Captains Courageous eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 219 pages of information about Captains Courageous.

Captains Courageous eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 219 pages of information about Captains Courageous.

“What’s the total, Harve?” said Disko.

“Eight sixty-five.  Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six dollars and a quarter.  ’Wish I’d share as well as wage.”

“Well, I won’t go so far as to say you hevn’t deserved it, Harve.  Don’t you want to slip up to Wouverman’s office and take him our tallies?”

“Who’s that boy?” said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner of questions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders.

“Well, he’s kind o’ supercargo,” was the answer.  “We picked him up struck adrift on the Banks.  Fell overboard from a liner, he sez.  He was a passenger.  He’s by way o’ hem’ a fisherman now.”

“Is he worth his keep?”

“Ye-ep.  Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve’s worth his keep.  Say, would you like to go aboard?  We’ll fix up a ladder for her.”

“I should very much, indeed.  ’Twon’t hurt you, Mama, and you’ll be able to see for yourself.”

The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled down the ladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft.

“Be you anyways interested in Harve?” said Disko.

“Well, ye-es.”

“He’s a good boy, an’ ketches right hold jest as he’s bid.  You’ve heard haow we found him?  He was sufferin’ from nervous prostration, I guess, ‘r else his head had hit somethin’, when we hauled him aboard.  He’s all over that naow.  Yes, this is the cabin.  ’Tain’t in order, but you’re quite welcome to look araound.  Those are his figures on the stove-pipe, where we keep the reckonin’ mosdy.”

“Did he sleep here?” said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker and surveying the disorderly bunks.

“No.  He berthed forward, madam, an’ only fer him an’ my boy hookin’ fried pies an muggin’ up when they ought to ha’ been asleep, I dunno as I’ve any special fault to find with him.”

“There weren’t nothin’ wrong with Harve,” said Uncle Salters, descending the steps.  “He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he ain’t over an’ above respectful to such as knows more’n he do, specially about farmin’; but he were mostly misled by Dan.”

Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early that morning, was executing a war-dance on deck.  “Tom, Tom!” he whispered down the hatch.  “His folks has come, an’ Dad hain’t caught on yet, an’ they’re pow-wowin’ in the cabin.  She’s a daisy, an’ he’s all Harve claimed he was, by the looks of him.”

“Howly Smoke!” said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt and fish-skin.  “D’ye belave his tale av the kid an’ the little four-horse rig was thrue?”

“I knew it all along,” said Dan.  “Come an’ see Dad mistook in his judgments.”

They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say:  “I’m glad he has a good character, because—­he’s my son.”

Disko’s jaw fell,—­Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click of it,—­and he stared alternately at the man and the woman.

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Captains Courageous from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.