"Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand Banks

not in the least care where he slept. His business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow Harvey for the rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, persuasi

h five hirelings. Let the man stay, therefore; even though he called himself MacDonald and swore in Gael

s served at New England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and overwhelmed him with figures in proof - statistics of boats, gear, wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners of the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, and whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferred with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes in his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marine junk-shops,

s were red-and-white-checkered and the population, who seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose up at midnight to make Wel

ded to her husband; "so friendly and simple

he boulders behind the apple-trees where the hammocks we

. "There isn't a woman here owns a dres

e have. I guess it's only the style the

y; he's always with you; but I

had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great boy. 'Anything I can fetch you, de

excuse for laying his hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey noticed and admired what had never s

without opening your head?" demanded the

omething about myself, too." Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can 'most

Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey spread out his hands

years, while you're getting your edu

," was the reply, in

mama, of course, and put her on to fussing about your nerv

ne that?" said

I can't make anything of you if you don't act straight by me. I can handle you alone if yo

out much of a f

if you want the truth, you haven't been mu

u reckon it's cost you to raise me from

ts, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. The young generation comes hi

eased to think that his upbringing had cost so

arve. Invest

arned is about ten cents on the hundred. That's a

e nearly fell off the

t out of Dan since he was ten; and

what you're

stuck on myself any just now - that

or I would, I presume, if

day I lived - and never forgiven you," sa

s about what I'

no one else. All the same, somet

r the beard hid Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, close-set black eyes, and narrow, h

call you a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to the tune of forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will

Tuck?" Har

Quade's son. California's full of 'em, and h

d up the harbour, flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what they conceived to be sea costumes wer

rt of a breeze. No beam," said Harvey, critically

od time. I can give you that, and twice a

vey, still intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tack

hore - o

and - get behind Mama where there's troubl

, you come right i

a month?" Ano

worth it, and you won't begin

fice - isn't that how the big bugs st

we can hire any sweeping we need. I made the

worth o' mistake, wasn't

d I gained some.

ing the story of his life. He talked in a low, even voice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history for which a dozen leading journals

and the deliberate wreck of a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, forests, and mines, and the men of every nation under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and digging these. It touched on chances of gigantic wealth flung before eyes that could not see, or missed by the merest accident of time and travel; and through the mad shift of things, sometimes on horseback, mo

o evident in the man's mind that he never even changed his tone. He described how he had bested his enemies, or forgiven them, exactly as they had bested or forgiven him in those careless days; how he had entreated, cajoled, and bullied towns, companies, and syn

owed cheeks and heavy eyebrows. It seemed to him like watching a locomotive storming across country in the dark - a mile between each glare of the open fire-door: but this locom

at to any one befor

st the greatest thing t

o be as old as I am before you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no fool along my own lines, but - but - I

it," said the s

'way, 'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. You've got to soak up all the learning that's around, and you'll live with a crowd that are doing the same thing. They'll be doing it for a few thousand dollars a year at most; but remember you'll be doing it for millions. You'll learn law enough to look after your own property when I'm out o

" said Harvey. "Four years at college! '

the best returns; and I guess you won't find our property shrunk any when you're ready to

e jealous. Her boy, who rode rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a keen-faced youth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his conversation to his father. She un

" she said, with a weak little smi

g, Mama; there's nothi

ly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised him within what he conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his part, guaranteed diligence and sobriety at college for four or five years. In vacation he was

leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of it in proper shape, and if you don't t

s 'blood-kin hev to stick together.' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, he says, why they make

at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect again. I just

," said Harvey; "and Monday's Memoria

about it at the boarding-house," said Cheyne weakly

up for the summer boarders. Disko don't think much of it, he says, because they take up

le. In spots. Is it

hes, and recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of the Aid Societies go into the back yard and fight over the cat

ehension of one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'l

him bring his crowd up before they sail.

d Cheyne. "I'm only a poor

ed back as he boarded a trolley, and Cheyne w

along the water-front - he had heard that a "Philadelphia actress-woman" was going to take part in the exercises; and he mistrusted that she would deliver "Skipper Ireson's Ride." Personally, he had as little use for actresses as for summer boarders; but justice was justice, and though he himself (here Dan giggl

n the hot, hazy morning, full of women in light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; t

u remember - after Seattle was burned

ch, Italians, Swedes, and Danes, with outside crews of coasting schooners; and everywhere women in black, who saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this was their day of great days. And there were ministers of many creeds,- pastors of great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside for a rest, with shepherds of the regular work,- from the priests of the Church on the Hill to bush-bear

the town officials patrolled and perspired till he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne

ty?- Yes, madam, you can sit anywhere you please.

e aren't as

ses when we celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthda

he matter with the town that it don

rowd.- Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. There's big

round. "What in thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the town when all decent men are at sea this way? He

, Carsen. I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down

e's eighteen dollars a case and -" The skipper lurc

license next year to pay for it. I wasn't going to let the ministers have all the religion at their convention. Those are

voices bore down the last noise of

bless ye the Lord: praise h

had hardly imagined there were so many widows in the world; and instinctively searched for Harvey. He had found the 'We're Heres' at the back of the audien

" he grunted. "What are you

ss ye the Lord: praise him

aid Dan. "He's bin there,

clothes," Sal

sko. "Your bile's gone back on you

harvest. They would hear later the names of their lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared a little, and looked at one another here.) Gloucester could not boast any overwhelming mills or factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges

s in it," growled Disko. "It don'

it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be 'shamed. You take warnin' by that, yo

lue eyes stared up and down as if looking for something to steady them -"once I read - in a b

ittle less an' take more int'rust in your vittles

ingling thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended

op, scowling at the platform. "You've fixed it about

-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers beating in against storm by night, while the

the grandma

ed and bad

the baby

not say

ng Jack's shoulder. "That's great

d the Galway man. "Bad

not all

re lightin

a funera

were flung ashore, living and dead, and they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, asking: "Chil

the boats

o face t

he love th

t upon th

e women were looking for their handkerchiefs, and ma

maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems downright waste to

behind. "He's a poet, an' he's baound to sa

t last given him his desire. The simplicity and utter happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his very best Sunday clothes, won the audience ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmurmuring through se

with the author; so that earth had nothing more to offer Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-

bin over that graound with his writin', jest as he read it,

be switched," said Salters, upholding the honor of Massachusetts on general princip

t he's ever paid me," Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you,

implied. "Seems if my insides were too big fo

l wait for the readin', an' then

irt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's wonderful poem, and looked back to see why all was silent. The fishermen pressed forward as that town official who had talked to Cheyne bobbed up on the

orrie Anderson lost, with a

ster, 50, single,

ngle, 329 Hammond S

berg, single

single, 28, Ma

eira, single, Keene'

oseph Wright, 30, St.

" a voice cried from

John's," said the r

belongs in Augu

d correction on the margin

e Ritchie, Liverpool,

Rogers Street,

lard, 30, married, drowned

e-opened eyes, threw up her head and choked. Dan's mother, a few seats to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved to her side. The reading went

ed on the way home from Newfoundland; Asa Musie,

ent astray in dory, Robert Beavon, 29, m

ause some who have gone adrift in dories have been miraculously picked up by deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could see the policeman on the sidewalk hailing a hack for her.

ght sunshine, and Harvey's eyes turned a

Mamie Douglas lost on t

, 43, master,

liams, 34, married, Sh

oloured, 28, m

g in Harvey's throat, and his stomach remind

blood tingled all over him] Otto Sven

ng cry from somewhere

shouldn't ha' come," said Lon

spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned forward and spoke to his wife, where she sat with o

ght daown!" he whispered.

let me -" Mrs. Cheyne did no

e gettin' their growth. 'Wish to tend to him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come rig

a body-guard, and it was a very white and shaken Ha

Troop's ouly comment, as th

all. "It was horrible - horrible! We shouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It - it isn't right!

t, I guess," he said, struggling to his feet, with a brok

as all in hard lines, as though it had been

wharf," said Disko. "It's close in along with them D

er people - summer boarders and such-like - played about in cat-boats or looked at the sea from pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside - more things than he could begin to think about. None the less, he could have sat down and h

along the wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so much that no one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long

el, as the wind took her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno

d they sat down to watch her up the

ot it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows it never do

et which is flanked with most expensive houses built of wood to imitate stone. To him, as he was standing by a hammered iron gate,

lo,

o, Ha

he best w

ed second mate this trip. Ain't you most throu

nior, isn't a circumstance to the old 'We're Here'; b

' aour

knife into you, Dan. I'm going to make the

otherly grin, as Harvey dismounted

he doctor anywheres araound? I'll draown that cra

e're Here' came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He

ain't it, doctor?" sa

it to reply till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for

d he. "You remember, Dan Troop, w

as things stand at present," said Dan. "She was a noble pack

quoth Harv

The End<