The food was poor. The men’s quarters were mean and disgusting, the air there being fetid. Nothing ever dried, not his feet, nor his skin, nor a particle of his clothing for the entire voyage. The ship’s master was not a tyrant nor a sadist; he was merely a dull man of business; and while he sought no devices to make his crew miserable, neither did he practice care and kindness on their behalf. He knew most of his crew would be new every voyage anyway. Any suggestion of casting bread upon the waters would have got from him an uncomprehending stare.

Floyd wrote to Ezra and Lovey from Liverpool, and the letter reached them only two months later. From Liverpool he made his way across the country into Norfolk, where he labored as a farm hand during the spring and early summer of 1836. Later that summer he worked his passage from Yarmouth to Holland. After Yarmouth, from which he had also written, they heard nothing for a while. Their next letter, four months later, was written in Marseilles, from which he said he was taking ship to Egypt and the Levant. For one who did not like the sea life, Floyd yet found it the easiest way to get about and to avoid the decision of settling down in one place.

The waits between letters, instead of making Ezra despair, kept him living. He had to know what happened next to his son. After the longest gap in news, there was finally a new letter that summer of 1837, from England. Yes, he had been to Egypt and the Levant. He had seen Jerusalem and Antioch and other ancient places he would tell them about when he returned. For the first time he wrote of coming home in a definite way. He sent seeds he had gathered on his voyages and wrote: Papa, I want you to plant all of these seeds just how and where you feel is right. Nobody could give me clear directions considering the differences in climate and season and soil. But plant them, and when I come home in a few months’ time, before this year is out, I want you to tell me all the things about these seeds I cannot tell you now. Promise me and do it. Your loving son, Floyd.

Ezra’s pride had not allowed him to stay in bed in his weakness, but almost from Floyd’s leaving he had spent most of his waking hours, and they were near twenty every day, in a rocking chair in his kitchen, or sitting on the back step in warm weather. He doctored no one, and if any came for advice, he had little to give, and that so desultory no one believed in the efficacy of it enough to follow it.