From the very first, Ol Perry was a boy of the sea. The windows of the house where he was born, near Point Judith, Rhode Island, looked out on Narragansett Bay. No one who lived in that state could forget the sea for long. Oliver spent his whole childhood within sight and hearing of the Atlantic Ocean and always breathed its salty air.

  He was named for an uncle whose ship had gone down only a few months before Ol's birth. The second Oliver Hazard Perry was family. His father was a Navy officer now employed as a merchant captain, usually away on long voyages, swearing after each to "swallow the anchor forever," but always returning to his ship. Ol's Irish mother also came from seafaring folk. No wonder Rhode Islanders said young Perry's blood was salt water!

  He was fascinated by the ocean, and afraid of nothing on land or sea. As soon as he could walk he ran away from home, to the shipyards and the shore. And when he grew older he began living for the day when, like most Rhode Islanders, he would go to sea.

  Each time his father came home Oliver hoped he would say the boy was ready. He kept his boots shiny, his clothes clean, his hair smooth; midshipmen had to look neat. He stood straight and measured himself often; when he reached his father's shoulder he would be big enough for a midshipman. But Captain Perry said Ol would have to know many things before he went to sea, and he must learn them at a good school. So Ol was sent to Master Fraser.

  No ignorant, worthless, impudent midshipmen came out of that school. Master Fraser's boys had to study hard, but they learned all the lessons of the sea that he could teach them. And they tested their knowledge on their training ship, a real frigate. Oliver didn't always like Fraser's discipline, but he felt truly proud when the strict master said he would be "the best man to sail a ship in the state of Rhode Island."

  Then Captain Perry came home with tales of the trouble the British were making by seizing American sailors and making them work on British ships. It would lead to war, he said, though he couldn't foresee that his own son would win a great victory in that war and would help make the high seas safe for American vessels. Soon the captain returned to the Navy to command one of its new warships, and with him went a new midshipman, fourteen years old—Oliver Hazard Perry!

  This story of young Perry, a likable hot-headed, impatient boy, adds to the Childhood of Famous Americans Series its first naval hero, for that boy became "the brightest ornament of the U. S. Navy." Laura Long is an author new to this series but long experienced in juvenile writing. Her story of the training of a midshipman in the days of sail has the very tone and air of the sea. It is an introduction not only to a gallant American, but to all the fine sea stories that are the heritage of American children.

From the dust jacket