Matt’s heart begins to throb—a strange new sense of kinship stirs within him.
“Hev you got any of them thar picturs?” he inquires, eagerly.
“Not one,” says David, shaking his head contemptuously. “His clouds were all right, because clouds may be anything; but when he came to cows, their own dams wouldn’t know ’em; and as for his ships—why, he used to hoist every inch o’ canvas in a hur’cane. I wouldn’t trust him to tattoo a galley-boy. But he had a power of industry, dear old Matt; and I guess he’s larnt better now, for when I writ to him tellin’ him I was alive and goin’ to get spliced, he writ back he was settled in London in the pictur line, and makin’ money at it, and good-luck to him.”
Matt’s heart swells. That one can actually make money by making pictures is a new idea. He has never imagined that money can be made so easily. Why, he might help to pay off the mortgage! He does not see the need of going to London to make them—he can make them quite well here in his odd moments, and one day he will send them all to this wonderful kinsman of his and ask him to sell them. Five hundred at sixpence each—why, it sounds like one of those faëry calculations with which McTavit sometimes dazzles the school-room. He wonders vaguely whether pictures are equally vendible at that other mighty city whence his mother came, and, if so, whether he may not perhaps help her to accomplish the dream of her married life—the dream of going back there.
“An’ uncle’s got the same name as me!” he cries, in ecstasy.
“I should put it t’other way, sonny,” says his father, dryly; “though when I give it you in his honor I didn’t calc’late it ’ud make you take arter him. But don’t you git it into your figurehead that you’re goin’ to London—you’ve jest got to stay right here and look arter the farm for mother. See? The picturs that God’s made are good ’nough for me—that’s so.”
“Oh yes, dad, I shall allus stay on here,” answers Matt, readily. “It’s Billy who allus wants to be a pirate. Silly Billy! He says—”
His father silences him with a sudden “Damn!”
“What’s the matter?” he asks, startled.
“I guess you’re the silly Billy, standin’ jabberin’ when the tide’s a-rushin’ in. We’ll have to run for it.”