"My shell chain—so there! You've tried and tried to get it away, and you never could!" at which comforting remembrance she broke into a laugh, which was so infectious even Morton had to smile.
But he turned from her with a disdainful gesture, only to meet Sara's anxious, questioning eyes.
"Well, I've shipped," he answered doggedly, "that's what!"
"Morton!" With the word all the strength seemed to go out of her, and she dropped weakly into a chair.
"Who with?" she asked sternly, for once forgetting even grammatical rules in her intense dismay.
"With Uncle Jabez Wanamead; he's going out in a week or two, and needs a boy."
"Morton, you can't go!" a determined look settling over her white face. "It's a rough, dreadful life! Old Jabez drinks like a fish, and you'll have to mix his grog a dozen times a day; then you'll have all the dirty work to do, day and night, and be sent aloft where a cat couldn't cling, with the boat pitching like a sturgeon, and, as likely as not, be thrown to the deck with a broken arm, if you're not killed outright. And when all's said and done, you'll never be anything—_any_thing but a fisherman!"
"What else was pa?" stoutly. "Anybody'd think you was ashamed of him!"
She hesitated for a moment, and in her excitement began pacing the room, her face working with contending emotions, while the children sat still and watched her, awed into silence. At length she stopped before them, and seated herself in the chair which had always been that father's when at home, and said, in a voice so sweet and sad that it thrilled even Molly's careless little soul,—
"No, Morton, never, never ashamed of our father! Instead, I love and revere him, for he was a true, good man,—'one of nature's noblemen,' as Miss Prue once said,—but, listen, Morton! It wasn't because he was a fisherman, but in spite of it; for, though it is a life that makes men brave, sturdy, fearless, and honest, it makes them also rough, profane, and careless in life and death; in fact, it develops their bodies, but not their minds or souls.