stiff-willed fellows who only grow harder and more tough the more they
are ill-treated. It had been a long time now since he had made any
outcry or complaint at the hard usage he suffered from old Matt. At
such times he would shut his teeth and bear whatever came to him, until
sometimes the half-drunken old man would be driven almost mad by his
stubborn silence. Maybe he would stop in the midst of the beating he
was administering, and, grinding his teeth, would cry out: "Won't ye say
naught? Won't ye say naught? Well, then, I'll see if I can't make ye
say naught." When things had reached such a pass as this Molly would
generally interfere to protect her foster son, and then she and Tom
would together fight the old man until they had wrenched the stick or
the strap out of his hand. Then old Matt would chase them out of doors
and around and around the house for maybe half an hour, until his anger
was cool, when he would go back again, and for a time the storm would be
over.

Besides his foster mother, Tom Chist had a very good friend in Parson
Jones, who used to come over every now and then to Abrahamson's hut upon
the chance of getting a half dozen fish for breakfast. He always had a
kind word or two for Tom, who during the winter evenings would go over
to the good man's house to learn his letters, and to read and write and
cipher a little, so that by now he was able to spell the words out of
the Bible and the almanac, and knew enough to change tuppence into four
ha'pennies.

This is the sort of boy Tom Chist was, and this is the sort of life he
led.

In the late spring or early summer of 1699 Captain Kidd's sloop sailed
into the mouth of the Delaware Bay and changed the whole fortune of his