Part 3 (1/2)

For some few minutes there was very little breakfast eaten; but at last my father roused us up, talking quite cheerfully, and evidently trying to reconcile my mother to my going, and then we went on with the meal.

”So Tom wants to go with you, does he?” said my father. ”Well, he's a good, hard-headed sort of fellow, and likes you, Harry. He'd better go.”

”But isn't he likely to lead poor Harry into mischief?” said my mother.

”No; he's more likely to act as ballast and keep him from capsizing if he carries too much sail. Tom's all right.”

My mother accepted the inevitable in a very short time, and soon began to talk as mothers do--that is to say, homely mothers--for almost as soon as she had wiped her eyes she exclaimed--

”Why, Harry, my dear, you must have at least six new s.h.i.+rts.”

”Must I, mother?” I said smiling.

”Yes, my son, and of the best and strongest stuff. I'm glad to say that I've just finished a couple of pairs of strongly-knitted stockings.”

And from that hour, I believe, my mother was happy in her task of getting ready my sea-chest, putting in no end of pleasant little surprises for me, to be ready when I was in the far-off land.

Tom, too, was not forgotten, poor fellow, for he had no one to take tender notice of him.

”And it don't matter a bit, Mas'r Harry,” he cried cheerily, ”I don't want a lot o' things. One clean s.h.i.+rt and a pocket-comb--that's about all a chap like me wants.”

But he was better provided than that, and at last, before a couple of months had pa.s.sed away, our farewells were said and we started for Liverpool, in low spirits with our partings, but full of hope and eager ambition, since at the great western port we were to take our pa.s.sage in one of the great steamers for the West Indies, where we would have to change into a smaller trading vessel which would take us on to Caracas.

”No soap-boiling out there, Mas'r Harry,” cried Tom cheerily; and he gave a long sniff as if to get some of the familiar old smell into his nose.

”No, Tom,” I replied quietly. ”We are going to begin a new life now;”

for the future looked to me a far more serious affair than I had imagined before in the midst of my sanguine aspirations and rather wild and dreamy ideas.

CHAPTER FOUR.

TOM CATCHES THE COMPLAINT.

”Oh, my eye, Mas'r Harry! Dear heart, dear heart, how bad I do feel!”

”Why, you kept laughing at me, you wretch,” I said, as I rejoiced at Tom's downfall.

”_Surely_, so I did, Mas'r Harry--I did, I did--but I didn't think it was half so--so bad as this here. Oh, my eye! how badly I do feel!”

”You old humbug, you!” I cried in my triumph, for I was getting over my troubles, ”sneered and jeered and pooh-poohed it all, you did, Tom, and now it has you by the hip at last.”

”No, it hasn't, Mas'r Harry,” he groaned. ”It aren't the hip, it's more in the middle. Oh, my eye! how ill I am!”

”I'm precious glad of it, Tom,” I said.

”Well, I do call that cowardly, Mas'r Harry--I do really,” groaned Tom--”'specially as you wasn't half so bad as I am.”

”Why, I was ten times worse, Tom,” I cried.