professor puffer had a grievance. he had sent on board a good supply of whisky—sufficient to last him through the voyage—but the greater part of this had mysteriously disappeared. whether it had been carried to the wrong vessel or not could not be ascertained. at any rate, he had to do without it, and this to a man of the professor’s tastes was a great deprivation.
he was quite ready to buy some, and applied to the captain, but captain smith had no more than he desired for his own use. he occasionally invited the professor to take a glass, in his own cabin, but this by no means satisfied mr. puffer. the enforced abstinence made him irritable, and he vented this irritation on bernard, with the result of making the boy shun his company.
“where do you keep yourself all the time?” asked professor puffer, one afternoon. “i haven’t seen you for hours.”
“have you any work for me to do?” asked bernard hopefully.
“no. i shall do no work on board ship.”
“would you like to have me read to you?”
“you may read the morning paper if you can find one,” sneered the professor.
but it appeared that professor puffer had nothing for him to do, and had only complained of his absence because he was irritable, and wanted something to find fault with.
bernard made the acquaintance of one of the sailors, jack staples, who was a stout, good-humored man of thirty. he possessed a shrewd intelligence that interested bernard, and he often chatted with him about his vermont home.
“how came you to go to sea?” asked bernard one day.
“well, you see, my father died and my mother married again. you never had a stepfather, i take it.”
“no; my mother died when i was a baby, and my father when i was five years old.”
“that was bad luck.”
“yes,” answered bernard gravely.
“i think,” said jack, shifting his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, “that i was about fifteen when my mother told me that she had decided to marry mr. stubbs. stubbs kept a grocery store in the village, and passed for a man well to do. my mother had about two thousand dollars, left by my father, and she did some dressmaking, while i did chores for the neighbors, and sometimes worked on a farm, so that between us we made a comfortable living, and always had enough to eat. when mother told me that, i felt very much upset, for i didn’t like mr. stubbs, who was a mean, grasping man, and i tried to get her off the notion of marrying him. but it was of no use. she said she had given her word.
“‘besides,’ she added, ‘we haven’t got much money, jack, and mr. stubbs says he will support, us both in comfort.’
“‘are you going to give him your money, mother?’ i asked.
“‘well, yes, jack. mr. stubbs says he can use it in his business, and he will allow me interest on it at the rate of six per cent. you know i only get five per cent in the savings bank.’
“‘it is safe in the savings bank,’ i said.
“‘and so it will be with mr. stubbs. he is a good, honorable man.’
“‘i don’t know about that. all the boys in town dislike him.’
“‘he says they tease him, and steal apples and other things from the store,’ she replied.
“‘i don’t like the idea of having such a man as that for my father.’
“‘he is going to put you into his store, and teach you business, and make a man of you,’ she said.
“i made a wry face, for i knew of one or two boys who had worked for stubbs, and complained that he had treated them like niggers. however, i soon found that it was no use talking to mother, for she had made up her mind and i couldn’t alter it. in a month she changed her name to stubbs, and we went to live at the house of my stepfather.
“i soon found that he lived very meanly. we didn’t live half so well as mother and i had before she married, although our means were small. i went into the store, and i never worked so hard in my life. i went to bed tired, and i got up at five o’clock in the morning, feeling more tired than when i went to bed. presently i needed some new clothes, so i went to mother, and asked for some. she applied to stubbs, but he refused to get them for me..
“‘the boy is proud,’ he said. ‘he wants to look like a dude. i won’t encourage him in such foolishness.’
“‘he really needs some new clothes,’ pleaded mother.
“‘then he can buy them himself,’ he returned.
“‘i will buy some out of my interest money,’ said mother.
“‘your interest isn’t due,’ he said shortly.
“‘you might advance me a little,’ she returned ‘say, ten dollars.’
“but he wouldn’t do it, and while i am on the subject i may as well say that he never did pay her the interest he promised. of course he had to give her a few dollars now and then, but i don’t think it amounted to more than thirty or forty dollars a year, while she was entitled to a hundred and twenty.”
“he must have been a mean man,” said bernard, in a tone of sympathy.
“mean was no name for it. i tried to get him to pay me wages, no matter how small, so that i could have something to spend for myself, but it was of no use. he wouldn’t agree to it. finally i told mother i couldn’t stand it any longer; i must run away and earn my own living. she felt bad about having me go, but she saw how i was treated, and she cried a little, but didn’t say much. so i ran away, and when i reached boston i tried to get a place. this i couldn’t do, as i had no friends and no one to recommend me; and finally, not knowing what else to do, i shipped as a sailor.”
“have you ever been home since?”
“yes, i went two or three times, and i always carried some money to mother, who needed it enough, poor woman! finally i went home two years since and i found that my mother was dead;” and jack wiped away a tear from his eye. “i don’t think i shall ever go there again.”
“and did mr. stubbs keep your mother’s money?” asked bernard.
“you may be sure he did. but it didn’t do him much good.”
“how is that?”
“his store burned down. some say it was set on fire by an enemy, and he had plenty. it wasn’t insured, for the insurance company had increased its rates, and mr. stubbs was too mean to pay them. then in trying to put out the fire—it was a cold winter night—he caught a bad cold which brought on consumption, and finally made him helpless. would you like to know where he is now?”
“yes.”
“he is in the poorhouse, for all his means had melted away. the man in charge is about as amiable as stubbs himself, and i have no doubt he has a pretty hard time of it. i don’t pity him, for my part, for he made my mother unhappy, and drove me to sea.”
“i am sorry for you, jack. your luck has been worse than mine. my father and mother are both dead, but as long as they lived they fared well.”
“no one ever tried to rob them of money, as my mother was robbed of her small fortune?”
“i don’t feel sure of that,” said bernard thoughtfully.
“what do you mean?”
then bernard told jack what he had heard from alvin franklin about his father’s having had money, and of his suspicion that mr. mccracken had appropriated it.
the story made an impression on jack staples.
“i shouldn’t wonder if you were right, bernard,” he said. “he seems to have treated you in a queer way. what sort of a man is this professor puffer?”
“i don’t know much about him.”
“do you like him?”
“no.”
“i’ll tell you what—he looks to me like my stepfather.”
“i am puzzled about him,” said bernard. “he doesn’t look in the least like a literary man, or a professor.”
“that’s so.”
“then i find he is intemperate. i haven’t been able to learn anything about his business, or studies, but he is fond of whisky. do you know, jack, i don’t believe i shall be content to stay with him very long.”
“is he a friend of your guardian?”
“i suppose so.”
“are you to get any pay?”
“twenty-five dollars a month and my expenses.”
“that is good—if you get it.”
“don’t you think i will?”
“i don’t think you’ll get it any more than my mother got her interest.”
“then i certainly shall not stay with him.”
“but what can you do? you will be in europe.”
“i don’t know, jack, but i think i shall get along somehow.”
“to my mind your guardian had some object in putting you with such a man.”
“perhaps so, but i may be doing mr. mccracken an injustice.”
“if ever you get into trouble, bernard, don’t forget that jack staples is your friend. i have got a few dollars stowed away in a bank at home, and they are yours if you need them.”
“i will remember it, jack, and thank you, whether i need them or not.”
a day or two later something happened that made bernard still more suspicious of his guardian and professor puffer.
