Captains Courageous

Harvey Cheyne is fifteen, insufferably rich, and utterly useless when he tumbles off an ocean liner into the cold Atlantic. A Portuguese fisherman hauls him aboard the schooner We’re Here, and instead of steaming him home, Captain Disko Troop puts the boy to work for a fisherman’s wage. Over a season on the Grand Banks, gutting cod and standing his watch beside the crew, Harvey learns what his father’s money never taught him. Kipling wrote the book after settling in Vermont, and the salt-crusted detail of the New England cod fleet gives the story its weight. It remains one of the warmest of his tales, a study of how hard work and plain company can remake a spoiled boy. This free PDF and EPUB edition brings that voyage back.