Then began ten happy years of life. They were the last ten years of American maritime prosperity, the close of the sailing ship era. Charters were plentiful; the _Viking_ made money. Captain Bradley found himself a man of means. Without question, he invested his earnings in ship-property; most of the transactions passed through Captain Marshall’s hands. Why not put his money into ships? Ships had been his life and the life of five generations before him, had made him a good living, had taught him all he knew. Most of his friends were doing the same thing. Few there were in those days among the old shipping people, who saw into the next quarter-century, who realized the nature and magnitude of the coming change. One year, five thousand dollars went to build a new house in the home town. Every captain built a new house, whether he used it or not. Captain Bradley’s house was occupied for the length of one China voyage, while Mrs. Bradley remained ashore and gave birth to a son, their only child. Except for this voyage, she accompanied her husband constantly on the sea. She had been reared to the life of wind and wave. In the _Viking’s_ spacious and comfortable cabin, they made their home from year to year. Their son passed his boyhood on ship-board. He was the apple of his father’s eye. Captain Bradley invariably spoke of him as "my Frankie" with a note of pride and affection in his voice. Sturdy and manly, the little boy filled the ship with the interest and activity of childhood. On a quiet evening in the trade winds, when Frankie had placed his mother’s deck-chair near the weather rail and crouched beside her, perhaps weaving for her amusement one of the strange fancies of which his head was full, it seemed to Captain Bradley that life had brought him all that a man could desire. A happy wife, a beautiful son, a splendid ship—good times, comfortable circumstances, a pleasant prospect: in youth he had dared to hope for such things, but had not expected to see the hope come true. Now life had given him confidence. He would sit on the weather bitts beside them, dreaming of the future, of that day when their son would be grown up, when he and his wife would retire from the sea.