Compared with his condition on the Swiftsure, Tom had lived a life of luxurious ease at home, and there was hardly a moment, when he was awake, during which he did not regret that he had ever been so foolish as to run away.
Before the fishing-grounds were reached the Swiftsure put into a harbor for supplies, and there Tom decided upon a bold step. He asked one of the men who had treated him with more consideration than the others had done to lend him two cents with which to buy a postage stamp, and on a dirty piece of paper he wrote the following letter to his mother:
“Dear Mama,—I was wicked to want to run away, and I want to come back terribly. If I had any money I would try to get back from here; but I haven’t, so I shall have to stay till this old vessel comes home. You’ll let me come, won’t you, mother? I won’t say a word, no matter how hard you whip me for running away, and I won’t ever grumble when you want me to do anything. My hands are all covered with blisters; but they don’t begin to be as sore as my heart is when I have to get into these dirty berths at night, knowing that I can’t even speak to you. Don’t be angry with me any more, but please let me in when I come home.
“Yours truly,
“Thomas Gibson.”
Captain Harrison, who had seen Tom writing, and who suspected at once to whom the letter was to be sent, gave the boy an envelope and allowed him to go on shore in order to mail it.
Tom felt better after this, even though his condition was in no wise improved. His mother would know that he was sorry for what he had done, and even though but a short time before he had looked upon her as a hard-hearted parent, it seemed as if her forgiveness was the one thing he wanted above all others.
If, during the voyage to the fishing-grounds, Tom thought he had worked as hard as was possible, he learned that he had been mistaken when the real labor of the cruise was commenced. All day he was obliged to fish with twenty or thirty fathoms of line, to which was attached a heavy sinker of lead that required nearly all his strength to pull up, and when the catch had been large he was compelled to remain up half the night helping the men dress the fish. His hands, which had been covered with blisters, as he wrote his mother, were cut and bleeding, while many times the pain was so great that he could not go to sleep even when he had the opportunity.
In this work Tom could not say that he was obliged to do more than any one else; all hands worked to the best of their ability, and it but serves to show that Tom was getting to be quite a sensible boy when it is said that he felt he was doing no more than was right under the circumstances. But nevertheless his heart was quite as sore and his homesickness as severe as when he wrote the letter to his mother. The only time when he was in the slightest degree contented was when he was fishing. He knew that the sooner the old schooner was loaded, the sooner would she be headed toward home, and he counted each fish he caught as another step toward his getting home to Sedgwick and to mother.