here to do what is best pleasing to ourselves, it is surely very noble
and grand in us to please to serve nothing less than our country or our
age. But let us not forget that the English language has such a little
word as _duty_. A man's talents, and, perhaps, once in a great while,
his wishes, would make him a great man, (if wishes ever did such
things, which I doubt,) while duty imperatively demands that he shall
remain a _little_ man. What then? Let us see.

Elkanah Brewster was going to New York to-morrow.

"What for, boy?" asked old Uncle Shubael, meeting whom on the
fish-wharf, he had bid him a cheery good-bye.

"To make my fortune," was the bold reply.

"Make yer fortin? You're a goose, boy! Stick to yer work here,--fishin'
summers an' shoemakin' winters. Why, there isn't a young feller on the
hull Cape makes as much as you. What's up? Gal gin ye the mitten? Or
what?"

"I don't want to make shoes, nor fish neither, Uncle Shub," said
Elkanah, soberly, looking the old fellow in the face,--"goin' down to
the Banks year arter year in cold an' fish-gurry, an' peggin' away all
winter, like mad. I want to be rich, like Captain Crowell; I want to be
a gentleman, like that painter-chap that give me drawin'-lessons, last
summer, when I stayed to home."

"Phew! Want to be rich an' a gentleman, eh? Gittin' tu big for yer
boots, youngster? What's yer old man du but go down t' the Banks
regular every spring? You're no better 'n he, I guess: Keep yer trade,