"Don't divide," Eliza Travers had pleaded, resting her soap-flecked, parboiled arms. "Isaac was right. It will be worth millions. The country is opening up. We must all pull together."
"I don't want the estate," Tom cried. "Let Frederick have it. What I want...."
He never completed the sentence, but all the vision of the world burned in his eyes.
"I can't wait," he went on. "You can have the millions when they come. In the meantime let me have ten thousand. I'll sign off quitclaim to everything. And give me the old schooner, and some day I'll be back with a pot of money to help you out."
Frederick could see himself, in that far past day, throwing up his arms in horror and crying:
"Ten thousand!—when I'm strained to the breaking point to raise this quarter's interest!"
"There's the block of land next to the court house," Tom had urged. "I know the bank has a standing offer for ten thousand."
"But it will be worth a hundred thousand in ten years," Frederick had objected.
"Call it so. Say I quitclaim everything for a hundred thousand. Sell it for ten and let me have it. It's all I want, and I want it now. You can have the rest."
And Tom had had his will as usual (the block had been mortgaged instead of sold), and sailed away in the old schooner, the benediction of the town upon his head, for he had carried away in his crew half the riff-raff of the beach.