Captains Courageous | Page 8

ma an' your money afterwards."
"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes flling 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,
e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, same e 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,
anyhow."
"Haow?" 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 feeler, 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
found--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 feeler 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 he 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 don't know what the 'We're Here's' worth. Your dad must hev a
pile o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out a
straight yarn. Go ahead."
"In gold mines and things, West."
"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go around
with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the
Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was solid silver."
"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused