They were poor people and unlettered.

They came of generations of poor unlettered people--peasants of the sea who sowed their sons on the waves as has been their custom since time began.

There is no more to tell." "But there is," I objected.

"It is still obscure to me." "What can I tell you ?" he demanded, with a recrudescence of fierceness.
"Of the meagreness of a child's life?
of fish diet and coarse living?
of going out with the boats from the time I could crawl?
of my brothers, who went away one by one to the deep-sea farming and never came back?
of myself, unable to read or write, cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the coastwise, old-country ships?
of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks and blows were bed and breakfast and took the place of speech, and fear and hatred and pain were my only soul-experiences?
I do not care to remember.

A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of it.