About this story
When the bully Bob Croaker carries her kitten to the stream to drown it, you fight him for it and win, bruised, in front of a stranger. That stranger, the sailor Barney O'Flannagan, walks you home and offers you a berth at sea, while a merchant's ledgers offer a steadier future. Aunt Dorothy will not yet say which one you may even go and look at.
How it opens
Aunt Dorothy called you a bad boy, though most neighbours found mischief easier to prove than malice.
Aunt DorothySchool may teach regular habits where affection has failed to make you still.
The sea-captain uncle whose cottage you shared had left maps and stories but no living guidance.
SchoolmasterTend the fire, Martin, and return before the class finds another reason to wander.
Choose
Move only the coal requested and leave the poker beside the grate.
Ask another pupil to witness what the master ordered.