“The lad has come from rich people,” said Skipper Ed, as he and Jimmy walked home that evening.  “He’s not been used to this sort of life.  But Time’s a great healer.  He’s young enough to forget the fine things he’s been used to, and he’ll grow up a hunter and a fisherman like the rest of us.  There’s better luck coming for him.  Better luck.  He’ll be happy and contented, for people are always happy with simple living, so long as they don’t know about any other kind of living.”

“I thinks Abel lives fine now, and we lives fine,” ventured Jimmy.  “Abel’s house is fine and warm, and so is ours.”

“Aye,” said Skipper Ed, “’tis that.  ’Tis that; and enough’s a-plenty.  Enough’s a-plenty.”

They walked along in silence for a little while.

“We must always talk to the little chap in English,” said Skipper Ed, presently.  “We must not let him forget to speak the tongue his mother taught him.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Jimmy.

“And we must teach him to read and write in English, the way I teach you,” continued Skipper Ed.  “Somewhere in the world his mother and father are grieving their life out for the loss of him.  It’s very like they’ll never see him again, but we must teach him as much as we know how of what they would have taught him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Destiny is just the working out of the Almighty’s will.  And it was a part of the lad’s destiny to be cast upon this bleak coast and to find a home with the Eskimos.”

And so, walking home along the rocky shore, they talked to the accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore and soughing spruce trees in the forest.

Skipper Ed, giving voice to thoughts with which he was deeply engrossed, told of the kindlier, sunnier land from which Bobby had been sent adrift—­from a home of luxury, perhaps—­to live upon bounty, and in the crude, primitive cabin of an Eskimo.  And he thrilled his little partner with vivid descriptions of great cities where people were so numerous they jostled one another, and did not know each other’s names; of rushing, shrieking locomotives; of beautiful houses which seemed to Jimmy no less than fairy palaces; of great green fields; and yellow fields of waving grain from which the flour was made which they ate; of glorious flowers; and forests of strange trees.

They reached their cabin at last, which stood in the shelter of the trees at the edge of the great wilderness, and looked out over the bay; and at the porch door Skipper Ed paused, and, gazing for a moment at the stretch of heaving water, stretched his arms before him and said: 

“It’s out there, Partner—­the land I’ve told you about—­out there beyond the sea—­the land I came from and the land Bobby came from—­and the land you came from, too, for that matter.  Some time you may sail away to see it.”