Now this is all very well, and, granted that Providence has placed us here to do what is best pleasing to ourselves, it is surely very noble and grand in us to please to serve nothing less than our country or our age. But let us not forget that the English language has such a little word as duty. A man's talents, and, perhaps, once in a great while, his wishes, would make him a great man, (if wishes ever did such things, which I doubt,) while duty imperatively demands that he shall remain a little man. What then? Let us see.
Elkanah Brewster was going to New York to-morrow.
"What for, boy?" asked old Uncle Shubael, meeting whom on the fish-wharf, he had bid him a cheery good-bye.
"To make my fortune," was the bold reply.
"Make yer fortin? You're a goose, boy! Stick to yer work here,—fishin' summers an' shoemakin' winters. Why, there isn't a young feller on the hull Cape makes as much as you. What's up? Gal gin ye the mitten? Or what?"
"I don't want to make shoes, nor fish neither, Uncle Shub," said Elkanah, soberly, looking the old fellow in the face,—"goin' down to the Banks year arter year in cold an' fish-gurry, an' peggin' away all winter, like mad. I want to be rich, like Captain Crowell; I want to be a gentleman, like that painter-chap that give me drawin'-lessons, last summer, when I stayed to home."
"Phew! Want to be rich an' a gentleman, eh? Gittin' tu big for yer boots, youngster? What's yer old man du but go down t' the Banks regular every spring? You're no better 'n he, I guess: Keep yer trade, an' yer trade'll keep you. A rollin' stun gathers no moss. Dry bread tu home's better 'n roast meat an' gravy abroad."
"All feet don't tread in one shoe, Uncle Shub," said young Brewster, capping the old fellow's proverbs with another. "Don't see why I shouldn't make money as well's other fellers. It's a free country, an' if a feller wants to try suthin' else 'sides fishin' uv it, what d'yer all want to be down on him fur? I don't want to slave all my days, when other folks ken live in big houses an' ride in 'kerriges, an' all that."
"A'n't yer got bread enough to eat, an' a place to sleep? an' what more's any on 'em got? You stay here; make yer money on the old Cape, where yer father an' grand'ther made it afore you. Use yer means, an' God 'll give the blessin'. Yer can't honestly git rich anywheres all tu once. Good an' quickly don't often meet. One nail drives out another. Slow an' easy goes fur in a day. Honor an' ease a'n't often bedfellows. Don't yer be a goose, I tell ye. What's to become of Hepsy Ann?"
Having delivered himself of which last and hardest shot, Uncle Shubael shouldered his cod-craft, and, without awaiting an answer, tugged across the sand-beach for home.