The Road to Glory by E. Alexander Powell — Read

". I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds of things, Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to them 'eathen kings. For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't know, nor do -- You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead to paddle 'is own canoe. "

There you have a four-line epitome of the career and character of the burly, tousle-headed, gruff-voiced old sea-dog who is the hero of this narrative. His name? Matthew Calbraith Perry, one time commodore in the navy of the United States and younger brother of that other Yankee sea-fighter, Oliver Hazard Perry, without whose picture, wrapped in the Chesapeake's flag and standing in a dramatic attitude in the stern-sheets of a small boat, no school history of the United States would be complete. Though Matthew did not have to depend upon the reflected glory of his famous brother, for he won glory enough of his own, his extraordinary exploits have never received the attention of which they are deserving, partly, no doubt, because they were obscured by the smoke of his brother's guns on Lake Erie and partly because they were performed at a period in our national history when the public mind was occupied with happenings nearer home.