Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert

Conway, a sullen and lazy kid, was not shaping up to be a great circumnavigator, either.
    Webster, the oldest boy, at fourteen, was the only other Pommeroy old enough to work, but he was a wreck on a boat. He was useless on a boat. He went nearly blind with seasickness, dying from headaches and vomiting down his own helpless sleeves. Webster had an idea of being a farmer. He kept a few chickens.
    “I have a little joke to show you,” Senator Simon said to Chester, the nearest boy. He spread the book on the table and opened it to the middle. The huge page was covered with tiny text. The print was dense and thick and faint as a small pattern on old fabric.
    “What do you see here? Look at that spelling.”
    Terrible silence as Chester stared.
    “There’s no letter s anywhere, is there, son? The printers used f instead, didn’t they, son? The whole book is like that. It was perfectly common. It looks funny to us, though, doesn’t it? To us, it looks as if the word sail is the word fail. To us, it looks as if every time Captain Cook sailed the boat, he actually failed the boat! Of course, he didn’t fail at all. He was the great circumnavigator. Imagine if someone told you, Chester, that someday you would fail a boat? Ha!”
    “Ha!” said Chester, accordingly.
    “Have they spoken to you yet, Rhonda?” Senator Simon asked Mrs. Pommeroy suddenly, and shut the book, which slammed like a weighty door.
    “Have who, Senator?”
    “All the other men.”
    “No.”
    “Boys,” Senator Simon said, “get out of here. Your mother and I need to talk alone. Beat it. Take your book. Go outside and play.”
    The boys sulked out of the room. Some of them went upstairs, and the others filed outside. Chester carried the enormous, inappropriate gift of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations outdoors. Ruth slipped under the kitchen table, unnoticed.
    “They’ll be coming by soon, Rhonda,” the Senator said to Mrs. Pommeroy when the room had cleared. “The men will come by soon for a talk with you.”
    “Fine.”
    “I wanted to give you some warning. Do you know what they’ll be asking you?”
    “No.”
    “They’ll ask if you’re planning on staying here, on the island. They’ll want to know if you’re staying or if you’re planning to move inland.”
    “Fine.”
    “They probably wish you’d leave.”
    Mrs. Pommeroy said nothing.
    From her vantage point under the table, Ruth heard a splash, which she guessed was Senator Simon’s pouring a fresh dollop of rum on the ice in his glass.
    “So, do you think you’ll stay on Fort Niles, then?” he asked.
    “I think we’ll probably stay, Senator. I don’t know anybody inland. I wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”
    “And whether you do or do not stay, they’ll want to buy your man’s boat. And they’ll want to fish his fishing ground.”
    “Fine.”
    “You should keep both the boat and the ground for the boys, Rhonda.”
    “I don’t see how I can do that, Senator.”
    “Neither do I, to tell you the truth, Rhonda.”
    “The boys are so young, you see. They aren’t ready to be fishermen so young, Senator.”
    “I know, I know. I can’t see either how you can afford to keep the boat. You’ll need the money, and if the men want to buy it, you’ll have to sell. You can’t very well leave it on shore while you wait for your boys to grow up. And you can’t very well go out there every day and chase men off the Pommeroy fishing ground.”
    “That’s right, Senator.”
    “And I can’t see how the men will let you keep the boat or the fishing ground. Do you know what they’ll tell you, Rhonda? They’ll tell you they just intend to fish it for a few years, not to let it go to waste, you see. Just until the boys are big enough to take over. But good luck taking it back, boys! You’ll never see it again, boys!”
    Mrs. Pommeroy listened to all this with equanimity.
    “Timothy,” Senator Simon called, turning his head toward the living room, “do you want