Blue Water Men - And Women - 184 Lure Of Life At Sea Attracts Edward Preble By FRED HUMISTON stood it for one season, but with The fabulous "Brigadier" the war, and lurid accounts of Preble, father of the ten-year- sea battles and adventure on old Edward, who was to grow the high sea everywhere in Fal- up to become the Father of the mouth, he began to think, put- United States Navy, was a ting all his intense nature into prankster without peer. A big the task. Sent back to school man financially and in person, again, when the school year of who had acquired his military 1776 77 came to a close. with title in the Old French war, he only the prospect of grubbing loved a practical joke, and life the soil ahead for the summer, in his household with its 12 mer- he took off for Newburyport, a ry children was an exciting af- center of privateer activity. fair, indeed. Young Edward was often the HE SIGNED ON as cabin-boy butt for his father's jokes, per- aboard the privateer "Neptune," haps because he was the old- 24 guns, Capt. William Friend. est. The jokes, however had a The Brigadier, when he heard most peculiar way of backfiring the news, instead of exploding on the "old man," but he always into the fury of a mild-manner- managed to see the humor of it, ed man, that can be destruc- even if a trifle forced. tive, took the escapade in his Only two of these anecdotes stride." Let the runaway go," seem to be remembered; the he remarked. "One voyage first, when Edward gave "Ter- aboard a privateer will cure him rible Turk" his come-uppance, of any notion of making the the second when Jedediah sea his profession." Preble set out with some friends He couldn't have been more to row to one of the nearer off- wrong. shore islands. The boy wanted to (To Be Continued) go along, but the small boat was already crowded, and any- way, the Brigadier wanted to see how his precocious son would take being left behind. HE FOUND OUT promptly enough. Enraged a the refusal, Edward, who all his life was a proponent of direct action, took it now. He followed the boat along the shore, pelting the - cupants with stones, and his aim was true. When the Brigadier headed it into shore, his guests eagerly awaited the thrashing that he would deservedly give his unruly offspring. They were shocked when laughing heartily, he took the boy aboard, remarking proudly that "he would be a general some day." Not much more is known of Edward's boyhood. He was sent to Dummer Academy, but there his chief interest was in out- door sports. He seldom attained more than "fair" grades, except in two studies; that of speaking and writing, subjects in which he was to excel all his life. With a prankster for a father and the turmoil of a large fam- ily made more unruly by the head of it, where then did Ed- ward acquire his strong sense of discipline, of himself, and of others, that became so marked in his later life? And if he in- herited any of his father's sense of humor, it was in the form of a ready wit, that at times could be sharp to the point of un- pleasantness. When Falmouth was bombard. ed and burned in 1775 by Mo- watt, the Preble family, like so many others, came down from easy affluence to a bare sub- sistence level, Edward W brought home from school to help his brothers on the family farm, a life he despised. He