s which at forty
had thrilled him by the first signs of its coming, now crushed down
upon his old age. Vaguely he knew that the harbor had changed and that
he was too old to change with it. An era no longer of human adventures
for young men but of financial adventures for mammoth corporations,
great foreign shipping companies combining in agreements with the
American railroads to freeze out all the little men and take to
themselves the whole port of New York. My father was one of these little
men. The huge company to which he was selling owned the docks and
warehouses for over two miles, and this was only a part of their
holdings.

"Nothing without fighting." That had been his motto. And he had fought
and he had lost. And so in this new harbor of big companies my father
was now closing out. Too late for any business here, too late for life
up there in his home. He had kept my mother waiting too long, he was
ready at last but she was dead. Too late. He had been born too late, had
dreamed his dream of sails too late, and now he was too late in dying.
There was nothing left to live for. How much better for him to be dead.

CHAPTER III

I have tried to tell his story as my father felt it, at the times when
it took him out of himself and made him forget himself and me. But there
were other times when he remembered himself and me, and those were the
times that hurt the most. For in that new humility in his eyes and in
his voice I could feel him then preparing us both--me to see why it was
that he could not do for me what _she_ had wished; himself to hold on
grimly, to find a new job for his old age, to keep from becoming a
burden--on me.

At last we were coming to the end--to that last figure in dollars and
cents. I caught his suspense and we talked little now. I knew the price
at which he was selling, and toward that figure I watched the debts
creep slowly up. I saw them creep over, and knew that we had not a
dollar left to live on. And still the debts kept mounting. How small
they were, these last ones, a coil of rope, two kegs of paint--the irony
of it compared to the bigness of his life. Still these little figures
climbed. At last he handed me his balance. He was in debt four thousand,
one hundred and forty-six dollars and seventeen cents.

He had risen from his old office chair:

"Well, son, I guess that ends our work."

"Yes, sir."

He went out of the office.

I sat there dully for some time. Then I