Читать книгу The Ark of 1803. A Story of Louisiana Purchase Times онлайн

26 страница из 46

“Jimmy will be good, I reckon,” said the old man, “and he’s old enough now; so I should like for him to see a little of the world.”

“You’re a shareholder, like the rest of us,” said the captain, “and I don’t mean to seem disrespectful; but I think you’re acting hastily, Uncle Amasa, and I hope you won’t encourage Jimmy to feel that he has a right to come without my consent, for I should have to put him off, and that would be a humiliation, and I don’t want to embitter him any more than I can help. But I won’t have him on the ark, and that’s all I can say about it.”

“Well, well, we won’t discuss it, son; we won’t discuss it at all,” said Uncle Amasa. “But I’d like to know how ye think I would look going back to his widowed mother and telling her that you didn’t trust her only son to conduct himself as bravely as any of you?”

A smile broke over the young captain’s face at the idea of any such message going to the acrid lady who had made the Claibornes’ home-clearing a place to be cautiously approached and discreetly avoided. “I wouldn’t say anything to Maria at all,” he advised. “I would just gradually get Jimmy out of the notion.”