“Well, mebbe so. But—say, Clem, you know Tom’s a good boy, don’t you?”
“You bet he is!” said Clem, frowning.
Inwardly, he commented otherwise. While he knew Tom Saunders pretty well, he also knew that Tom had companions who were not of the old Saunders strain.
“To tell the truth, Clem, Tom’s been gettin’ kind o’ out o’ hand.” The skipper sighed again. “He’s been comin’ home drunk every once in a while, if you want it straight. He’s tryin’ to be cock o’ the walk around here, like you used to be—but he ain’t doing it your way, Clem.”
Clem Frobisher felt as though a cold hand had touched him and had sent a shiver through him.
He was not responsible, of course; and, very likely, Tom Saunders was no worse than the average young fellow. But that was far from the point.
Clem loved the honest, simple, manly old skipper, and he loved Mrs. Saunders. Sooner than hurt them in any way he would have cut off his right hand.
Yet he knew that he had hurt them grievously, if unintentionally. He knew that Tom Saunders, misled by the wrong sort of friends, was heaping sorrow’s upon these kindly old parents of his largely by aspiring to walk in the tracks of Clem Frobisher. And Ezra Saunders had hit the nail on the head by saying that Tom was not doing it Clem’s way.
“He’s running the boats all right, I suppose?” queried Clem, with sinking heart.
“Oh, he ’tends to ’em well enough—nothin’ extra. Clem, I wish to thunder these was the ol’ days! I’d ship that boy A. B. under the toughest, hardest pair o’ bucko mates ever stepped, an’ I’d ship him around the Horn! When he got back, by glory, he’d either be dead or—or different! And”—the skipper sighed heavily—“I dunno’s I’d give a durn which way it come out. I b’lieve it’s breakin’ Ma Saunders’ heart—I do so!”