Tom cried harder than ever as he asked this question, which excited a serious train of reflections in the mind of the fisher-boy. What would his mother say to him when she learned that he had squandered five dollars of his money, and told her a falsehood besides?
"O, get away from me, now, Bob Jennings!" roared Tom, whose disappointment seemed to have turned his brain. "I don't want you or any body else near me."
"Good by!" said the fisher-boy. "If you are going to keep up that howling you had better get away from here yourself. You'll raise the town in five minutes more!"
As Bob spoke he gave one more glance at the letter which, from the very pinnacle of hope and joy, had plunged them into the lowest depths of despair, and then walked slowly away.
Neither of these two boys was in an enviable position just then; but bad as was Tom's condition, the fisher-boy's was infinitely worse. Deeply in debt, his boat and money gone, the family entirely destitute of provisions, it was no wonder that Bob thought his lot in life a hard one, and that he should feel utterly discouraged. It seemed to him that the last three weeks of his life had been a dream. It had certainly been a pleasant one, for he had lived in a little world of his own creation, and had been free from all cares and troubles. The loss of his fine skiff--a misfortune which, had he been in his sober senses, would have alarmed him--he had regarded as something scarcely worth thinking about. He had been so fully occupied in contemplating the bright future which his imagination had pictured for him, that matters to which he should have given his immediate attention were deemed unworthy of notice. But just when he imagined himself on the eve of seeing all his glorious anticipations realized, he had been suddenly and rudely awakened, only to find himself still a fisher-boy, and, what was worse, the poorest one in the village. He had good reason for feeling down-hearted. The failure of Tom's splendid scheme was a serious matter for him, and it was a long time before he could recover from the shock which the reading of the letter had given him. For two or three hours he walked listlessly about, scarcely knowing where he was, or what he was doing, and it was not until it began to grow dark, and the wharves were deserted, that he was able to muster up courage enough to think the matter over calmly.