Whenever I 'd think of
the men, and the work, and the hard life, I 'd know it was make-believe;
but when I 'd think of her, it was n't. I don't know; I can't explain it."
Joe remembered all his own adventures which he had imagined on land and
sea, and nodded. He at least understood that much.
"Of course it was all foolishness, but to have a girl like that for a
comrade or friend seemed more like heaven to me than anything else I
knew of. As I said, it was a long while back, and I was only a little
kid--that was when Red Nelson gave me my name, and I 've never been
anything but 'Frisco Kid ever since. But the girl in the picture: I
was always getting that picture out to look at her, and before long,
if I was n't square--why, I felt ashamed to look at her. Afterwards,
when I was older, I came to look at it in another way. I thought,
'Suppose, Kid, some day you were to meet a girl like that, what would
she think of you? Could she like you? Could she be even the least bit
of a friend to you?' And then I 'd make up my mind to be better, to try
and do something with myself so that she or any of her kind of people
would not be ashamed to know me.
"That 's why I learned to read. That 's why I ran away. Nicky Perrata,
a Greek boy, taught me my letters, and it was n't till after I learned
to read that I found out there was anything really wrong in bay-pirating.
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