James is a good boy, upright and honourable,
and would not tell a lie under any consideration. What is he to do? If
I could afford to send him to a good school it would be a different
thing, but that you know I cannot do. From nine in the morning, until
five in the afternoon, my time is occupied by teaching, and I cannot
expect, nor do I wish, that he should sit moping indoors all day. He
had far better be out in the boats with the fishermen, than be hanging
about the place doing nothing. If anything happened to me, before he is
started in life, there would be nothing for him but to take to the sea.
I am laying by a little money every month, and if I live for another
year there will be enough to buy him a fishing boat and nets. I trust
that it may not come to that, but I see nothing derogatory in his
earning an honest living with his own hands. He will always be
something better than a common fisherman. The education I have striven
to give him, and his knowledge that he was born a gentleman, will nerve
him to try and rise.
"As to what you say about mischief, so far as I know all boys are
mischievous. I know that my own brothers were always getting into
scrapes, and I have no doubt, Mr. Allanby, that when you look back upon
your own boyhood, you will see that you were not an exception to the
general rule.
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