Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/78

 Apprehending a spy or two might be useful work, but it wasn't to his mind vital enough to the matter in hand, which was beating Germany. He had spoken very nearly the truth when he had told Ensign Stowell that it wasn't exactly revenge for a personal injury inflicted that he sought, but he was, after all, quite human, and there were times when revenge seemed very desirable to him. He still refused to believe, in the face of all probability, that his father was really dead, although none of his relatives up in Maine shared his confidence. Nelson's nearest relation now was his Uncle Peter, a mild-mannered, elderly man who had once served as mate on a lumber schooner but who now eked out a scant living as proprietor of a little store in the home town. Uncle Peter firmly believed that his younger brother was dead, and, or so it had seemed to Nelson, had taken a sort of sad satisfaction in so believing. He had frowned on the boy's expressed determination of entering the Navy and had even done what little was in his power to thwart him. After a fortnight at home, a home now presided over by an ancient, sharp-featured woman housekeeper whom Nelson had grown into the habit of calling "Aunt Mehitabel," although she was no relation, he had bidden a constrained good-bye to Uncle 56