Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/136

“If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference, I suppose, to the profit?”

"T would treble what I should get from the venture single-banded. Under my eye they would be as good as two more of mynelf.”

Later on she said: “Tell me more about this.”

“Well, the boys are almost aa clever as master-mariners in handling a craft, upon my life! There isn’t a more cranky place in the South Seas than about the sand-banks of this barbor, and they’ve practised here from their infancy. And they are so steady. I couldn’t get their ateadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their age.”

" And is it very dangerous at sea; now, too, there are rumors of war?” ahe asked, uneasily.

“Oh, well, there be risks. Still—"

The idea grew and magnified, and the mother’s heart was crusbed and stifled by it, Emmy was growing too patronizing; it could not be borne. Shadrach’s wife could not help nagging him about their comparative poverty. The young men, amiable ae their father, when spoken to on the subject of a voyage of enterprise, were quite willing to embark; and though they, like their father, had no great love for the sea, they became quite enthusiastic when the proposal was detailed.

Everything now hung upon their mother’s assent. She withheld it long, but at last gave the word: the young men might accompany their father. Shadrach was unusually cheerful about it. Heaven had preserved him hitherto, and he had uttered bis thanks. God would not forsake those who were faithful to him.

All that the Jolliffes possessed in the world waa put into the enterprise. The grocery stock was pared down to the least that possibly could afford a bare sustenance to Joanna during the absence, which was