"For Louis' sake," his mother explains in her racy
journal letters, speaking of having chartered the Casco, "I can't
but be glad, for his heart has so long been set upon it, it must
surely be good for his health to have such a desire granted." Louis
warned his mother years before she had a nomad for a son, but she
had never objected, and sat knitting on deck, well content not to be
"in turret pent," but to go forth with the bright sword she had
forged. "She adapted herself," her brother says, "to her strange
surroundings, went about barefoot, found no heat too great for her,
and at an age when her sisters at home were old ladies, learnt to
ride!" After many wanderings through the warm ocean waters, with
"green days in forest and blue days at sea," the yachters finally
saw Samoa, and to the author it was the El Dorado of his dreams.
"When the Casco cast anchor," he avers, "my soul went down with
these moorings, whence no windless may extract nor any diver fish it
up." It was indeed a unique experience for one of the master workers
of the world, one whose subtle mintage of words had made his readers
his friends, to settle in an uttermost isle of the Pacific.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53