Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

His enchantment may have been over, but his work had just begun. Manjiro moved to Mr. Hussey's shop in New Bedford to begin his apprenticeship. He attended school and worked at the shop, and should have been too busy to feel homesick, but he wasn't. He longed for Mrs. Whitfield's warm, fresh-baked bread and thick jam. He yearned to hear William Henry's happy babble and to be able to chat with Captain Whitfield again. At the same time, he began to be homesick for Japan: He missed the foods of his old country; he missed his mother; he even found himself missing things he didn't think he liked! He felt torn about where, exactly, he wanted to be. He just knew it wasn't Mr. Hussey's!

At first he liked the sweet-sharp smell of the freshly cut wood and the way the sawdust shimmered in the shafts of sunlight that filtered through the cracks in the shop walls. But fall came and then winter, and those same cracks let in the wind and the cold rains and the snow. The cooper didn't-or couldn't-feed Manjiro and the other apprentice enough, so they were always hungry. Soon, they both were ill more often than they were well. Manjiro began to feel he would never be warm again; he would always be hungry, and he would always be sick.