Chapter 10 - Page 2

another intimately for years, rose up at
midnight to make Welsh rare-bits if it felt hungry. On the second
morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond solitaires
before she came down to breakfast.

"They're most delightful people," she confided to her husband; "so
friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly."

"That isn't simpleness, mama," he said, looking across the
boulders behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung.
"It's the other thing, that we - that I haven't got."

"It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne, quietly. "There isn't a woman
here owns a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we -"

"I know it, dear. We have - of course we have. I guess it's only
the style they wear East. Are you having a good time?"

"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I
ain't near as nervous as I was."

"I haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly
understood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great
boy. 'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 'Cushion under your head?
Well, we'll go down to the wharf again and look around."

Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolled
along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for
laying his hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that
Harvey noticed and admired what had never struck him before - his
father's curious power of getting at the heart of new matters as
learned from men in the street.

"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your
head?" demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft.

"I've dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes
'em up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too."
Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can
'most always tell when a man has handled things for himself, and
then they treat him as one of themselves."

"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the
crowd now. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey
spread out his hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all
soft again," he said dolefully.

"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting
your education. You can harden 'em up after."

"Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no delighted voice.

"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, of
course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your
highstrungness and all that kind of poppycock."

"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily.

His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You
know as well as I do that I can't make anything of you if you
don't act straight by me.