Reluctantly she gave him the money, considering his project only less
wild than that of running away to sea. He hurried off to a neighboring
village, bought his boat, hoisted sail, and started for home one of
the happiest youths in the world. His first adventure seemed to
justify his mother's fears, for he struck a sunken wreck on his way,
and just managed to run his boat ashore before she filled and sunk.
Undismayed at this mishap, he began his new career. His success, as we
have intimated, was speedy and great. He made a thousand dollars
during each of the next three summers. Often he worked all night, but
he was never absent from his post by day, and he soon had the cream of
the boating business of the port.
At that day parents claimed the services and the earnings of their
children till they were twenty-one. In other words, families made
common cause against the common enemy, Want. The arrangement between
this young boatman and his parents was that he should give them all
his day earnings and half his night earnings. He fulfilled his
engagement faithfully until his parents released him from it, and with
his own half of his earnings by night he bought all his clothes.
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