“I guess I don't want to be a sailor, anyway, sir. This one trip is enough for me, thank you.”
“Can't help that. You shipped 'long with me for two months, and you'll sail with me for two months, every time I go out. You won't run away again neither, I'll look out for that. You'll sail with me and you'll help clean fish, and you'll mind me and you'll say 'sir.' You needn't smoke if you don't want to,” with a smile. “I ain't p'tic'lar 'bout that.
“Then,” went on the Captain, “when the two months is up you'll be your own master again. You can go back to 'Web' Saunders and 'Squealer' Wixon and 'Ily' Tucker and their tribe, if you want to, and be a town nuisance and a good-for-nuthin'. OR you can do this: You can go to school for a few years more and behave yourself and then, if I've got any influence with the Congressman from this district—and I sort of b'lieve I have, second-handed, at any rate—you can go to Annapolis and learn to be a Navy officer. That's my offer. You've got a couple of months to think it over in.”
The catboat swung about on her final tack and stood in for the narrows, the route which the Captain had spoken of as the “short cut.” From where Josiah sat the way seemed choked with lines of roaring, frothing breakers that nothing could approach and keep above water. But Captain Eri steered the Mary Ellen through them as easily as a New York cabdriver guides his vehicle through a jam on Broadway, picking out the smooth places and avoiding the rough ones until the last bar was crossed and the boat entered the sheltered waters of the bay.
“By gum!” exclaimed the enthusiastic “able seaman.” “That was great—er—sir!”
“That's part of what I'll l'arn you in the next two months,” said the Captain. “'Twon't do you any harm to know it when you're in the Navy neither. Stand by to let go anchor!”
CHAPTER XV
IN JOHN BAXTER'S ROOM
If Josiah expected any relaxation in Captain Eri's stern discipline he was disappointed, for he was held to the strict letter of the “shipping articles.” The Captain even went to the length of transferring Perez to the parlor cot and of compelling the boy to share his own room. This was, of course, a precaution against further attempts at running away. Morning after morning the pair rose before daylight and started for the fishing grounds. There were two or three outbreaks on the part of the “able seaman,” but they ended in but one way, complete submission. After a while Josiah, being by no means dull, came to realize that when he behaved like a man he was treated like one. He learned to steer the Mary Ellen, and to handle her in all weathers. Also, his respect for Captain Eri developed into a liking.