So the world and the years turn on their way of change and sadness still. The last deep-water link this seagoing farm had, the last link it had with people and ideas on the other side of the world, is broken and gone. The lost farmer-sailor who was at home in Tio and Batavia, Bremen and Liverpool and Venice, who had friends of good will all around the curve of the globe, had joined the older farmers who were also merchant princes and ambassadors of the young Republic of the West.
Yet in spite of the breaking of such old links, this seagoing farm will go on. Peter will have sons by Lucy who will inherit these hard, steep acres leaning away from the winds. His sons will learn to eke out agriculture by fishing. They will learn how to have a good time while doing a dozen different kinds of work at once, to have good health and great zest and joy in life, and to be themselves at all hours of the day and night, fair weather or storm. For while the Maine coast lasts, hearty all-round people, who are boatbuilders and sailors as well as farmers, will not perish from the earth.
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