Chapter I

THAT morning, as Sailor Jem had been busy on the shore preparing for his fishing expedition, his son Jack had come sauntering along the sands with his baskets of fish.

"Ain't you sold any more than that?" asked his father in surprise.

Jack hated to be blamed (who does not?), and he answered rather roughly, "I've sold all I could; it ain't my fault that the folks won't buy."

"Have you been up to the Vicarage?" asked his father.

"No; the baskets was that heavy I couldn't get as far. I thought when I had sold some, they'd be a bit lighter."

"And they will have been looking out for you all the morning!" said his father vexedly. "The cook always likes some fresh fish for lunch, and you'll be too late! Run off as fast as you can!"

"I'm not agoin' to run," grumbled Jack beneath his breath. "It's a mile if it's a inch, and it'll take me a good hour, and all for nothing, perhaps."

"Go at once!" thundered his father. And then he turned to his boat and went on splicing a rope, his face grave and his heart as heavy as a piece of lead.

When Jack was at length out of sight, an old man, who had been watching them both, turned to Jem with a quiet sympathy in his look as he said, "'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord—' We mustn't get too disheartened, my son!"

"No—no!" said Jem. "But sometimes one gets so disappointed, father! The youngster ain't doin' quite as I like. He's lazy, he is. You may work for 'em night and day, and after all, if it don't go exactly as they consider it should, then they go and think you're hard on 'em! That's what I find."

"Yes, Jem, that's so; but I got to learn, as I grew older, that it's a good thing as the Lord's patience don't run out as soon as ours, for if it did the rope wouldn't be long enough to pull us to shore!"

"I'll think of that, father." And then he went home to his dinner, and to wish his wife good-bye.

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