countries!" Thus he would linger along the great river and wish he
might find an opportunity of making a voyage. Often it would be dark
before he would get home. When he came into the house his mother would
meet him and say in a gentle voice, "Why, Robinson, how late you are
in getting home! You have been to the river again."

[Illustration: ROBINSON WATCHING THE SHIPS]

Then Robinson would hang his head and feel deeply ashamed, and when
his father, who was a merchant, came home from the store, his mother
would tell him that Robinson had again been truant.

This would grieve his father deeply and he would go to the boy's
bedside and talk earnestly with him. "Why do you do so?" he would say.
"How often have I told you to go to school every day?" This would for
a time win Robinson back to school, but by the next week it had been
forgotten and he would again be loitering along the river in spite
of his father's remonstrances.




II

ROBINSON AS AN APPRENTICE


In this way one year after another slipped by. Robinson was not more
diligent. He was now almost sixteen years old and had not learned
anything. Then came his birthday. In the afternoon his father called