Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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"I want to go back on that ship. I want to get out of here. I hate all this. I know they're going to the South, but I'll be able to get back to Connecticut somehow, Jos."

"Call me 'sir,'" snapped Peabody. He was still too astonished to attempt to deal with the matter of what Jonathan was saying, and temporised by finding fault with the manner.

"'Sir,' then. Won't you let me go?"

The boy was frantic now, plucking at his captain's sleeve. He had at least the grace to whisper his ridiculous request, but that was little enough in his favour--on the contrary, rather, for it showed he knew he ought to be ashamed of it.

"No, I will not," said Peabody, coming to a decision. "Get below, and don't let me see you again to-night. Get below, I said."

The boy went off into the darkness with something like a sob, leaving Peabody tapping angrily with his foot on the deck as he debated this extraordinary happening. There must be something seriously the matter with Jonathan if he wanted to exchange this ideal life on board ship again for the hardships of home, the orderly discipline for the madness of his parents. Peabody went back in his mind to his first days at sea. Yes, he had been homesick, too, homesick for the green valleys and the rocky hills, even homesick for his chaff mattress in the corner of the room. But he had been only twelve, and Jonathan was twenty. Now he came to think of it, it was strange that Jonathan had endured the Connecticut farm up to that age; he could have escaped from it long ago into the West, into Ohio, where the farming was so good, or even into the Federal army during the past two years.