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Page 69
"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' his
truck abaout railroads an' ponycarriages."
"He didn't know."
"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess."
"No, I only capt--took hold of the 'Blue M.' freighters--Morgan
and McQuade's old line--this summer." Disko collapsed where he
sat, beside the stove.
"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end
to the other. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six
year back--no, seven--an' he's mate on the San Jose-- now--twenty-six
days was her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads
his letters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M.' freighters?"
Cheyne nodded.
"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the 'We're Here' back to port all
standin', on the word."
"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey."
"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha'
understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again--never.
They're well-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so."
"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's
skipper of the San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know
whether you'd lend me Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we
can't make a mate of him. Would you trust him to Airheart?"
"It's a resk taking a raw boy--"
"I know a man who did more for me."
"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan
special because he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways
ain't clipper ways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can--no boy
better, if I say it--an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish
he warn't so cussed weak on navigation."
"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two,
and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you
take him in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the
spring. I know the Pacific's a long ways off--"
"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' the
seas thereof."
"But I want you to understand--and I mean this--any time you think
you'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation.
'Twon't cost you a cent."
"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this
to my woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it
don't seem to me this was like to be real."
They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop's
eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in
the front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of
oversea plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with
the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their
beloved. Cheyne addressed himself to her, and she gave consent
wearily.
"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne,"
she said--"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the
sea as if 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to
anchor on. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it'
and straight home again?"
"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for record
passages. Tea don't improve by being at sea."
"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had
hopes he might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I
knew that were goin' to be denied me."
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