Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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With the âConstance,â which in his heart of hearts he loathed, departed the last remnant of Cheyneâs millionairedom, and he gave himself up to an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new town in a new land, and he purposed to âtake it in,â as of old he had taken in all the cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that world whence he hailed. They made money along the crooked street which was half wharf and half shipâs store: as a leading professional he wished to learn how the noble game was played. Men said that four out of every five fish-balls served at New Englandâs Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and overwhelmed him with figures in proofâstatistics of boats, gear, wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners of the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, and whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferred with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes in his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marine junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked Western curiosity, till all the water-front wanted to know âwhat in thunder that man was after, anyhow.â He prowled into the Mutual Insurance rooms, and demanded explanations of the mysterious remarks chalked up on the blackboard day by day; and that brought down upon him secretaries of every Fishermanâs Widow and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits. They begged shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the other institutionâs record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed them all over to Mrs. Cheyne.
She was resting in a boardinghouse near Eastern Pointâa strange establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, who seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose up at midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the second morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond solitaires before she came down to breakfast.
âTheyâre most delightful people,â she confided to her husband; âso friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly.â
âThat isnât simpleness, Mama,â he said, looking across the boulders behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. âItâs the other thing, that what I havenât got.â
âIt canât be,â said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. âThere isnât a woman here owns a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, weââ
âI know it, dear. We haveâof course we have. I guess itâs only the style they wear East. Are you having a good time?â
âI donât see very much of Harvey; heâs always with you; but I ainât near as nervous as I was.â
âI havenât had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly understood that I had a son before this. Harveâs got to be a great boy. âAnything I can fetch you, dear? âCushion under your head? Well, weâll go down to the wharf again and look around.â
Harvey was his fatherâs shadow in those days, and the two strolled along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying his hand on the boyâs square shoulder. It was then that Harvey noticed and admired what had never struck him beforeâhis fatherâs curious power of getting at the heart of new matters as learned from men in the street.
âHow dâyou make âem tell you everything without opening your head?â demanded the son, as they came out of a riggerâs loft.
âIâve dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes âem up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too.â Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: âMen can âmost always tell when a man has handled things for himself, and then they treat him as one of themselves.â
âSame as they treat me down at Wouvermanâs wharf. Iâm one of the crowd now. Disko has told every one Iâve earned my pay.â Harvey spread out his hands and rubbed the palms together. âTheyâre all soft again,â he said dolefully.
âKeep âem that way for the next few years, while youâre getting your education. You can harden âem up after.â
âYe-es, I suppose so,â was the reply, in no delighted voice.
âIt rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, of course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your high-strungness and all that kind of poppycock.â
âHave I ever done that?â said Harvey, uneasily.
His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. âYou know as well as I do that I canât make anything of you if you donât act straight by me. I can handle you alone if youâll stay alone, but I donât pretend to manage both you and Mama. Lifeâs too short, anyway.â
âDonât make me out much of a fellow, does it?â
âI guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, you havenât been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?â
âUmm! Disko thinks ⊠Say, what dâyou reckon itâs cost you to raise me from the startâfirst, last and all over?â
Cheyne smiled. âIâve never kept track, but I should estimate, in dollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. The young generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires of âem, andâthe old man foots the bill.â
Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that his upbringing had cost so much. âAnd all thatâs sunk capital, isnât it?â
âInvested, Harve. Invested, I hope.â
âMaking it only thirty thousand, the thirty Iâve earned is about ten cents on the hundred. Thatâs a mighty poor catch.â Harvey wagged his head solemnly.
Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water.
âDisko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; and Danâs at school half the year, too.â
âOh, thatâs what youâre after, is it?â
âNo. Iâm not after anything. Iâm not stuck on myself any just nowâthatâs all⊠. I ought to be kicked.â
âI canât do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if Iâd been made that way.â
âThen Iâd have remembered it to the last day I livedâand never forgiven you,â said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists.
âExactly. Thatâs about what Iâd do. You see?â
âI see. The faultâs with me and no one else. All the same, somethingâs got to be done about it.â
Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell to smoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hid Cheyneâs mouth, and Harvey had his fatherâs slightly aquiline nose, close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch of brown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red Indian of the storybooks.
âNow you can go on from here,â said Cheyne, slowly, âcosting me between six or eight thousand a year till youâre a voter. Well, weâll call you a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to the tune of forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will give you, with a valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend to raise trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd.â
âLike Lorry Tuck?â Harvey put in.
âYep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuadeâs son. Californiaâs full of âem, and hereâs an Eastern sample while weâre talking.â
A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, nickel-plated binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings puffed up the harbour, flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what they conceived to be sea costumes were playing cards by the saloon skylight; and a couple of women with red and blue parasols looked on and laughed noisily.
âShouldnât care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No beam,â said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her mooring-buoy.
âTheyâre having what stands them for a good time. I can give you that, and twice as much as that, Harve. Howâd you like it?â
âCaesar! Thatâs no way to get a dinghy overside,â said Harvey, still intent on the yacht. âIf I couldnât slip a tackle better than that Iâd stay ashore⊠. What if I donât?â
âStay ashoreâor what?â
âYacht and ranch and live on âthe old man,â andâget behind Mama where thereâs trouble,â said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye.
âWhy, in that case, you come right in with me, my son.â
âTen dollars a month?â Another twinkle.
âNot a cent more until youâre worth it, and you wonât begin to touch that for a few years.â
âIâd sooner begin sweeping out the officeâisnât that how the big bugs start?âand touch something now thanââ
âI know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any sweeping we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon.â
âThirty million dollarsâ worth oâ mistake, wasnât it? Iâd risk it for that.â
âI lost some; and I gained some. Iâll tell you.â
Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still water, and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be aware that his father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a low, even voice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history for which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully have paid many dollarsâthe story of forty years that was at the same time the story of the New West, whose story is yet to be written.
It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went on fantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the scenes shifting from State after Western State, from cities that sprang up in a month andâin a season utterly withered away, to wild ventures in wilder camps that are now laborious, paved municipalities. It covered the building of three railroads and the deliberate wreck of a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, forests, and mines, and the men of every nation under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and digging these. It touched on chances of gigantic wealth flung before eyes that could not see, or missed by the merest accident of time and travel; and through the mad shift of things, sometimes on horseback, more often afoot, now rich, now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, train-hand, contractor, boardinghouse keeper, journalist, engineer, drummer, real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, mine-owner, speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, alert and quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and advancement of his country.
He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on the ragged edge of despairâthe faith that comes of knowing men and things. He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on his very great courage and resource at all times. The thing was so evident in the manâs mind that he never even changed his tone. He described how he had bested his enemies, or forgiven them, exactly as they had bested or forgiven him in those careless days; how he had entreated, cajoled, and bullied towns, companies, and syndicates, all for their enduring good; crawled round, through, or under mountains and ravines, dragging a string and hoop-iron railroad after him, and in the end, how he had sat still while promiscuous communities tore the last fragments of his character to shreds.
The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to one side, his eyes fixed on his fatherâs face, as the
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