And they sailed in, past the islands, and John Wilson had the ship steered so that she went in the deepest part of the channel. And they came up to the wharf, gently, and the ship was tied to the wharf with great ropes; and there was a little of the afternoon left. So Captain Sol went to attend to the business that he wanted to do. But John Wilson went to the office of Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob and they paid him some money for piloting the Industry up the harbor.
Then he went back to the wharf and watched the sailors, who were busy on the Industry, and he waited for Joe to come, with the sloop, to take him back to Winthrop. And, in about half an hour, there was the sloop. And John Wilson got aboard and sailed away for Winthrop.
THE DRIFTWOOD STORY
nce upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
Many times, in the long ago, the brig Industry had sailed from that wharf, on voyages to far countries, and had come back again to the wharf, bringing spices and tea and sets of china and pretty little tables inlaid with ivory and ebony, and camel's hair shawls, and cloth of goat's hair, and logs of teak-wood to make things of, and many another beautiful thing. And, when Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob moved their office to Boston, she had sailed from a wharf in Boston to that far country. Captain Solomon was the captain of the Industry then. And Captain Solomon married and had sons, and when those sons were beginning to get old enough to go to sea, Captain Solomon stopped being a captain and became a farmer. For he didn't want his sons to go to sea, and he thought that, if he had a farm, away from the salt ocean, they wouldn't go. So he bought the farm that it tells about in the Farm Stories. But little Sol ran away to sea, just the same; and he got to be the captain of the Industry.
And Captain Jonathan got to be an old man, and he died peacefully. And still the brig Industry sailed to that far country and sailed back again. And the years passed, and Captain Jacob got to be a very old man, and he died, too; and Lois was an old woman, and little Jacob, her son, had grown to be a man, and little Lois, her daughter, had grown up and married. And still the brig Industry sailed on her voyages and came back again, but she was getting to be old, too.