by Rudyard Kipling
To
James CONLAND, M.D.,
Brattleboro, Vermont
I ploughed the land with horses,
But my heart was ill at ease,
For the old sea-faring men
Came to me now and then,
With their sagas of the seas.
Longfellow.
The weather door of the smoking-room had been left
open to the North Atlantic fog, as the big liner rolled
and lifted, whistling to warn the fishing-fleet.
“That Cheyne boy’s the biggest nuisance
aboard,” said a man in a frieze overcoat, shutting
the door with a bang. “He isn’t wanted
here. He’s too fresh.”
A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and
grunted between bites: “I know der breed.
Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you should
imbort ropes’ ends free under your dariff.”
“Pshaw! There isn’t any real harm
to him. He’s more to be pitied than anything,”
a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full length
along the cushions under the wet skylight. “They’ve
dragged him around from hotel to hotel ever since
he was a kid. I was talking to his mother this
morning. She’s a lovely lady, but she don’t
pretend to manage him. He’s going to Europe
to finish his education.”
“Education isn’t begun yet.”
This was a Philadelphian, curled up in a corner.
“That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money,
he told me. He isn’t sixteen either.”
“Railroads, his father, aind’t it?”
said the German.
“Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping.
Built one place at San Diego, the old man has; another
at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen railroads, half
the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets his wife
spend the money,” the Philadelphian went on lazily.
“The West don’t suit her, she says.
She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves,
trying to find out what’ll amuse him, I guess.
Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York,
and round again. He isn’t much more than
a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he’s
finished in Europe he’ll be a holy terror.”
“What’s the matter with the old man attending
to him personally?” said a voice from the frieze
ulster.
“Old man’s piling up the rocks. ’Don’t
want to be disturbed, I guess. He’ll find
out his error a few years from now. ’Pity,
because there’s a heap of good in the boy if
you could get at it.”
“Mit a rope’s end; mit a rope’s
end!” growled the German.
Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built
boy perhaps fifteen years old, a half-smoked cigarette
hanging from one corner of his mouth, leaned in over
the high footway. His pasty yellow complexion
did not show well on a person of his years, and his
look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very
cheap smartness. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured
blazer, knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle
shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head.
After whistling between his teeth, as he eyed the
company, he said in a loud, high voice: “Say,
it’s thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats
squawking all around us. Say, wouldn’t
it be great if we ran down one?”
