"Your boat looks very nice," replied Bob, glancing first at the clean, dry yawl, and then at his own unpainted, leaky craft. "She's a great deal better than mine."
"That's to be expected," said Sam; "you see, I've got capital to go on, and I know how to use it. I was onct as poor as you be; the boat I had was a'most as leaky an' dirty as that ar craft of your'n, and I never could make enough to pay expenses, 'cause the ship-carpenters an' the fine gentlemen who have business across the harbor wouldn't have nothing to do with me. One day, my old man said to me: 'Sammy, a coward an' a poor man are the two meanest things in the world. They are a disgrace to society. If you ever want to be respected, go to work an' make some money.' I thought that was good advice, and I follered it. Now look at me! I've got two good boats—the other a nice little skiff that I want to sell to some feller who has twenty dollars to pay for it—I wear good clothes, I've got more regular customers than any two other boys in the harbor, an' every night I take home at least a dollar and a half. I'm makin' money; an' the reason is, I know how to do it. During two years' ferryin' on this harbor, I have learned that the only way to get custom is to have a nice, clean boat——Yes, sir; comin', sir!"
Sam Barton was a boy who could do two things at once—that is, he could talk and keep a bright lookout for passengers at the same time—and he had just discovered a man standing on the wharf, waving his handkerchief—a sign that he wanted to cross the harbor. Bob saw him at the same moment, and, by the time Sam had got his oar out, the fisher-boy was well under way, and Sam began to fear that the two cents he had hoped to earn would find their way into the pockets of his rival. "First come, first served," was the law in force among the ferry-boys, and the one who could handle his oar the best got the most passengers. There was not a boy in the harbor who could beat Bob sculling, and although he had a heavy, unwieldy boat to manage, he generally came off first best in his races. He certainly did in this instance, for, when he reached the wharf where the passenger was standing, Sam was a long way behind.
"Jump in, sir," said Bob.
The man looked down at the scow, which, on account of its numerous leaks, could not be kept very clean, then at his well-blacked boots, and shook his head.
"O, she'll take you over safely, sir," said Bob; "I've carried fifteen men in her many a time."
"Sheer off there, Bobby Jennings!" shouted Sam Barton, bringing his handsome yawl along-side the wharf at this moment; "here's the boat the gentleman's been a-waitin' fur. He wants a neat, tidy craft, wi' cushions to sit down on. Jump in, sir."
The idea Sam had advanced but a few moments before—that a nice, clean boat was necessary to secure patronage—received confirmation now, for the man climbed down into the yawl, and Bob saw his rival pocket the passage-money.
The fisher-boy thought over these incidents, as he sat in the stern-sheets of his scow sailing slowly homeward from his fishing-grounds; and, although Sam Barton had, at first, fallen very low in his estimation, by accepting a reward for saving a man's life, he was now ready to wish that he had been in Sam's place.