"Why, ye work like thunder!" was Biah's comment. "Book l'arnin' hain't
spiled ye yet; your arms are good for suthin'."
"Yes, my arms are good for something, and I'll use them for something,"
said Jim.
There was raging a tempest in his soul. For a young fellow of a Puritan
education in those days to be angry with his father was somewhat that
seemed to him as awful a sacrilege as to be angry with his God, and yet
he felt that his father had been bitterly, cruelly unjust towards him. He
had driven economy to the most stringent extremes; he had avoided the
intimacy of his class fellows, lest he should be drawn into needless
expenses; he had borne with shabby clothing and mean fare among better
dressed and richer associates, and been willing to bear it. He had
studied faithfully, unremittingly, for two years, but at the moment he
turned from his father the throb that wrung his heart was the giving up
of all. He had in his pocket a letter from his townsman and schoolmate,
Sam Allen, mate of an East Indiaman just fitting out at Salem, and it
said:
"We are going to sail with a picked crew, and we want one just such a
fellow as you for third mate. Come along, and you can go right up, and
your college mathematics will be all the better for us.
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