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Captains Courageous: Cheyne

It was from Harvey, safe in Gloucester. Mr. Cheyne laid his face down on his desk, breathed heavily for a while; and then, heaving orders right and left, started that run of which railroad men talked for many a day. Three days and a half it was from coast to coast, with railroad specialists along the way dividing huge bonuses; for it was the great Harvey Cheyne who was racing east to see his rescued boy, and the boy's mother was with him. Not without fear did he meet that boy. He had a memory of a pasty-faced, bad-mannered lad. What he met was a boy with toughened figure and a keen, clear eye, a boy who was inordinately proud that a Gloucester skipper said he had well earned his ten dollars and fifty cents and his keep a month. On the end of an ancient wharf Harvey Cheyne and his boy had such a talk as they never could have had four months before. When it was over they knew each other better.

Railroads, lumber, mines--such things did not interest young Harvey. What his heart yearned for was to some day manage his father's newly purchased sailing-ships on the Pacific coast. The ships he got when he was ripe for them; and for Dan, son of Disko Troop--seeing that he could not offer money--he got a berth as mate of one of them, with the promise that some day he would go master of the best he could build. "Great ships these of my father's? Oh yes," says Harvey. "But back in Gloucester are the able little vessels. The We're Here, she's one. I owe a heap to her--to her and her crew."