He hardly stirred, there in the stern of his beloved schooner, contemplating his beloved house, his air as it was at dinner: remote, dark, preoccupied, and a little frightening. After several minutes, he took something from his pocket—it might have been a matchstick—and dropped it overboard. Behind his back, the boys signed their bewilderment to one another with cocks of their heads, squints, and shrugs.

“Slack tide. Ebb soon,” they heard him murmur. He put his hat back on and turned to them, the brim pulled low, as if to eclipse his expression. Still, they could see the change in him: the furrows ironed out of his forehead, his shoulders squared, as if he’d resolved whatever problem he’d been puzzling over these many days. He pulled out his wallet and gave each of them a ten-dollar bill and a quick handshake with a kind of reluctant ceremoniousness, like a general required to give medals to soldiers who don’t deserve them. He drew back a step or two and said:

“You boys are to leave as soon as I’m off this boat. You are not to show your faces until September. That money should last. If it doesn’t, don’t ask for more, because you won’t get it. Understood?”

They said nothing.

“I’ll repeat. You are to set sail on this tide and not show your faces until school starts in the fall.”

He wasn’t smiling, his voice was stern and crisp, as when he ordered a sail trimmed or a change of tack.

“Nat’s the eldest, so he’ll be in charge. Eliot, Drew, you are to listen to him just as you would to me. is that understood?”

They all three nodded, feigning comprehension. He had never given them anything without their earning it twice over, and now, for no reason they could think of, he was giving not merely the run of the ship but the very ship itself, with a summer’s freedom thrown into the bargain. Yet, it was his manner that bemused them most. His mien, his tone of voice, were not those of a father bestowing a reward but of a judge pronouncing sentence, and for Drew, that’s what three months at sea would be.

“Father, I can’t,” he pleaded. “I’ll be sick the whole time.”

For a moment—and this was something the boys perceived as much with their hearts as with their eyes—Cyrus softened a little; his body inclined, almost imperceptibly, toward his youngest son, his hand started to reach out, as if to touch Drew. The moment passed, he dropped his hand and moved forward to the main shrouds.