Java Head | Page 5

hundred per cent on a first cargo for my owners," the
elder retorted. "Then there was trading, yes, and sailing, too. No
chronometers with confounded rates of variation and other fancy parlor

instruments to read your position from. When I first navigated it was
with an astrolabe and the moon. A master knew his lead, latitude and
lookout then.
"Eight hundred barrels of flour and pine boards to Rio and back with
coffee and hides for Salem," he continued; "then out to Gibraltar and
Brazil with wine and on in ballast for Calcutta. Tahiti and Morea, the
Sandwich Islands and the Feejees. Sandalwood and tortoise shell and
beche de mer; sea horses' teeth, and saltpeter for the Chinese
Government. I don't want to hear about your bills of exchange and kegs
of Spanish dollars and solid cargoes of tea run back direct. Why, with
your Canton and India agents and sight drafts the China service is like
dealing with a Boston store."
Laurel saw that her father was assuming the expression of restrained
annoyance habitual when the elder contrasted old shipping ways with
new. "Unfortunately," he said, "the patient Chinaman will no longer
exchange silks and lacquer and teas for boiled sea slugs. He has learned
to demand something of value."
"Why, damn it, William," the other exploded, "nothing's more valuable
to a Chinese than his belly. They'll give eighteen hundred dollars a
pecul for birds' nests any day. As for your insinuation that we used to
diddle them--I never ran opium up from India to rot their souls. And
when the Chinese Government tried to stop it there's the British
commercial interests forcing it on them with cannon in 'forty-two.
"Look at the pepper we brought into Salem--" he was, Laurel realized
with intense interest, growing beautifully empurpled; "--lay right off
the beach at Mukka and did business with the Dato himself. We forded
the bags on the crew's backs across a river with muskets served in case
the bloody heathen drew their creeses. When we made sail everything
was running over with pepper--the boats and forecastle and cabins and
between decks."
"Well, father, the heroic times are done, of course; I can't say that I'm
sorry. I shouldn't like to finance a voyage that reached out to three
years and depended on the captain's picking up six or seven cargoes."

The old man rose; and, muttering a plainly uncomplimentary period
about the resemblance of modern ship owners to clerks, walked with
his heavy careful tread from the room.
"You are so foolish to argue and excite him," William's wife told him.
Laurel regarded her with a passionate admiration for the shining hair
turning smoothly about her brow and drawn over her ears to the low
coil in the back, for her brown barége dress with velvet leaves and blue
forget-me-nots and tightest of long sleeves and high collar, and because
generally she was a mother to be owned and viewed with pride. She
met Laurel's gaze with a little friendly nod and said:
"Don't forget about your clothes, and I think you ought to finish the
practicing before dinner, so you'll be free for a walk with your
grandfather in the afternoon."
Soon after, Laurel stood in the hall viewing with disfavor the light
dress she had put on so gayly at rising. In spite of her sense of
increasing age she had a strong desire to play in the yard and climb
about in the woodhouse. Already the business of being grown up began
to pall upon her, the outlook dreary that included nothing but a whole
hour at the piano, an endless care of her skirts, and the slowest kind of
walk through Washington Square and down to Derby Wharf, where--no
matter in which direction and for what purpose they started forth--her
grandfather's way invariably led.
Janet joined her, and they stood irresolutely balancing on alternate
slippers. "Did you notice," the former volunteered, "mother is letting
Camilla have lots of starch in her petticoats, so that they stand right out
like crinoline? Wasn't she hateful this morning!" Laurel heard a slight
sound at her back, and, wheeling, saw her grandfather looking out from
the library door. A swift premonition of possible additional misfortune
seized her. Moving toward the side entrance she said to Janet, "We'd
better be going right away."
It was, however, too late. "Well, little girls," he remarked benevolently,
"since Miss Gomes has left for the day it would be as well if I heard

your geography lesson."
"I don't think mother intended for us to study today," Laurel replied,
making a face of appeal for Janet's support. But the latter remained
solidly and silently neutral.
"What, what," the elder mildly exploded; "mutiny in the forecastle! Get
right up here in the break of the quarter-deck or