"Never mind about that. What's done can't be mended. But don't let Hertha grieve—not if you can help it."
He kissed his older sister good-night and went into his little room, there to sit upon his trunk and with his face in his hands bury himself in thought.
"Ef I was any use," he said, "Ellen couldn't drag me away; but I ain't the brother she needs."
He stepped up the gangway into the little boat the next morning like a man. They were all there to see him off: his mother wiping her eyes and telling him to be her good boy; Ellen, resolute, not giving way to her sorrow; and Hertha, his beautiful sister, waving her handkerchief, her lips trying to smile. He watched them until the boat was far out in the stream; and then, with a very sober face, took his seat where he could look ahead toward the nearing sea.
CHAPTER III
It was still early morning when the boat left the dock and the three women walked back toward their home after their good-by to Tom. No one spoke for a time and then Aunt Maggie said impressively, "Dere ain't no use in cryin' 'bout what yer can't help. Tom's gone, but maybe it'll make a man o' him; maybe it were best fer him ter leabe de women folk. Heah 'tis, Monday morning. Ellen, hab yer settle in yer mind which o' de boys gits de washin' ter my folks?"
"I suppose," said Hertha, "it will be either Thaddeus Jackson or Obadiah Thomas."
"It will be Thaddeus," Ellen answered. "He will do it all right, Mammy, because his father lets him save his money."
"I hope he isn't saving to go to school," said Hertha; and then, quite unexpectedly to herself, laughed. She had been living so many days weighted with sorrow that the sailing of the boat had come as a relief. There was no good, as her mother said, to rebel against the inevitable; and while she would miss her brother, who had grown to be a companion in thought and interests, and who yet could never outgrow his place as her baby, it could not be right to look upon his absence as a calamity like sickness or death. So she gave her little laugh and her mother looked at her with pleasure and relief.