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London, Jack

"The Sea-Wolf"

I had had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the Ghost, I had learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible for some one else. And it was required of me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, for she was the one woman in the world- the one small woman, as I loved to think of her.



Chapter Thirty



? ? ? ? NO WONDER WE CALLED IT Endeavor Island. For two weeks we toiled at building a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept over her bruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of her because of it. There was something heroic about this gently bred woman enduring our terrible hardship and with her pittance of strength bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She gathered many of the stones that I built into the walls of the hut; also, she turned a deaf ear to my entreaties when I begged her to desist. She compromised, however, by taking upon herself the lighter labors of cooking and of gathering driftwood and moss for our winter's supply.


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