"
"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."
"Destiny is just the working out of the Almighty's will. And it was a
part of the lad's destiny to be cast upon this bleak coast and to find a
home with the Eskimos."
And so, walking home along the rocky shore, they talked to the
accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore and soughing spruce trees
in the forest.
Skipper Ed, giving voice to thoughts with which he was deeply engrossed,
told of the kindlier, sunnier land from which Bobby had been sent
adrift--from a home of luxury, perhaps--to live upon bounty, and in the
crude, primitive cabin of an Eskimo. And he thrilled his little partner
with vivid descriptions of great cities where people were so numerous
they jostled one another, and did not know each other's names; of
rushing, shrieking locomotives; of beautiful houses which seemed to
Jimmy no less than fairy palaces; of great green fields; and yellow
fields of waving grain from which the flour was made which they ate; of
glorious flowers; and forests of strange trees.
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