Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1916-02-29

and resumed the copying. l finished
my work and had opened the door to
leave, when he spoke to me.
Hump, if you will look on the west
coast Of the map of Norway you viii
see an indentation called Romsdal
ford. 1 was born within a hundred
miles of that stretch of water. But
was not born Norwegian. I am
Dane. My father and mother were
Danes, and how they ever came to
that bleak blight of land on the west
coast l do not know. 1 never heard.
Outside of that there is nothing mys-
terious. They were poor people and
unlettered. They came of genera
tions of poor, unlettered people-peas-
ants of the sea, who sowed their sons
on the waves as has been their Gus
more to tell"
But there u.s." l objected. at is
still obscure to me-"
What can l tell your" he demand
ed, with a recrudescence of ferceness.
'Of the meagerness of child's life?
of fish diet and coarse living? of go
ing out with the boats from the time
I could crawl? of my brothers, who
went away one by one to the deep-sea
farming and never came back? of my
self, unable to read or write, cabin-boy
at the mature age of ten on the coast
wise, old-country ships? of the rough
fare and rougher usage, where kicks
and blows were bed and breakfast and
took the place of speech, and fear and
| hatred and pain were my only soul
experiences? | do not care to remem-
| Der. A madness comes up in my brain
even now as l think of it. But there
were coastwise shippers I would have
returned and killed when a mans
! strength came to me, only the lines
of my life were cast at the time in
other places. l did return, not long
ago., but unfortunately the shippers
were dead, all but one, a mate in the
old days, a skipper when l met him,
and when l left him cripple who
would never walk again"
But you who read Spencer and
Darwin and have never seen the inside
of a school, how did you learn to
read and writer" l queried.
''In the English merchant service.
Cabin-boy at twelve, ships boy at four
teen, ordinary seaman at sixteen, able
seaman at seventeen, and cock of the
| fo'c'sle, infinite ambition and infinite
loneliness, receiving neither help nor
| Ill
| igation, mathematics, science, litera-
| ture, and what not. And of what use
has it been? Master and owner of a
ship at the top of my life, as you say,
when | am beginning to diminish and
die. Paltry, isn't it? And when the
sun was up was scorched. and be-
cause l had no root l withered away"
But history tells of slaves who
rose to the purple l chided.
And history tells of opportunities
that came to the slaves who rose to
the purple" he answered grimly. mo
man makes opportunity. All the great
men ever did was to know it when it
came to them. The Corsican knew. |
have dreamed as greatly as the Corsi-
can. l should have known the oppor-
tunity, but it never came. The thorns
sprung up and choked me. And.
Hump, | can tell you that you know
more about me than any living man,
except my own brother"
And what is he? And where is
he?"
Master of the steamship Macedo-
mia, seal hunter" was the answer.
I'VE will meet MIN most probably on
the Japan coast. Men call him Death
Larsen"
Death Larsen!" I involuntarily
cried. rs he like your"
Hardly. He is a lump of an ami
NAL without any head. He has all
my-my-"
'Brutishness," 1 suggested.
"Yes-thank you for the word-all
my brutishness, but he can scarcely
read or write
And he has never philosophical on
life" l added.
mo-" Wolf Larsen answered, with
an indescribable air of sadness. And
he is all the happier for leaving life
alone. He is too busy living 1t to think
about 1t. Ny mistake was in ever
opening the books"