For a moment Bob gazed at his companion in utter astonishment. Was it fun that he was compelled to work day after day, through storm and sunshine, and at such small wages that his mother could scarcely lay by half a dollar a week? Was it fun for him to pull five miles down the bay, in a leaky boat, and back, without catching a single fish, as he had done that day? If there was any fun in that, the fisher-boy thought he had never before understood the meaning of the word.
“No, I don’t see much sport in it,” answered Bob. “I call it downright hard work, and so would you if you could trade places with me for a few days. You are the one that sees all the fun. You have no work to do.”
It was now Tom’s turn to be astonished. He started up in perfect amazement, and looked at the fisher-boy for a moment without speaking.
“I see all the fun, do I?” said he, when he had recovered somewhat from his surprise. “Bob Jennings, let me tell you that you don’t know what hard work is. Did your father ever tell you that he’d dust your jacket for you if you didn’t get a difficult arithmetic lesson?”
“No,” answered, Bob, slowly.
“Well, that’s just what my father told me this morning,” continued Tom, “and he also informed me that I can’t go to sea until I can add up a column of figures, and tell him the capitals of all the States. Now, that’s a harder job than you ever had laid out for you.”
The fisher-boy did not act as though he considered that a very difficult task, for he brightened up, and said:
“I wish somebody would give me that job, and agree to support my mother while I was at sea; I’d sign shipping articles in three days. Don’t you want that book?” he added, as Tom picked up his arithmetic and threw it down the bank toward the water, as if he wished it as far as possible out of his sight. “If that book was mine I wouldn’t fling it about that way. I’d study it and try to learn something.”
“Why, I thought you wanted to be a sailor,” said Tom.