Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/166

144 The others they dursn't do it; they said they valued their life

(They've served me since as skippers). I went, and I took my wife.

Over the world I drove 'em, married at twenty-three,

And your mother saving the money and making a man of me.

I was content to be master, but she said there was better behind;

She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed your mother blind.

She egged me to borrow the money, an' she helped me to clear the loan,

When we bought half shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our own.

Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how,

We started the Red Ox freighters—we've eight-and-thirty now.

And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights,

And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Macassar Straits—