The Captain looked at father, smiled and winked. “It looks like we are almost at the dock. I can see the dock to port, just over there. You should probably go down below and get your things together”…

“My bags are already packed!” exclaimed Bertie. “But I just wish that this trip would never end”

“My bags are packed too, “ said Father. “But I should go down below to make sure that the girls are all packed up too. Arthur, are you packed up and ready to go?”

Arthur bemoaned, “Yes Father. I have been ready to get off this boat for a long time. I never want to see the ocean again.”

“Do not worry son, we will be getting off of this vessel soon,” Father winked at Arthur and headed to his cabin.

“What is wrong with the ocean?” said the Captain staring hard at Arthur.

“Yes, what is wrong with the ocean?” asked Bertie impishly, “I would like to know.”

Arthur glared at Bertie, then looked at the captain. “There is nothing to do here on the ocean. Every day it is rolling oceans going this way, then rolling oceans going that way. The deck is always heaving up and down. I can never leave a drink on the table and expect it to stay in one place. Worse,” Arthur paused, “far worse, there are no girls that will talk to me.”

The Captain laughed, “ah, now I have it. It is not so much the ocean that you are troubled by, but the fact none of the girls here will talk to you.”

“More like the one that he wants to talk to will not speak to him. There are plenty of girls on board that want to talk to him, but he does not want to talk to them,” explained Bertie.

“I see, you have got your eyes set on a special one. Have you done anything special to woo her?” asked the Captain.

“Yes! I have done everything that I can think to do. But she will not talk to me, she says that I am not her ‘type’.”

“Ah, I see, it is good to set your sights a little high when you are starting out. How long have you been trying to get her attention?”

“Arthur has been trying to get her attention since the first day that we boarded,” Bertie said as he sneered a little at Arthur. “He is love struck. But she will have nothing of him. ‘Beneath my class,’ she says.”

“Well, after two weeks of trying, it is time to move on. And now is the time to do it. We will be disembarking any minute now. So, you should go below with your father and get your gear together. We will soon be going ashore. So, it looks like you will get your wish Arthur and leave the sea.” The Captain slapped both Bertie and Arthur on the back.

Just then Father came on deck, “Arthur, Bertie, it is time for you to go below and get your luggage.” Father turned to the Captain, “It has been a pleasure sailing with you Captain Brockton.”

“Likewise, but who knows, we may see each other ashore in Philadelphia. It is not that big a city.” The Captain winked at Father and went down below.

Father went to the doors that led to the center of the ship and headed down to his deck. He hated going down the five levels, but it was the only way to get to his cabin. But as he went down, he still marveled at all the clean and shiny new metal. It was after all, the maiden voyage of the SS British King. The stairs leading down to his deck were more crowded than normal, but that was not surprising. Everyone was rushing to their cabin to finish packing their bags. Father got to his deck and did his own rushing to get to his cabin that was amidship. Father opened the door only to see that it was in chaos.

“What is going on here?!” bellowed Father.

“He unpacked my bag,” Bertie said as he pointed at Arthur.

“I could not find mother’s ring. It is not in my bag. You must have taken it,” growled Arthur as he glared at Bertie.

“Papa, make them stop. They hurt my ears,” whined Vicky as she put her last doll in her bag.

“Yes, please make them stop. Their arguing hurts my ears too. Plus, did you look in the box that is labeled mother?” Sneered Kate “What an idiot!”.

Arthur frantically looked through all of his clothes until he found the box. He opened the box and quickly looked inside. “Here it is! I would hate to lose Mother’s gift box.”

Kate rolled her eyes.

“Everybody get your things in your bags now! We will be disembarking any minute now and have to be ready to leave when they call our deck to leave, so save your arguments for later,” barked Father.

“Yes, Father,” chimed all of the children in unison. With that, all of the children finished packing their bags. Bertie and Kate were done packing their bags first. They watched with amusement as Arthur and Vicky frantically finished packing their bags. Just as they finished packing their bags, there was a loud knock at the cabin door.

“Time to disembark! You can go now!”

Father opened the door and they could see the Porter going from cabin to cabin telling people that they could leave. Fortunately, there were not a lot of people leaving their cabins yet.

“Quickly now, start going up the stairs!” Father grabbed his bag and Vicky’s bag as he herded the children to the stairs going up.

“Father, I have to pee.” Vicky looked up at Father.

“What!?! I thought you already took care of that.”

“I did. But I have to go again, now!” Vicky indelicately grabbed her crotch.

Father looked at Vicky, then upstairs. “Okay, you go to the bathroom and go pee.”

Vicky dropped her bag and ran a few doors down to the bathroom. Father turned to the other children. He gave his bag to Arthur and Vicky’s bag to Bertie. “Take these bags up to the top level and wait for me at the main door. Do not leave without me and your sister.”

With that, the boys took the bags and the children went upstairs. Father watched them go up and then turned to go stand by the bathroom door.

“Arthur, these bags are heavy. My arms are going to fall off after going up 5 levels.”

“Stop your whining Bertie we will be on the main deck soon enough.” With that, Arthur and the children stepped on the fourth-floor landing.

Bertie whispered to Arthur, “The people around us need to move faster” When Bertie said that, one of the slow-moving passengers shot Bertie a glare.

“We are going as fast as possible,” Kate huffed in Bertie’s general direction as they passed the third-floor bulkhead.

A few seconds later, Bertie stared at the people “The people coming out of this door do not have bags.”

One of the teenagers that came out of the second level door looked down at Bertie.  “That is the work of my servants, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” Bertie looked askance and trudged up two more flights of stairs, but Arthur looked longingly through the door.  

“My sweet, dear Felicia, if only I could see you one last time,” Kate teased Arthur.  Arthur glared at Kate.

Just then Bertie announced with glee “We are at the top!  We can stand over here, next to the main door, and wait for Father.”

“Not likely mate.  You have to move on and debark!” growled a deck hand.

“But we have to wait here for Father.  He told us to wait right here.”

“No, you have to move right now and get off the ship.  You can wait for your father on the shore,” ordered the deck hand. “Now move!”

“But, but, we have to stay!”

“I said move!”

Katie tried to sooth Bertie, “Come on Bertie, we have to go.”

Bertie, Arthur, and Kate and all of the other passengers were hustled to the gang plank.  When they got to the end of the gang plank, they stepped aside and found a spot where they could scan the for father.

They scanned the gang plank for several minutes.

“There is Father!” Bertie pointed.

“No, that is not Father,” said Arthur.

A few minutes passed.

“There is Father.” Again, Bertie pointed.

“No Bertie, that is not Father,” said Kate.

A few more minutes passed

“There is…”

“No, that is not Father!” Both Kate and Arthur growled.

“When is Father going to come down?” Asked Bertie. “It has been hours and hours.”

Several more minutes passed.

“It has been quite some time. The number of people coming down is starting to diminish.” Kate observed.

Just then, somebody behind them said, “well, maybe you should turn around.”

All three of the children turned around to see who it was speaking to them.

“Father! When did you get down? We have been watching the gang plank forever,” Bertie joyously told Father.

“Vicky and I have been down here quite some time, looking for you.”

“And then I showed your Father where to find you.”

“Captain Brockton! I thought that I would never see you again,” exclaimed Bertie.

“Well, somebody had to help your father find you miscreants,” smiled the Captain.

“I am so glad that we are back together again. Now we can now look for Bertie’s friends from Springfield.” Father let out a little sigh of relief.

“And you can carry your own bag.” Bertie shoved a bag of luggage to Vicky.

“Father, do I have to carry this?”

“No, you do not. Bertie can continue to carry your bags. He will be manly and help out his sister.” Bertie groaned a bit, picked up the bag, and Vicky stuck her tongue out at him.

The family started walking down the dock. Bertie thought that the dock was much noisier than the ship. There were lots of people on the dock. All of them talking or yelling. Many people were greeting friends or family. The people coming ashore were busy telling their family or friends all about the voyage. Some people were ship-hands running to and fro getting the British King ready for the voyage back to England. Bertie liked watching them all. He noted that some were dressed in fancy clothes and others were disheveled. There were men that smelled like fish and women that wore too much perfume. Military men dressed in blue uniforms strode past Bertie, seemingly on the way to some urgent assignment.

The Captain looked at the sailors as they walked past Bertie. “I will be leaving you now to join some of my former ship mates.”

Bertie gasped, “You cannot leave us now Captain. We have not found the Binns yet.”

“Not to worry, I am sure that you will find them soon.” With that quick pronouncement, the Captain left Bertie and his family. He quickly followed the military men into a building called “The Thirsty Squid”.

Bertie stared at The Thirsty Squid for a moment. Then he continued walking with his family as they walked down the dock. “Father?”

“Yes Bertie.”

“How are we going to find the Binns? I do not know what they look like. I have never met them. I only have a few letters from Dawsey, but we did not exchange pictures. Father, what are we going to do?”

“We will find them. They will probably have a sign. Look, I can see some signs over there.” Father pointed a bit farther down the dock. “Plus, you told them that you will be wearing your blue blazer. Wait, you did tell them that you would be wearing the blazer?”

“Yes, I told them. But there are a lot of people wearing blue blazers”

“We will find them, or they will find us. Did Dawsey say what he would be wearing?”

Arthur spoke before Bertie could answer, “He is a Quaker. They wear grey, you know. That should be easy to pick out in the crowd.” Arthur rolled his eyes, then stared at one of the women that smelled of too much perfume and wore overly flashy clothes.

Kate saw what Arthur was staring at and added, “She is not a proper lady and you could not afford her.”

“I was not looking at anybody, much less her.” Arthur appeared to be a little embarrassed and looked away from the woman, but with some effort.

Just then, the woman that Arthur had been staring at, moved to the side. Behind her was man holding a sign saying “Welcome Haigh Family!”.

“There they are, there are the Binns!” Bertie ran up to the man holding the sign.

A boy, about the same age as Bertie, greeted him, “Welcome to America! My name is Dawsey Binns.”