Captains Courageous. Rudyard Kipling
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about September; an’ your pa – I’m real sorry I hain’t heerd tell of him – may give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o’ course he mayn’t.”
“Ten dollars! Why, see here, I – ” Harvey dived into his pocket for the wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes.
“Not lawful currency, an’ bad for the lungs. Heave ’em overboard, young feller, and try agin.”
“It’s been stolen!” cried Harvey, hotly.
“You’ll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?”
“A hundred and thirty-four dollars – all stolen,” said Harvey, hunting wildly through his pockets. “Give them back.”
A curious change flitted across old Troop’s hard face. “What might you have been doin’ at your time o’ life with one hundred an’ thirty-four dollars, young feller?”
“It was part of my pocket-money – for a month.” This Harvey thought would be a knockdown blow, and it was – indirectly.
“Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket-money – for one month only! You don’t remember hittin’ anything when you fell over, do you? Crack agin’ a stanchion, le’s say. Old man Hasken o’ the East Wind – Troop seemed to be talking to himself – “he tripped on a hatch an’ butted the mainmast with his head – hardish. ’Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he would hev it that the East Wind was a commerce-destroyin’ man-o’-war, an’ so he declared war on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an’ the shoals run aout too far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an’ feet appearin’, fer the rest o’ the trip, an’ now he’s to home in Essex playin’ with little rag dolls.”
Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: “We’re sorry fer you. We’re very sorry fer you – an’ so young. We won’t say no more abaout the money, I guess.”
“’Course you won’t. You stole it.”
“Suit yourself. We stole it ef it’s any comfort to you. Naow, abaout goin’ back. Allowin’ we could do it, which we can’t, you ain’t in no fit state to go back to your home, an’ we’ve jest come on to the Banks, workin’ fer our bread. We don’t see the ha’af of a hundred dollars a month, let alone pocket-money; an’ with good luck we’ll be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o’ September.”
“But – but it’s May now, and I can’t stay here doin’ nothing just because you want to fish. I can’t, I tell you!”
“Right an’ jest; jest an’ right. No one asks you to do nothin’. There’s a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we f’und there. Anyways, he never come back to deny it. You’ve turned up, plain, plumb providential for all concerned. I mistrust, though, there’s ruther few things you kin do. Ain’t thet so?”
“I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore,” said Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about “piracy”, at which Troop almost – not quite – smiled.
“Excep’ talk. I’d forgot that. You ain’t asked to talk more’n you’ve a mind to aboard the We’re Here. Keep your eyes open, an’ help Dan to do ez he’s bid, an’ sechlike, an’ I’ll give you – you ain’t wuth it, but I’ll give – ten an’ a ha’af a month; say thirty-five at the end o’ the trip. A little work will ease up your head, an’ you kin tell us all abaout your dad an’ your ma an’ your money efterwards.”
“She’s on the steamer,” said Harvey, his eyes fill-with tears. “Take me to New York at once.”
“Poor woman – poor woman! When she has you back she’ll forgit it all, though. There’s eight of us on the We’re Here, an’ ef we went back naow – it’s more’n a thousand mile – we’d lose the season. The men they wouldn’t hev it, allowin’ I was agreeable.”
“But my father would make it all right.”
“He’d try. I don’t doubt he’d try,” said Troop; “but a whole season’s catch is eight men’s bread; an’ you’ll be better in your health when you see him in the fall. Go forward an’ help Dan. It’s ten an’ a ha’af a month, ez I said, an’, o’ course, all f’und, same ez the rest o’ us.”
“Do you mean I’m to clean pots and pans and things?” said Harvey.
“An’ other things. You’ve no call to shout, young feller.”
“I won’t! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little fish-kettle” – Harvey stamped on the deck – “ten times over, if you take me to New York safe; and – and – you’re in a hundred and thirty by me, anyway.”
“Ha-ow?” said Troop, the iron face darkening.
“How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do menial work” – Harvey was very proud of that adjective – “till the Fall. I tell you I will not. You hear?”
Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him.
“Hsh!” he said at last. “I’m figurin’ out my responsibilities in my own mind. It’s a matter o’ jedgment.”
Dan Stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. “Don’t go to tamperin’ with dad any more,” he pleaded. “You’ve called him a thief two or three times over, an’ he don’t take that from any livin’ bein’.”
“I won’t!” Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice; and still Troop meditated.
“Seems kinder unneighbourly,” he said at last, his eye travelling down to Harvey. “I don’t blame you, not a mite, young feller, nor you won’t blame me when the bile’s out o’ your systim. Be sure you sense what I say? Ten an’ a ha’af fer second boy on the schooner – an’ all f’und – fer to teach you an’ fer the sake o’ your health. Yes or no?”
“No!” said Harvey. “Take me back to New York or I’ll see you – ”
He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled, while Troop looked down on him serenely.
“Dan,” he said to his son, “I was sot agin’ this young feller when I first saw him, on account o’ hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray by hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I’m sorry for him, because he’s clear distracted in his upper works. He ain’t responsible fer the names he’s give me, nor fer his other statements nor fer jumpin’ overboard, which I’m abaout ha’af convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dan, ’r I’ll give you twice what I’ve give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. Let him sluice it off!”
Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older men bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty millions.
CHAPTER II
“I warned ye,” said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, oiled planking. “Dad ain’t noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! there’s no sense takin’ on so.” Harvey’s shoulders were rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. “I know the feelin’. First time dad laid me out was the last – and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel sickish an’ lonesome. I know.”
“It does,” moaned Harvey. “That man’s either crazy or drunk, and – and I can’t do anything.”
“Don’t say that to dad,” whispered Dan. “He’s set agin’ all liquor, an’ – well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you call him a thief? He’s my dad.”
Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad of bills. “I’m not crazy,” he wound up. “Only – your father has never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it.”
“You