“Do you think you or Jimmy or I will ever be great men?” Bobby asked in some awe.

“Partner is a great man now” declared Jimmy.  “He knows most everything!”

“No, not everything,” laughed Skipper Ed.  “Not everything, Partner.  But,” and he spoke gravely again, “I’ve always tried to do my duty as God has pointed it out to me.  Perhaps the Great Thing that I was intended to do was to teach you two chaps what I could, and perhaps your Great Thing is to teach others, and perhaps working all together in this way we may guide someone else to a great destiny.

“We are just hunters and fishermen.  Aside from our own two families, we don’t see many people, except the missionary down at Nain, and the Eskimos at the settlement there, and now and again in summer the fishermen on passing schooners.  But that doesn’t matter.  Here Destiny placed us, and here is our work, and we must do it the best we can.

“We should work hard when we have work to do; we should play hard when we are at play; we should think hard when we are neither working nor playing.  We should not waste time idling.  We should do our level best to fit ourselves for our destiny, whatever it may be.”

This was one of many conversations of the sort that Skipper Ed had with the boys.  He was their comrade, their teacher, their adviser, and their inspiration.  And, be it said, with the constant inspiration, also, of the great wilderness and sea, with no other youthful companions or playmates, and with little of the joy of sports with which boys in civilization are blessed, it was but natural that they should feel more deeply the responsibility of life, and should ponder and take to heart more seriously Skipper Ed’s philosophy, than they would had their lot been cast in a city or a town.

It is not to be supposed, however, that they never got into mischief.  They were too full of life and energy to avoid that.  But they were seldom or never instructed not to do this or that, and their mischief was usually the result of indiscretion and error of judgment natural to youth, rather than disobedience.  Eskimos do not whip or punish their children.  They treat them rather, as comrades, and the boy’s effort is to do as nearly as he can the things his elders do and in the manner in which they do them.

And this was the case with Abel and Mrs. Abel and Bobby.  They never punished Bobby.  It was the case also with Skipper Ed and Jimmy.  Skipper Ed, from the first, called Jimmy his partner, and talked to him and treated him very much as he would have done had Jimmy been a grown-up.

From the very beginning Bobby had his escapades, which usually included adventures.  During the first summer after his arrival he fell into the water with due regularity, but always, fortunately, within reach of Abel’s or Mrs. Abel’s strong arms.  Once he climbed into the big boat, undid the painter, and the tide had carried him well out to sea before his plight was discovered and he was rescued by Abel in the skiff.  And once he was lost for a day in the forest, with Abel, Mrs. Abel, Skipper Ed, and Jimmy searching frantically for him.  They found him, quite tired out with his wanderings, peacefully sleeping on the forest moss.