not as if the people in the mission are here for counsel or help.

"Hello, Cooper." A middle-aged man wearing the U.S. Navy uniform that Frank dreamed of saw his father, got up and walked over quickly, and stretched out his hand to his father with a smile, "I'm so glad to see you." ”

"Oh my God! Gregory! How are you! The father stepped forward and shook the other's hand hard, his voice full of surprise, "Why is your beard white!" ”

"Time flies, we're all getting old." Gregory looked at Frank, "Look, Frank has grown so tall. ”

"What's the use of being tall? His temperament was the same as before, like that of a child. Father said.

"Hello, Frank." Gregory greeted Frank.

"Hello, Uncle Gregory." Frank happily ran to Gregory's side, and when he saw Gregory, he felt as if part of his old life had returned.

"Why are you dressed like that? You're back in the Navy again? Father noticed Gregory's navy uniform.

"Yes, I'm going back to the Navy again, it's just not the U.S. Navy." Gregory smiled mysteriously, "It's the Qianguo Navy, or the Korean Navy." ”

"What did you say?"

"I'm here today to introduce you to the same opportunity, don't you understand?"

"This ...... It was so sudden, Gregory, I really wasn't mentally prepared at all......"

Is there any mental preparation for this? Don't you want to go back into the Navy? The U.S. Navy closed the door to us, but now there is another country's navy that needs us! And hire us for a high salary in the past! What a great opportunity, Cooper, don't you want to go? ”

“…… Well, you're right, old man, of course I want to go, and I really want to! Yes, damn it! I would love to go! It doesn't matter if he's the United States, Qianguo, or North Korea! Yes! Gregory, I want to go! I've never dreamed of getting back on a warship! ”

"Great! Old folk! We're all together again! ”

Hearing what his father was talking to Uncle Gregory, Frank's heart was filled with ecstasy.

He now believes that God heard his prayers and answered them as he deserved.

Beachfront, natural baths.

The gulls' droppings dried on the rusty shipwreck, and no matter what the weather, the fat seagulls always soared through the air, sometimes rushing to the compass room with wide glass bead-like eyes, and sometimes soaring up and flying high, their intentions were incomprehensible. Seagulls fly as they expel slimy droppings. They never touch the soft, quiet sea, but they often crash into rusty bridges. The surface of the seagulls' excrement is dull and grayish-white, and it hardens quickly after falling, and it is densely packed in small clumps next to each other, and some of them are overlapping up and down, forming piles and piles. Every time they got on the dinghy, they always had to use their fingernails and toenails to get the dung balls open. Their nails are all cracked like this, in fact, except for Allen, who has a habit of biting his nails and has many barbs on his hands, no one else bites their nails. Harris was the only one in the group with long nails. His nails were slightly yellowed due to multiple dives. To keep it long, Harris not only doesn't bite his nails, but he also never picks seagull poop with it. Moreover, he was the only one among them who had not tasted seagull poop. The rest of the group voluntarily bit into the small, grayish-white, shell-like mass of dung, chewed it into a frothy mucus, and spit on the deck. It tastes like a gypsum, or fishmeal, or anything else imaginable, like happiness, girl, and dear God. Lewis, who sang well, said, "You know what? Those tenors eat this seagull poop every day. "Seagulls often catch their grayish-white saliva in mid-air with their beaks, and they probably don't even notice what it is.

When he first entered the Naval Academy, Harris was 16 years old. At the time, he couldn't swim or ride a bike, so he didn't look outstanding at all. Despite his frail health and a doctor's written certificate, he insisted on taking gymnastics and swimming lessons. The way Harris learns to ride a bike is comical. He looked stiff and stiff, his ears flushed, his knees turned to the sides, and his legs kept going up and down. The winter before he learned to ride, he signed up to learn to swim in the pool. Initially, he was only allowed to practice swimming maneuvers on land. The following summer, at first he still failed to get into the water. The caretaker at the beach gave Harris a movement training on the beach before he was allowed to use the water swimming learner. The caretaker had the typical stature of a bathing worker, with a buoy-like belly, long, thin legs, and not a single hair on them, making him look like a buoyer surrounded by cloth. For many afternoons, they left Harris behind. He was greatly encouraged by the anecdotes they told about the gunboat that had run aground. Two weeks later, he was finally able to swim freely.

He diligently swam between the trestle, the tall jumps and the baths, and he was very serious. To develop the endurance of swimming, he began to practice diving near the trestle breakwater. Initially, he picked up some ordinary Baltic Sea shells from underwater. Later, he filled a beer bottle with sand and threw it farther away, then dived down to touch it. Harris was probably able to get the bottle up on time very quickly, as he was clearly not a novice when he first performed a dive for them on the wreck.

He repeatedly begged to swim with them. At the time, the group of them -- about six or seven of them -- was slowly wetting themselves in the shallow waters of the mixed bathhouse while discussing the day's swimming route. Standing on the pier of the men's bathhouse, Harris shouted to them, "Take me!" I will. ”

A cone hangs from underneath his Adam's apple, distracting attention from his Adam's apple.

"Alright then!" They promised him, and Harris went into the water with them, and he overtook them between the first and second sandbanks, but they didn't have much trouble catching up with him again. "This kid will get tired and lie down in a while." They say so.

As Harris swam breaststroke, the taper swung between his shoulder bones because it had a wooden handle; As he swam in the backstroke, the wooden handle jumped up and down on his chest, but it didn't cover the nasty cartilage between his chin and collarbone for a moment. This cartilage resembles the dorsal fin of a fish, creating a mark in the water.

Subsequently, Harris put on a show for them. He dived into the water with the cone several times in a row, and every two or three times he always brought with him a small contraption that had been unscrewed down, such as a small lid, a piece of paneling, parts from the machine, and so on. He found a boat cable underwater, and used this rope to break at any moment to pull a small safe from the shipwreck's forward cabin. This safe seems to contain valuables. Harris tried to open the safe for them, and found some soaked bills and green bills, a few gold coins, and a picture of a naked woman. Everyone divided the gold coins and banknotes, and threw the rest into the sea, and from the first day he built a tall image.

The foam floats in clumps or strips on the gentle surface of the sea, attracting a few seagulls, but they are deterred by the foam. The bubble gradually burst, except for a mass tossed onto the beach by the waves, which looked like a piece of sour whipped cream. Harris also rested, crouching in the shadows cast by the compass, and his skin began to tighten. No, he had goosebumps on his body before the foam on the bridge drifted away with the breeze.

Harris shuddered, his Adam's apple fluttering up and down, and the cone danced above his trembling collarbone. His spine had changed shape from the constant shivering, like a hailstorm. Below the shoulders, it is as red as a cooked shrimp, and in some places it is cheese-like. The vertebrae resemble a mason's scraper, and the sides are sunburned with a layer of skin. His lips were slightly yellow, bloodless on the outside, and his bare teeth chattered. He clutched his knees, scarred by the sunken bulkhead overgrown with oysters, with his two large exhausted hands, trying to keep his body and teeth safe from the sea breeze.

Hale yelled at Harris, "You guy, don't go down and touch it again!" We've got to go home. "The cone is starting to get a little more stable.

It took them twenty-five minutes to swim from the breakwater to the wreck, thirty-five minutes to swim from the baths, and three quarters of an hour to return. Harris must have been tired enough, and he always had to climb the breakwater a minute before we did. He still holds the advantage of the first day. Every time they swam to a shipwreck—that's what they called the gunboat—Harris had already dived once. As soon as they reached the rusty, guano-strewn bridge or the outcropping Gatling gun with their washerwoman-like hands, he hurried to show them a quiet display of easily removed gadgets such as hinges. Harris shivered with cold, even though he had applied a thick layer of antifreeze to his body since the second or third time he had come out of the water—Harris had more pocket money than each of them.

Harris is the only son in their family.

Harris can be considered half an orphan.

Harris's father is long gone.

Spring, summer, autumn and winter, Harris always wears old-fashioned high-waisted leather shoes, which are presumably left by his father.

Harris tied the taper with one of the laces of his black high-waisted leather shoes and hung it around his neck.

Now, in addition to the cone, Harris has a few other things around his neck for a number of reasons, but the taper is more noticeable.

He also sometimes wears a silver necklace around his neck, on which hangs a Catholic silver pendant: a portrait of the Virgin Mary. He may have been wearing it all the time, and they never noticed; At least from the day he started practicing swimming postures on the beach and kicking out various patterns with his hands and feet.

Harris never took the pendant off his neck, not even when he was in gymnastics class. That winter, when he had just started learning how to swim on land in the indoor pool and practicing with the help of the swimming workbook, he was already in the gym. He no longer presents a certificate of illness from his family doctor. The silver image of the Virgin Mary is either hiding behind the collar of a tight white gym suit or hanging right above the red stripes on the chest of the gym suit.

The silver statue swayed in front of his pale chestnut hair, but it never left his neck and was free. In addition to the Adam's apple, which can act as a block, Harris also has a bulging back of his head, with a hairline and a pronounced bulge at the back of his head that is enough to stop the necklace from slipping off the top of his neck. (To be continued.) )