And after he was told, he led them down a companion into a hold musty and dim in the pale light struggling through skylights fogged by dirt and dried saltwater. As Will rummaged among the grocery shelves in the aft end (having provided Double Eagle with an extra mouth, he wished to chip in for the food to feed it), Nathaniel went to the cobbler’s shop forward, where some two dozen pairs of shoes were piled any which way under a workbench. Eventually, he found a pair of brown high-tops that fit him. Cudlip started at four dollars—the price for a new pair of dress shoes. Wiser now in the ways of haggling with down-easters, Nathaniel whittled him down to a dollar-fifty. After Will paid for the tins of beef and salt pork (out of what was to have been his fare for passage to Boston), he asked the trader if he had any charts for sale.

“Do. ’T’would help if yuh told me what paat o’ the ocean yuh want chaats fer.”

“Cuba,” Will answered.

“Cuber? We-ell naow, don’t git much call fer chaats o’ Cuber,” said Cudlip. He stiffly climbed out of the hold, bringing his customers into the cluttered shanty that was both his home and a sundries store. Moving behind a counter, he opened a cabinet, pulled out a stack of charts three inches thick, and thumbed through them, mumbling to himself, “Cuber, Cuber. Heah yuh be.”

He removed from the pile a chart of the Florida Straits showing the port of Havana and a sliver of the island’s north coast. Will scowled.

“This says it was drawn up in 1868.”

“Don’t reckon Cuber’s moved any since then. Best I kin do. Be one thin dime, if yuh want it.”

Will gave him a five-dollar bill, and Cudlip asked if he had anything smaller because he couldn’t make the change.

“One of you Braithwaites have a dime on him?” asked Will.

Nathaniel did, and plunked it on the counter, and Cudlip eyed him thoughtfully.

“Heard someone say Braithwaite. Any chance yuh be kin to Cap’n Cy Braithwaite?”

“We’re his sons, two of ’em”—Nathaniel, jerking a thumb at Drew. “You know our dad?”

“Heard of him, tradin’ amongst these gunkholes like I do. Quarriers say he’s a right haad man, but he’s supposedta have been a right smart sailor in his day. So are yuh young fellers plannin’ to sail all the way ta Cuber?”

“Key West and maybe Cuba from there,” answered Will, rolling up the chart.

“Ain’t the best time o’ year ta be headin’ that way.”

“We’ll do all right”—Nathaniel, a little pompously. “ ‘Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the quarry whence ye are digged.’ Isaiah.”

“Studyin’ ta be a preachah?”

“I’m saying we’re our father’s sons, my brothers and me.”