Captains Courageous | Page 6

the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baout
mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it."
Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces
of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously.
"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some," said the boy.
"They ain't our style much -- none of 'em. Twist round an' see if you're
hurt any."

Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report any
injuries.
"That's good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. Dad
wants to see you. I'm his son,--Dan, they call me,--an' I'm cook's helper
an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. There ain't no
boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard -- an' he was only a
Dutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How'd you come to fall off in a
dead flat ca'am?"
"'Twasn't a calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was
seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail."
"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night," said the boy.
"But ef thet's your notion of a gale----" He whistled. "You'll know more
'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'."
Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his
life received a direct order--never, at least, without long, and sometimes
tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for
the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which,
perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous
prostration. He could not see why he should be expected to hurry for
any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come down here if he's
so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New York right away.
It'll pay him."
Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him.
"Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin slip down
an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?"
The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard
from a human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me."
Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There was
something in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble his
extreme rage and console himself with the thought of gradually
unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyage

home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends
for life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder, and
stumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a small, thick-set,
clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that led up to the
quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, leaving a long, oily sea,
dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats.
Between them lay little black specks, showing where the dories were
out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast,
played easily at anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof
--"house" they call it--she was deserted.
"Mornin'--Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the clock
round, young feller," was the greeting.
"Mornin'," said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller"; and,
as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His mother suffered
agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this mariner did not seem
excited.
"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an' last, fer all
concerned. What might be your name? Where from (we mistrust it's
Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's Europe)?"
Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history of
the accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back immediately
to New York, where his father would pay anything any one chose to
name.
"H'm," said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's
speech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, that falls
overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all when his
excuse is that he's seasick."
"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into your
dirty little boat for fun?"
"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say,
young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, under

Providence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first place, it's
blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my feelin's--an' I'm
Disko Troop o' the 'We're Here' o' Gloucester, which you don't seem
rightly to know."
"I don't know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough for
being saved