Seventeen years we were together. He made me. I should to-day be
a supercargo, a recruiter, or a memory, if it had not been for
him.
"You spend your money, and you go out and get more," he said, one
day. "It is easy to get money, now. But when you get old, your
money will be spent and you will not be able to go out and get
more. I know, master. I have studied the way of white men. On the
beaches are many old men who were young once and who could get
money just like you. Now they are old, and they have nothing, and
they wait about for the young men like you to come ashore and buy
drinks for them.
"The black boy is a slave on the plantations. He gets twenty
dollars a year. He works hard. The overseer does not work hard.
He rides a horse and watches the black boy work. He gets twelve
hundred dollars a year. I am a sailor on the schooner. I get
fifteen dollars a month. That is because I am a good sailor. I
work hard. The captain has a double awning and drinks beer out of
long bottles. I have never seen him haul a rope or pull an oar.
He gets one hundred and fifty dollars a month. I am a sailor. He
is a navigator. Master, I think it would be very good for you to
know navigation.
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