ack
home."

"But then they don't treat us well, Mas' Don. I don't grumble to you,
but it's a reg'lar dog's life I lead; bully and cuss and swear at you,
and then not even well fed."

"But we are to be paid for it, Jem," said Don, bitterly.

"Paid, Mas' Don!" replied Jem, contemptuously. "What paying will make
up for what we go through?"

"And I suppose we should have prize-money if we fought and took a French
ship."

"But then we're sent right out here, Mas' Don, where there's no French
ships to fight; and if there were, the prize-money is shared among them
as aren't killed."

"Of course."

"Well, how do we know as we shouldn't be killed? No, Mas' Don, they
don't behave well to us, and I want to get home again, and so do you."

"Yes, Jem."

"P'r'aps it's cowardly, and they'll call it desertion."

"Yes, Jem."

"But we sha'n't be there to hear 'em call it so."

"No, Jem."

"Therefore it don't matter, Mas' Don; I've thought this all over
hundreds o' times when you've been asleep."

"And I've thought it over, Jem, hundreds of times when you've been
asleep."

"There you go again, sir, taking the ideas out of a man's brain. You
shouldn't, Mas' Don. I always play fair with you."

"Yes, of course you do."

"Well, then, you ought to play fair with me. Now look here, Mas' Don,"
continued Jem, seating himself on the gunwale of the boat, so as to let
his bare feet hang in the water.

"'Ware sharks, Jem," said Don quickly.

Jem was balanced on the edge, and at those words he threw himself
backward with his heels in the air, and after he had struggled up with
some difficulty, he stood rubbing his head.

"Where 'bouts--where 'bouts, sir?"

"I did not see a shark, Jem, but the place swarms with them, and I
thought it was a risk."

"Well, I do call that a trick," grumbled Jem. "Hit my nut such a whack,
I did, and just in the worst place."

"Better than having a leg torn off, Jem. Well, what were you going to
say?"

"Bottom of the boat's nearly knocked it all out of my head," said Jem,
rubbing the tender spot. "What I meant to say was that I was stolen."

"Well, I suppose we may call it so."

"Stolen from my wife, as I belongs to."

"Yes, Jem."

"And you belongs to your mother and your Uncle Josiah, so you was
stolen, too."

"Yes, Jem, if you put it in that way, I suppose we were."

"Well, then," said Jem triumphantly, "they may call it cowardly, or
desertion, or what they like; but wh