Bobby of the Labrador Part 2

"There's none to care for him," said the Captain, "and the best prospects he have be the poor house."

"Will you leave him with me, then?" asked Skipper Ed. "I'll give the lad a good home, and teach him a bit, and he'll be fine company for me."

"O' course I'll leave he with you, Skipper, and wonderful glad I'll be too that the lad's found a good home," said the Captain.

Then Skipper Ed returned to Jimmy.

"Lad," said he, "I'm looking for a partner, and it strikes me _you'll_ do. How'd you like to be _my_ partner? Look me over now, and see what you think of _me_. How'd you like _me_ for a partner?"

Jimmy looked him over critically, through tear-stained eyes, but said nothing.

"Come now," urged Skipper Ed, getting down on his haunches that Jimmy might look straight into his face, "here we are, you and I, both alone in the world and both wanting partners. Can't we splice up a partners.h.i.+p? Share and share alike, you know--you have as much as I, and I have as much as you, and we'll take the fair winds and the contrary winds together, and make port together, and sell our cargoes together, and use the same slop chest. What do you say, lad? Shall we sign on as partners?"

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"Good! Good!" exclaimed Skipper Ed. "Here, shake hands on it, partner.

Now we're friends to each other, whatever falls, good voyages and poor ones, and there's better luck coming for us both, lad, better luck."

And so Skipper Ed and Jimmy Sanderson formed their partners.h.i.+p, and Jimmy, with his own and his father's kits, went ash.o.r.e with Skipper Ed in Skipper Ed's boat, which he insisted was half Jimmy's, under their partners.h.i.+p agreement, and the next day the schooner sailed away and left them. And with the pa.s.sing weeks, Time, as Skipper Ed had predicted, and as he always does, healed Jimmy's sorrow, and he came to look upon Skipper Ed as the finest man and the finest partner in the world, and they two loved each other very much.

Abel and his wife and Skipper Ed and his partner lived upon terms of intimacy and good comrades.h.i.+p, as neighbors should. And because they had no nearer neighbors than Abraham Moses, an Eskimo ten miles to the southward, and the people of the Moravian Mission and Eskimo settlement at Nain, twenty miles to the northward, the two families were dependent upon one another for human companions.h.i.+p, and therefore the bond of friends.h.i.+p that drew them together was the stronger.

And so it happened that early on the morning following the return of Abel and Mrs. Abel with Bobby, Skipper Ed and Jimmy walked over to welcome their neighbors home, and to discuss with them the fis.h.i.+ng season just closed, and the seal hunting and the trapping seasons which were at hand.

Abel was engaged in cutting and shaping the sticks from which he was to build Bobby's little bunk, when he heard Skipper Ed's cheery:

"_Oksunae!_"[A]

"_Oksutingal!_"[A] exclaimed Abel, delightedly, grasping Skipper Ed's hand and then Jimmy's hand and laughing with pleasure. "_Oksutingai_! I am glad to see you, and how have you been?"

[Footnote A: "_Oksunae_" is the Eskimo greeting when one is addressed, and, literally translated, means "You be strong." "_Oksutingai"_ is addressed to two--"You two be strong." "_Okiusee"_ to more than two--"You all be strong."]

Abel spoke his native language, for his tongue was awkward with the few English words he had learned. He and Skipper Ed, indeed, always conversed in Eskimo, and Jimmy, though he usually spoke his native English at home when he and Skipper Ed were alone, also understood the Eskimo tongue perfectly.

"We're very well," said Skipper Ed, "and glad to know you are back. We were lonely without you. How is Mrs. Abel?"

"Well. Very well. And we have something to surprise you," and Abel, laughing heartily, could hardly contain himself.

"I know what it is!" broke in Jimmy. "You've got a new boat. I saw it as we came up! It's a fine big boat, too!"

"It's a greater surprise than that," laughed Abel. "It's in the house.

Come in and see him."

"A baby!" guessed the delighted Jimmy. "It's a baby!"

"Come in and see for yourselves," Abel invited, and pus.h.i.+ng the door open he led them into the cabin, where Mrs. Abel overwhelmed them with greeting, and brought Bobby forth for introduction.

"A boy, and a white one!" exclaimed Skipper Ed in English. "Now wherever did they get him?" He took Bobby by the hand, and asked: "Can you talk, little lad?"

"Yeth, thir," Bobby admitted, respectfully, "I like to talk."

"I'll wager you do, now! Where did you live before you came here?"

"With Papa and Mamma."

"What, now, may your name be?"

"Bobby, thir."

"What is your papa's name?"

"What is my papa's name?"

"Yes, what is your papa's name?"

"Why, 'Papa,'" in great surprise that all the world did not know that.

Further solicitation brought from the child the statement that "Uncle Robert took me for a nice ride in a boat, but Uncle Robert got hurted, and I came here."

And this was the sum total of the information concerning Bobby's past that Skipper Ed succeeded in drawing from the child, though he questioned and cross-questioned him at length, after Abel and Mrs. Abel had told how they found him that August morning. But Abel and Mrs. Abel, considering these things of small importance, did not mention to or show Skipper Ed the packet containing the notebook found in the dead man's pocket, and which they had carefully put away.

Skipper Ed did not altogether accept the theory of Abel and Mrs. Abel that G.o.d had in a miraculous manner sent Bobby to them from heaven, directing his course from the Far Beyond, through the place where mists and storms were born. Skipper Ed in his own mind could not dismiss the subject in this casual manner. He scented some dark mystery, though he doubted if the mystery would ever be cleared.

Abel must needs exhibit to Skipper Ed and Jimmy the boat, and when Skipper Ed saw it his practiced eye told him that the finish and workmans.h.i.+p were far too fine and expensive for any ordinary s.h.i.+p's boat, and that it was the long boat of a luxuriously appointed private yacht. Of this he was well a.s.sured when he read, in gold letters on either side of its prow, the name _Wanderer_.

And then they must each try their hand with the beautifully engraved shotgun. Such a gun, Abel declared, had never before been seen on the coast, and was in itself a fortune. And Skipper Ed examined it critically, and agreed with Abel that it was a gun of marvelous workmans.h.i.+p, and had cost much money.

"None but G.o.d could have fas.h.i.+oned it," said Abel, reverently. "It is His gift to the boy, and it will always be the boy's. He sent it with the boy from the Great Beyond, from the place where mists and storms are born. Do you think He would mind if I used it sometimes?"

"No," answered Skipper Ed, "I think He meant you to use it to hunt food for the boy, so that the boy should never be in want. G.o.d never forgets.

He always provides. Destiny is the Almighty's will, and He provides."

"The lad has come from rich people," said Skipper Ed, as he and Jimmy walked home that evening. "He's not been used to this sort of life. But Time's a great healer. He's young enough to forget the fine things he's been used to, and he'll grow up a hunter and a fisherman like the rest of us. There's better luck coming for him. Better luck. He'll be happy and contented, for people are always happy with simple living, so long as they don't know about any other kind of living."

"I thinks Abel lives fine now, and we lives fine," ventured Jimmy.

"Abel's house is fine and warm, and so is ours."

"Aye," said Skipper Ed, "'tis that. 'Tis that; and enough's a-plenty.

Enough's a-plenty."

They walked along in silence for a little while.

"We must always talk to the little chap in English," said Skipper Ed, presently. "We must not let him forget to speak the tongue his mother taught him."

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"And we must teach him to read and write in English, the way I teach you," continued Skipper Ed. "Somewhere in the world his mother and father are grieving their life out for the loss of him. It's very like they'll never see him again, but we must teach him as much as we know how of what they would have taught him."

"Yes, sir."