Page:Beyond the Horizon (1920).djvu/48

32

—and she’s good’s she ever was. Your boy Robert’ll be as safe on board o’ her as he’d be home in bed here.

—How can you say that, Dick, when we read in almost every paper about wrecks and storms, and ships being sunk.

—You’ve got to take your chances with such things. They don’t happen often—not nigh as often as accidents do ashore.

—[Her lips trembling.] I wish Robbie weren’t going—not so far away and for so long.

—[Looking at her over his glasses—consolingly.] There, Katey!

—[Rebelliously.] Well, I do wish he wasn’t! It’d be different if he’d ever been away from home before for any length of time. If he was healthy and strong too, it’d be different. I’m so afraid he’ll be taken down ill when you’re miles from land, and there’s no one to take care of him.

—That’s the very reason you was willin’ for him to go, Katey—’count o’ your bein’ ’fraid for his health.

—[Illogically.] But he seems to be all right now without Dick taking him away.

—[Protestingly.] You’d think to hear you, Kate, that I was kidnappin’ Robert agin your will. Now I ain’t asayin’ I ain’t tickled to death to have him along, because I be. It’s a’mighty lonesome for a captain on a sailin’ vessel at times, and Robert’ll be company for me. But what I’m sayin’ is, I didn’t