Adventure by Jack London (best motivational books of all time .txt) đ
- Author: Jack London
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âA thousand pounds, and a few trifles overâsmall bills, you know. Then, too, thirty of the boys finish their time next week, and their balances will average ten pounds each. But what is the need of bothering your head with it? Really, you knowââ
âWhat is Berande worth?âright now?â
âWhatever Morgan and Raff are willing to pay for it.â A glance at her hurt expression decided him. âHughie and I have sunk eight thousand pounds in it, and our time. It is a good property, and worth more than that. But it has three years to run before its returns begin to come in. That is why Hughie and I engaged in trading and recruiting. The Jessie and our stations came very near to paying the running expenses of Berande.â
âAnd Morgan and Raff offered you what?â
âA thousand pounds clear, after paying all bills.â
âThe thieves!â she cried.
âNo, theyâre good business men, that is all. As they told me, a thing is worth no more than one is willing to pay or to receive.â
âAnd how much do you need to carry on Berande for three years?â Joan hurried on.
âTwo hundred boys at six pounds a year means thirty-six hundred poundsâthatâs the main item.â
âMy, how cheap labour does mount up! Thirty-six hundred pounds, eighteen thousand dollars, just for a lot of cannibals! Yet the place is good security. You could go down to Sydney and raise the money.â
He shook his head.
âYou canât get them to look at plantations down there. Theyâve been taken in too often. But I do hate to give the place upâmore for Hughieâs sake, I swear, than my own. He was bound up in it. You see, he was a persistent chap, and hated to acknowledge defeat. Itâit makes me uncomfortable to think of it myself. We were running slowly behind, but with the Jessie we hoped to muddle through in some fashion.â
âYou were muddlers, the pair of you, without doubt. But you neednât sell to Morgan and Raff. I shall go down to Sydney on the next steamer, and Iâll come back in a second-hand schooner. I should be able to buy one for five or six thousand dollarsââ
He held up his hand in protest, but she waved it aside.
âI may manage to freight a cargo back as well. At any rate, the schooner will take over the Jessieâs business. You can make your arrangements accordingly, and have plenty of work for her when I get back. Iâm going to become a partner in Berande to the extent of my bag of sovereignsâIâve got over fifteen hundred of them, you know. Weâll draw up an agreement right nowâthat is, with your permission, and I know you wonât refuse it.â
He looked at her with good-natured amusement.
âYou know I sailed here all the way from Tahiti in order to become a planter,â she insisted. âYou know what my plans were. Now Iâve changed them, thatâs all. Iâd rather be a part owner of Berande and get my returns in three years, than break ground on Pari-Sulay and wait seven years.â
âAnd thisâerâthis schooner⊠. â Sheldon changed his mind and stopped.
âYes, go on.â
âYou wonât be angry?â he queried.
âNo, no; this is business. Go on.â
âYouâerâyou would run her yourself?âbe the captain, in short?â and go recruiting on Malaita?â
âCertainly. We would save the cost of a skipper. Under an agreement you would be credited with a managerâs salary, and I with a captainâs. Itâs quite simple. Besides, if you wonât let me be your partner, I shall buy Pari-Sulay, get a much smaller vessel, and run her myself. So what is the difference?â
âThe difference?âwhy, all the difference in the world. In the case of Pari-Sulay you would be on an independent venture. You could turn cannibal for all I could interfere in the matter. But on Berande, you would be my partner, and then I would be responsible. And of course I couldnât permit you, as my partner, to be skipper of a recruiter. I tell you, the thing is what I would not permit any sister or wife of mineââ
âBut Iâm not going to be your wife, thank goodnessâonly your partner.â
âBesides, itâs all ridiculous,â he held on steadily. âThink of the situation. A man and a woman, both young, partners on an isolated plantation. Why, the only practical way out would be that Iâd have to marry youââ
âMine was a business proposition, not a marriage proposal,â she interrupted, coldly angry. âI wonder if somewhere in this world there is one man who could accept me for a comrade.â
âBut you are a woman just the same,â he began, âand there are certain conventions, certain decenciesââ
She sprang up and stamped her foot.
âDo you know what Iâd like to say?â she demanded.
âYes,â he smiled, âyouâd like to say, âDamn petticoats!ââ
She nodded her head ruefully.
âThatâs what I wanted to say, but it sounds different on your lips. It sounds as though you meant it yourself, and that you meant it because of me.â
âWell, I am going to bed. But do, please, think over my proposition, and let me know in the morning. Thereâs no use in my discussing it now. You make me so angry. You are cowardly, you know, and very egotistic. You are afraid of what other fools will say. No matter how honest your motives, if others criticized your actions your feelings would be hurt. And you think more about your own wretched feelings than you do about mine. And then, being a cowardâall men are at heart cowardsâyou disguise your cowardice by calling it chivalry. I thank heaven that I was not born a man. Good-night. Do think it over. And donât be foolish. What Berande needs is good American hustle. You donât know what that is. You are a muddler. Besides, you are enervated. Iâm fresh to the climate. Let me be your partner, and youâll see me rattle the dry bones of the Solomons. Confess, Iâve rattled yours already.â
âI should say so,â he answered. âReally, you know, you have. I never received such a dressing-down in my life. If any one had ever told me that Iâd be a party even to the present situation⊠. Yes, I confess, you have rattled my dry bones pretty considerably.â
âBut that is nothing to the rattling they are going to get,â she assured him, as he rose and took her hand. âGood-night. And do, do give me a rational decision in the morning.â
âI wish I knew whether you are merely headstrong, or whether you really intend to be a Solomon planter,â Sheldon said in the morning, at breakfast.
âI wish you were more adaptable,â Joan retorted. âYou have more preconceived notions than any man I ever met. Why in the name of common sense, in the name of ⊠fair play, canât you get it into your head that I am different from the women you have known, and treat me accordingly? You surely ought to know I am different. I sailed my own schooner hereâskipper, if you please. I came here to make my living. You know that; Iâve told you often enough. It was Dadâs plan, and Iâm carrying it out, just as you are trying to carry out your Hughieâs plan. Dad started to sail and sail until he could find the proper islands for planting. He died, and I sailed and sailed until I arrived here. Well,ââshe shrugged her shouldersââthe schooner is at the bottom of the sea. I canât sail any farther, therefore I remain here. And a planter I shall certainly be.â
âYou seeââ he began.
âI havenât got to the point,â she interrupted. âLooking back on my conduct from the moment I first set foot on your beach, I can see no false pretence that I have made about myself or my intentions. I was my natural self to you from the first. I told you my plans; and yet you sit there and calmly tell me that you donât know whether I really intend to become a planter, or whether it is all obstinacy and pretence. Now let me assure you, for the last time, that I really and truly shall become a planter, thanks to you, or in spite of you. Do you want me for a partner?â
âBut do you realize that I would be looked upon as the most foolish jackanapes in the South Seas if I took a young girl like you in with me here on Berande?â he asked.
âNo; decidedly not. But there you are again, worrying about what idiots and the generally evil-minded will think of you. I should have thought you had learned self-reliance on Berande, instead of needing to lean upon the moral support of every whisky-guzzling worthless South Sea vagabond.â
He smiled, and said, -
âYes, that is the worst of it. You are unanswerable. Yours is the logic of youth, and no man can answer that. The facts of life can, but they have no place in the logic of youth. Youth must try to live according to its logic. That is the only way to learn better.â
âThere is no harm in trying?â she interjected.
âBut there is. That is the very point. The facts always smash youthâs logic, and they usually smash youthâs heart, too. Itâs like platonic friendships and ⊠and all such things; they are all right in theory, but they wonât work in practice. I used to believe in such things once. That is why I am here in the Solomons at present.â
Joan was impatient. He saw that she could not understand. Life was too clearly simple to her. It was only the youth who was arguing with him, the youth with youthâs pure-minded and invincible reasoning. Hers was only the boyâs soul in a womanâs body. He looked at her flushed, eager face, at the great ropes of hair coiled on the small head, at the rounded lines of the figure showing plainly through the home-made gown, and at the eyesâboyâs eyes, under cool, level browsâand he wondered why a being that was so much beautiful woman should be no woman at all. Why in the deuce was she not carroty-haired, or cross-eyed, or hare-lipped?
âSuppose we do become partners on Berande,â he said, at the same time experiencing a feeling of fright at the prospect that was tangled with a contradictory feeling of charm, âeither Iâll fall in love with you, or you with me. Propinquity is dangerous, you know. In fact, it is propinquity that usually gives the facer to the logic of youth.â
âIf you think I came to the Solomons to get marriedââ she began wrathfully. âWell, there are better men in Hawaii, thatâs all. Really, you know, the way you harp on that one string would lead an unprejudiced listener to conclude that you are prurient-mindedââ
She stopped, appalled. His face had gone red and white with such abruptness as to startle her. He was patently very angry. She sipped the last of her coffee, and arose, saying, -
âIâll wait until you are in a better temper before taking up the discussion again. That is whatâs the matter with you. You get angry too easily. Will you come swimming? The tide is just right.â
âIf she were a man Iâd bundle her off the plantation root and crop, whale-boat, Tahitian sailors, sovereigns, and all,â he muttered to himself after she had left the room.
But that was the trouble. She was not a man,
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