Rudyard Kipling - Captains Courageous

“Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boats bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?”

“Farmer!” shouted Dan. “There ain’t water enough ’tween here an’ Hatt’rus to wash the furrer-mould off’n his boots. He’s jest everlastin’ farmer. Why, Harve, I’ve seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards sundown, an’ set twiddlin’ the spigot to the scuttle-butt same’s ef ’twuz a cow’s bag. He’s thet much farmer. Well, Penn an’ he they ran the farm – up Exeter way, ’twuz. Uncle Salters he sold it this spring to a jay from Boston as wanted to build a summerhaouse, an’ he got a heap for it. Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn’s church he’d belonged to – the Moravians – found out where he wuz drifted an’ layin’, an’ wrote to Uncle Salters. Never heerd what they said exactly; but Uncle Salters was mad. He’s a ’piscopalian mostly – but he jest let ’em hev it both sides o’ the bow, ’s if he was a Baptist, an’ sez he warn’t goin’ to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in Pennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to dad, towin’ Penn, – thet was two trips back, – an’ sez he an’ Penn must fish a trip fer their health. Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn’t hunt the Banks fer Jacob Boller. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he’d been fishin’ off an’ on fer thirty years, when he warn’t inventin’ patent manures, an’ he took quarter-share in the We’re Here; an’ the trip done Penn so much good, dad made a habit o’ takin’ him. Some day, dad sez, he’ll remember his wife an’ kids an’ Johnstown, an’ then, like’s not, he’ll die, dad sez. Don’t yer talk about Johnstown ner such things to Penn, ’r Uncle Salters he’ll heave ye overboard.”

“Poor Penn!” murmured Harvey. “I shouldn’t ever have thought Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of ’em together.”

“I like Penn, though; we all do,” said Dan. “We ought to ha’ give him a tow, but I wanted to tell ye first.”

They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behind them.

“You needn’t heave in the dories till after dinner,” said Troop, from the deck. “We’ll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!”

“Deeper’n the Whale-deep,” said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gear for dressing-down. “Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin’. They’re all waitin’ on dad. See ’em, Harve?”

“They are all alike to me.” And, indeed, to a landsman the nodding schooners around seemed run from the same mould.

“They ain’t, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit steeved that way, she’s the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady’s her skipper, the meanest man on the Banks. We’ll tell him so when we strike the Main Ledge. ’Way off yander’s the Day’s Eye. The two Jeraulds own her. She’s from Harwich; fastish, too, an’ hez good luck; but dad he’d find fish in a graveyard. Them other three, side along, they’re the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all frum home. Guess we’ll see the Abbie M. Deering to-morrer, dad, won’t we? They’re all slippin’ over from the shoal o’ ’Queereau.”

“You won’t see many boats to-morrow, Danny.” When Troop called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. “Boys, we’re too crowded,” he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard. “We’ll leave ’em to bait big an’ catch small.” He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish ran. Save for Harvey’s halibut, there was nothing over fifteen pounds on deck.

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