Uncle Abijah Brewster, the father of this Elkanah, was an old
Banker,--which signifies here, not a Wall-Street broker-man, but a
Grand-Bank fisherman. He had brought up a goodly family of boys and
girls by his hook-and-line and, though now a man of some fifty winters,
still made his two yearly fares to the Banks, in his own trim little
pinky, and prided himself on being the smartest and jolliest man
aboard. His boys had sailed with him till they got vessels of their
own, had learned from his stout heart and strong arm their seamanship,
their fisherman's acuteness, their honest daring, and child-like trust
in God's Providence. These poor fishermen are not rich, as I have said;
a dollar looks to them as big as a dinner-plate to us, and a moderately
flush Wall-Street man might buy out the whole Cape and not overdraw his
bank-account. Also, they have but little book-learning among them,
reading chiefly their Bible, Bowditch, and Nautical Almanac, and
leaving theology mostly to the parson, on shore, who is paid for it.
But they have a conscience, and, knowing a thing to be right, do it
bravely, and against all odds.
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