j \ 
 
 I, 
 
 
,V- 
 
 THE% 
 
 BOY OF MOUNT RHIGI. 
 
 "DO THE DUTY NEAREST TO 1OU. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF "REDWOOD," " POOR RICH MAN," 
 
 " H0JHE,"-. ETC., ITTC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CROSBY AND NICHOLS. 
 
 1862. 
 
Entered, according to Act ol Congress, in the year 1847, by 
 
 CHAIiLES H. PELKCE, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 TERfcOTVPED AT TUB 
 fttO* TYPE AND STIJREOTTPE FOI/NOJ f 
 
 4 
 
fS 
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO JOSEPH CURTIS. 
 
 PERMIT me, my dear friend, to dedicate this book to 
 you ; and, in this mode, to express, a second time, my 
 respect for one who has devoted, and is devoting, a good 
 portion of his life, without the reward of money, or the 
 fee of celebrity, to the advancement of our young people, 
 the hope of our country. 
 
 C. M. SEEGWICK. 
 
 NEW YORK, May 22, 1848. 
 
 M174958 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS little book is the first of a series to be 
 published by Mr. Charles H. Peirce for the young 
 people of our country, for that ground in which 
 we sow hopefully and with promise. 
 
 The history of the poor " Bov of Mount 
 Rhigi " and his friend " Harry Davis," has been 
 written to awaken, in those of our young people 
 who have been carefully nurtured, a sense of 
 their duty to those who are less favored , to 
 show them that the ignorant, neglected, and 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 apparently vicious, have the germs of goodness 
 in their souls ; that patience, kindness, and af 
 fection, will fall like holy dew upon them, nour 
 ishing that which God has implanted. 
 
 That the safety of the republic depends on 
 the virtue of the people, is a truth that cannot 
 be too assiduously taught; and that it is the 
 business of the young, as well as of the oli, to 
 help on the cause of goodness, cannot be too 
 strongly impressed. 
 
 Perhaps some young persons may feel more 
 deeply, after reading the following story, than 
 they have felt before, what are their true riches ; 
 that, if they have no money to give, they have 
 a treasure to impart in the example of truth, 
 honesty, fidelity, and industry ; and in the action 
 of hope, patience, and kindness. If this story 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 invigorates the faith of the fortunate, and saves 
 from despair but one of the wretched, it will not 
 have been written in vain. 
 NEW YORK, July 17, 1848. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BOYS SPORTS, . 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON, 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 BERRYING, 52 
 
 * CHAPTER IV. 
 A CONFESSION, 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND, 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A GATHERING STORM 1 00 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 A TOTAL ECLIPSE, 122 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 A CHANGE OP SCENE, 134 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK, 142 
 
 * CHAPTER X. 
 JAIL COMRADES 165 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A CLERK S TRIALS, 177 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE BOOK-KEEPER, 192 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE, 208 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 A DYING CONFESSION, 219 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE REUNION, 228 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A DECISION, 237 
 
 CONCLUSION, 247 
 
THE BOY OF MOUNT EfflGI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 BOYS SPORTS. 
 
 " One touch of nature 
 Makes the whole world kin." 
 
 is a certain portion of the Tahconnick range 
 -JL of mountains, in the western part of Massachu 
 setts, called Rhigi, said to have been thus named by 
 Swiss emigrants who settled there, and who probably 
 came from the neighborhood of Mount Rhigi, in Switzer 
 land, one of the beautiful resorts of that most beautiful 
 land.* 
 
 * There are other similar traces of Swiss settlement in thii 
 neighborhood. Bash Bis/i, the lovely fall now becoming knows 
 and celebrated, is a corruption of a very common Swiss name of 
 their minor falls. The love of the father-land is expressed b> 
 the names the emigrant gives to the land of his adoption. Thf 
 Pilgrim bestowed on the New England settlements the name 
 of his old England home Norfolk, Suffolk, Boston, North 
 
SrORT. 
 
 Rhigi deserves the name which the loving wanderers 
 from their father-land gave to it. Like its prototype, it 
 overlooks a land of hills and valleys, rivers and lakes. 
 Its woodlands echo to the pleasant sound of the brooks 
 that glide down its declivities, and in its solitudes there 
 are small lakes bright mirrors of the stars known to 
 few except the sportsmen who frequent them. 
 
 Near the summit of the mountain there is a furnace, 
 and around it a scrambling village inhabited by colliers, 
 and forgers, and the loafers * who are usually attracted 
 about a place of this description. Behind the village, and 
 sunken rather below its level, and separated from it by 
 an intervening morass, is a bit of water, precious to 
 the sportsman, for it is excellent fishing-ground for 
 sunfish, perch, and pickerel. 
 
 On a certain September day, two boys were fishing 
 together on the margin of this pond. One was a fair- 
 naired, fair-skinned boy of fifteen, with rather noble fea 
 tures, expressive of truth, decision, and good temper. He 
 
 ampton, Stockbridge, &c., and the New Englander repeats 
 them in his new home in the far west. 
 * Low fellows. 
 
BOYS SPORT. 15 
 
 was tall of his years, and spare. His dress was frugal 
 and very neat, though it was Saturday afternoon, when 
 the accumulation of a whole week makes usually a 
 frightful amount of dirt on a rustic boy s clothes. 
 
 His companion was a year younger than himself, and 
 shorter by half a head. He looked strong and agile, his 
 muscles and sinews being well developed and wrought 
 by those best of all agents in such work, exercise and 
 pure air. His skin was weather-tanned, nut-brown ; his 
 hair hung in tangled, dark masses of curls. Beneath 
 them looked out an eye as keen as an eagle s. His nose 
 and mouth were handsome, and about the mouth there 
 was a love of fun and good-fellowship, an expression of 
 humor and kindliness, that were in strange contrast with 
 a contraction of his brow, and an expression of vigilant 
 anxiety, that gave him a look of age beyond his years. 
 The boys stood on a projecting crag that hung over a 
 deep pool of water. An old oak, scathed by lightning, 
 and wreathed by a pendent grape-vine, overshadowed 
 them. The oak was flanked by a thick ascending wood 
 land, through which wound a foot-path to the spot where 
 the boys were standing -It was a still, cloudy day, such 
 
iO BOYS SPORT. 
 
 as fishermen love, and they had rare luck ; the shorter 
 boy far better than the other, for as fast as he threw his 
 line in, it dipped, and out he drew it with a sunfish or 
 perch, and now and then a pickerel. 
 
 " Can any body tell me, Clap," said his companion to 
 the shorter boy, " why you catch so many more fish than 
 I ? Here I stand as still as a tombstone, and I manage 
 precisely as you do, and I have not had a real bite 
 for half an hour, and you have taken ten fish in that 
 time. It s too bad." 
 
 " There s a fellow ! " replied Clapham, without direct 
 ly solving his friend s question. " I never before caught 
 such a strapper as that, fishing off shore. You see, 
 Hal, I know just how to humor them. Fishing comes 
 by natur. Dad says so, and I believe it. The fish 
 know us. They know there s no kind of use in 
 dodging our lines." 
 
 "I ve got you!" exclaimed Hal, and jerked up his 
 line. The fish was off. 
 
 " That s no way, Hal," said Clapham, coolly throwing 
 up his line, with a large fish struggling on it. " You 
 are a prince at reading and writing, and such notions, 
 
BOYS SPORT. 17 
 
 Hal : hut for fishing, diving, and shooting, you ll never 
 be a match for me. You come on, though, a bit; 
 you ve a dozen fish there hoy?" 
 
 "Yes; but what is that? You ve full fifty." 
 
 " Thereabouts and I am worth fifty times as much 
 as you at fishing, Hal. There! there ! there s a 
 bite the fellow will scud off with line, pole, and all. 
 Ah! ah! See! see! see, Hal." The boys leaned over 
 the bank to watch a very large pickerel, that was warily 
 playing with Clapham s bait. He " nibbled gloriously, 
 but did not swallow the bait. 
 
 "He knows you, Clap, a little too well!" said Hal. 
 
 "I ll have the sarpent, yet," muttered Clapham. 
 
 While the boys were thus intently occupied, a tall 
 broad, heavy-framed man came down the shady foot 
 path behind them, with a string of game over one 
 shoulder, and a gun at the other. As much of a brim 
 as remained to his torn hat, was slouched over his eyes. 
 His hair, half gray, half still coal-black, was straight 
 and tangled, and his face was unshaven enough for an 
 Austrian soldier, or a city coxcomb. He had on a coarse, 
 red flannel shirt, without waistcoat or over-coat of any 
 
18 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 sort, satinet trousers, filthier and more ragged tha.ft his 
 shirt, and a red cotton handkerchief knotted around his 
 Imllock throat. A rare figure, indeed, he presented for 
 our country parts, where every man can, and most men 
 do, wear decent clothes. 
 
 He trod warily, as he approached the boys. He 
 needed not, for they were too much absorbed to heed 
 him. There was a keen glance from his eye, and a 
 malignant grin on his thin, close-set lips. Ha.ving got 
 close to Clapham, he gave him a kick with his broad, 
 bare foot, which sent him off into the water, growling 
 out, as he did so, " There, go to the devil, and learn next 
 time to do what I bid ye ! " 
 
 The suddenness and violence of the blow deprived 
 Clapham of all power of exertion. He was, in fact, 
 stunned, and was sinking without an effort, when Harry, 
 shouting to him in a desperate voice, plunged after him, 
 and brought him to the surface. Clapham, though used 
 as a fish to the water, had quite lost his self-possession, 
 and he grasped his friend instinctively. The boys were 
 in damr3r of sinking together. "Good enough for em," 
 said the half-drunk, brutalized wretch. Harry struggled, 
 
BUY& SPOK1 It) 
 
 and managed to keep both their heads above water till 
 Clapham had sufficiently recovered his self-command 
 to remain passive. Harry then dragged him to the 
 shore. In a few minutes more, Clapham was himself 
 again, though still ghastly pale. He shook off the 
 water, and, turning to the man, who looked at him as 
 he would have looked at a dog in like circumstances, 
 he said, "Dad, that wasn t fair." 
 
 The fattier laughed hoarsely, and walked on. 
 
 " Now that s a father for a boy to have ! " said Clap 
 ham, gazing after him, shaking his fist, and dashing off 
 a tear, that, in spite of his hardihood, his sense of his 
 father s brutishness drew from him. " I ll pay him. if 
 ever I grow up I will." 
 
 " O, hush, Clap he s your father," said Harry. 
 
 "There s no hush to it, Harry. I will. You don t 
 know nothing about him you don t begin to know 
 him. He a father! He makes me fetch and carry for 
 him till I am as tired as any dog. He makes me lie for 
 him, and and steal for him; and if I don t, he trios 
 to drown me ; and he would, if you had not jumped in 
 after me. How could you do it, Hal ? I wan t worth 
 
20 BOYS SPOUT. 
 
 it; and besides, don t you know that man or boy, that s 
 stunned and drowning, will pull you in?" 
 
 "Yes, I know that well; but I could not stand still 
 an! see you sinking. There are no two ways about 
 
 that." 
 
 "No, you could not it would not be you if you did, 
 Hal. I never shall forget this you see if I do." The 
 rough little fellow s phrases had not much in them, but 
 his brimming eyes, his flushed cheek, and his quivering 
 lips, filled out his meaning as he proceeded. " I don t 
 know so much as you do, by a great sight; but there 
 may come a time when I can do you a good "turn, and 
 you ll find me as ready as water is to run down hill." 
 
 "You always have been, Clap; so we stand but even 
 now. Talking of water running down hill, suppose we 
 fish along down stream going home ? " 
 
 " Agreed. The trout will bite as sharp as steel this 
 afternoon. I don t care how late I get to our den: late 
 or early, I shall only get a shaking." 
 
 The boys gathered up their fishing-tackle, slung their 
 fish over their shoulders, and pursued their way towards 
 the brook. After walking on for a few moments in si- 
 
21 
 
 lence, Clapham suddenly stopped, and, laying his hand on 
 Harry s shoulder, said, " May be, Hal, you think me a chip 
 of the old block ; but I m not altogether ; and if I had 
 any thing fit to be called father and mother, I should not 
 be very different from folks. When I have heard your 
 father speak to you friendly, and seen your mother s 
 doings your mother is complete I have had feel 
 ings I have. I have had more than one crying spell, 
 thinking of my bad luck in a father and mother." 
 
 "It is bad luck," replied Harry. "But come along, 
 let s fish a little now. We must soon be going home. 
 Mother is ahvays anxious if I stay out after dark. 
 Mothers always are, you know." 
 
 " Some mothers," replied Clapham, with an accom 
 panying sound, half groan and half growl. 
 
 Harry took no notice of this, and the boys, after hav 
 ing stopped to fish at quiet, shady places, pointed out 
 by Clapham as favorite trout-haunts, and having each 
 added a string of these favorite fish to their sport 
 ing treasure, hastened homeward. When they well 
 could, they kept to the margin of the brook ; but, where 
 they met with obstruction, from steep rocks or tangled 
 
22 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 shrubbery, they dashed into the channel, leaped from 
 stone to stone, and shouted in accord with the joy 
 ous mountain-stream. 
 
 Clapham, boy-like, forgot the trouble that had made 
 him so miserable a half hour before. The leaden clouds, 
 which had hung over them all day, were breaking away, 
 and rolling off in separate masses, dyed with shades of 
 yellow, purple, and rose color, by the setting sun; and, 
 intermingling with the deep blue sky, they were reflected 
 like pictures in the brook ; where, set back by a dam of 
 rocks, it offered to these lovely and ever-changing 
 images a glass-like mirror. The boys had planted their 
 feet on a little bit of an island, around which the water 
 gurgled; and Clapham, turning his eyes from the brook 
 to the wooded hills, lit up with a shower of golden light, 
 said, " Hal, is not this here brook a pretty kind of look 
 ing-glass ? " 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and a first-rate beauty looking in it 
 now. Trout-fishing in such a brook as this beats the 
 world. I read an anecdote, the other day, of a man 
 who went wade-fishing in such a place as this, and got 
 the gout in his stomach. The doctor told him it would 
 
BOYS SPORT. 23 
 
 kill him some day. * The Lord s will be done, he said ; 
 but I can t give up wade-fishing. I think don t 
 you, Clap? that half the pleasure is in the pleasant 
 places we go to?" 
 
 "I don t know. I never thought of it I somehow 
 feel better when I am out in sleek places if father 
 ain t with me." 
 
 "But had you not much rather come by the brook 
 than by the road? and don t you stop and look at tho 
 falls?" 
 
 " Why, yes, I do. The brook is lively kind o com 
 pany ; and the falls are pretty sleek, but nothing to 
 Bash Bish Falls. ! spent one whole day clambering 
 up to the Eagle s Nest. Looking down from there is 
 kind o wonderful. I forgot my fishing, and went to 
 sleep, and I had a dream there I tell you, Hal ! 
 When I waked, the stars were shining on me. I got 
 a rapper when I came home, though." 
 
 "What did you dream, Clap?" 
 
 " I dreamed I was lying at the foot of the fall, almost 
 naked, and awful hungry. I had lost my way, and did 
 not know how to get back amongst folks. 1 heard a 
 
4 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 voice say, Look up, and see, way, way up, where the 
 water first springs over the rock : there you must go. 
 Sheer up where the stream comes down. There is 
 no othor way. If you look back, you ll come crash 
 ing down; but keep your courage up, and you will 
 get safe to the Eagle s Nest, and find there every thing 
 you want in life. Now, you know, as it was a dream, 
 its being impossible did not stop me: so straight on I 
 went, the water spattering me and roaring in my ears. 
 I saw lions and tigers sticking out their heads between 
 the trees, and growling, and cat-o -mounts on the 
 branches ready to spring on me, and snakes crawling 
 and hissing along the rocks, and a toad with a face 
 just like my father s. O, I tell you, Hal, that 
 scared me. But I did keep on. 
 
 "You have not seen Bash Bish, Hal? Well, the 
 last leap of the water is on each side a rock that 
 springs up to a sharp point, and on that point I stood 
 as if I had wings ; but wings I had not, and how to 
 get off I did not know. There was a buzz of voices 
 all around me. They came out of the water, and out 
 of the trees, and one word they all spoke On! on 1 
 
BOYS SPORT. 25 
 
 What to do I did not know. There was no place my 
 foot could reach, no branch of a tree I could get hold 
 of. I had a kind of feeling, I suppose Elder Briggs 
 would call it faith, that if I believed the wcrda, and 
 looked up, I should go safe. So I fixed my eye on 
 the Eagle s Nest, and gave a spring up, and suddenly 
 there dangled before me a bright cord, that looked 
 as much like forked lightning as any thing. I caught 
 hold of it, and swayed back and forth ; I curled up 
 like a spider, but I did not look down; I held fast, 
 and felt myself drawn up; and I looked up to the 
 Eagle s Nest, and^. there stood a little, fat angel, just 
 such as they have on the tombstones ; she held the 
 cord, and smiled so friendly! Up, up I went like a 
 lark; but, as I came nearer, the angel seemed to 
 melt into solid light, that shone on the trees, and 
 down the falls, down into the very bed of the stream, 
 and clear away where it winds and turns like a snake ; 
 and it wag not fire-light, nor sun-light, but brighter, 
 more like aghtning of a dark night. But what was 
 queerest of all, there was a table set out with roast 
 
 pig, and turkey, and pumpkin pie, and mince, and 
 3 
 
26 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 every thing like Squire Allen s thanksgiving day. Just 
 then, I waked, and there I lay, flat enough, hun 
 gry as a hound, at the foot of the faL. Wasn t it 
 a drollish dream ? " 
 
 "Yes; and perhaps it will come to pass." 
 
 "Come to pass!" 
 
 "O, I do not mean your dream exactly, but some 
 thing that your dream is the sign of; as, when Joseph, 
 in Scripture, you know, dreamed that his brothers 
 sheaf made obeisance to his sheaf, it was a sign tie 
 would rule over them, and so forth." 
 
 "I don t know much about Scripture stories, Hal; 
 but tell me what my going up those rocks, and tho 
 tigers, and so forth, and the .little chubby angel, and 
 the roast pig, could be a sign of." 
 
 "Not really signs, Clap. The times have gone by, 
 mother says, when God teaches men by dreams; but 
 yours set me thinking, and so your scramble up that 
 mountain seemed to me the difficulties you have to 
 struggle with in breaking off your present way of liv 
 ing ; and the voices were God s urging us every way to 
 do right and the lions and snakes, and so forth, are 
 
BOYS SPORT. 27 
 
 the discouragements in your way ; and the cord, that 
 came to your aid, is the help that always comes if 
 you help yourself; and the roast pig, and so forth, 
 means your success at the end." 
 
 "Well done, Hal! you beat Elder Brings all hol 
 low!" Clapham was silent for a moment, and then 
 added, "Mam believes in dreams. O that toad, Harry, 
 with my father s face ! " Clapham paused, and then 
 said, in a lower and tremulous voice, "I felt, when I 
 looked at it, as if I were growing like it!" and then, 
 elevating his voice almost to a scream, he added, "Am 
 I like him? O, I am!" Poor Clapham s face as 
 sumed an expression of distress and shame. Harry 
 longed to know just what it meant; but he did not 
 then press him further. Clapham s father was known 
 to be a desperate man, his hand against every man, 
 and every man s hand against him, and Harry sus 
 pected that he had led his son into some evil-doing 
 that the boy was afraid to confess, lest Harry should 
 withdraw his friendship from him. 
 
 Clapham had yet to learn the nature and office of 
 tnie goodness ; that it upbraideth not, that it suffereth 
 
28 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 bng and is kind, that it is easy to be entreated, and 
 full of compassion. Good men have known tempta 
 tion and wrestled with it, and have overcome it No 
 man is so good that he has not felt the need of 
 asking pardon of God, his Creator and Judge ; no 
 man so good but he has felt, at times, ready to fall 
 down at the foot of the cross, and, with tears from 
 a contrite and overflowing heart, give thanks to that 
 blessed Savior who came to proclaim forgiveness of 
 sins to seek and to save the lost. 
 
 The better a man is, the more does he feel for 
 those who have wandered out of the right way ; he 
 allows for the circumstances of danger in which they 
 have been placed, and if they have fallen, he is 
 ready to raise them up. 
 
 The good man looks on all men as his brothers. 
 They may be poor and ignorant; they may have been 
 guilty of much wrong-doing, but he remembers that 
 they were created in the image of God, ard he knows 
 that image still exists, though dimmed and hidden by 
 many a sin. He desires, above all things, to see them 
 stand reclaimed among their fellow-men ; he hopes 
 
BOYS SPORT. 29 
 
 and believes they may turn their faces heavenward, 
 and lift their desires and aiins to the infinite love of 
 God which awaits the penitent. 
 
 Hanj Davis had not reasoned a.1 this out dis 
 tinctly ; but he was a true-hearted, kind-hearted boy. 
 He saw much good in Clapham, and believed him 
 capable of much more. He might have fallen into 
 a pit. " If I find it is so," thought Harry, " I will drag 
 him out, and help him on to the best of my ability." 
 
 After a little reflection, Harry said, " My mother 
 always says, when matters go wrong in this world, 
 we must do our best to right them. Now, if I were 
 you, Clapham, I would get some good place, and 
 live out" 
 
 "I should have to run away if I did. for mothet 
 wants me to pick up wood, and father wants me to 
 do every thing; but I would not mind running away, 
 for they are no parents to me, and I ve no need to 
 be a son to them. They never did any thing for me 
 but born me. But what could I do in a regular way, 
 Hal? I have never done any thing but gather berries, 
 and pick up nuts, and fish, and hunt, and do odd- 
 
30 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 come-short chores for mam. I am afraid, Htl, it 
 would not agree with me to go round and round m 
 the same spot, like a grindstone." 
 
 Harry Davis was of a different opinion. He 
 thought truly that his friend, Clapham Dunn, had 
 good faculties, which, though they had been hitherto 
 pretty much wasted and turned aside from any worthy 
 use, might be so employed as to make him a useful 
 and respectable man. Harry had talked with his 
 mother about Clapham. Harry had a great respect 
 for his mother s judgment, and his mother had said 
 that a boy, that was a first-rate fisherman, and who 
 never went hunting without bringing home game, 
 would have a keen eye, and a dexterous hand at 
 farming, or at mechanic-work. All this Harry now 
 repeated to Clapham, and urged upon him many 
 reasons for decision and exertion; in a boy s way 
 he urged them, and for that reason they had more 
 weight with his friend. "Now, let s start together, 
 Clap," he said; "I am going away from home next 
 fall, to begin the world : do you go, too. I begin as 
 poor as you do empty- handed, Clap, with better 
 
BOYS SPORT. 31 
 
 clothes, may be, because mother makes, and mends, 
 and manages, and keeps every thing decent; but we 
 are tolerably poor, Clap, I assure you, and if it were 
 not for mother, I don t know what would become of 
 us ; but we ll pay her for it one of these days." 
 
 "You say that with rather guess feelings, Hal, 
 from what I said, the very same words, down at the 
 pond," replied Clapham. He spoke in a melancholy 
 voice, as if fully aware of the difference of their 
 condition. Harry felt pained for him. " Yes, I do, 
 Clap," he said; "and it will never be the credit to 
 me to do well, that it will be to you, for I have 
 others to thank for what I am and shall be. Now 
 rouse up a good resolution look forward, and not 
 back, and leave this shambling way of life. Go 
 clear away ; and, by and by, when you get to be a 
 man, and forehanded in the world, come back, and 
 return good for evil to your father and mother." 
 
 "Do you think that ever could come to pass, 
 Harry Davis?" Already Clapham s eye brightened 
 with hope; and Jie boys, as they fished down the 
 stream, talked over their plans for the future. Clapham 
 
BOYS SPORT. 
 
 could not decide whether he would hire himself to a 
 farmer, 01- apprentice himself to a trade. Harry, though 
 only one year older than Clapharn, knew a good deal 
 more about the world than he did, and he advised him 
 to get any decent place where he might be allowed to 
 do chores, and go to school. " Mother says," he urged, 
 "that a man, in this country, is not a man without 
 some learning. Mother says he must know at least 
 how to read, write, and cipher. Mother says these 
 are the tools for all trades, and there is no getting on 
 without them." 
 
 "Nor with them, neither, always, Harry. Now, 
 there s your father, I don t mean any thing against 
 him. He s a master-man for learning, we all know. 
 The last time we went to Elder Briggs meeting, I heard 
 him read, and he sounded and rounded it off, I tell you. 
 Elder Briggs was no stick to him. Well, he s got the 
 tools, but he has not gone ahead ! " 
 
 " No, he has not ; but that does not prove any thing. 
 I have got as good fishing tackle as you have, Clap, but 
 I catch very few fish; without the tackle I could not 
 catch one ; nor could you, Clap, smart as you are. So, 
 
BOYS SPORT. 33 
 
 the tools are necessary, and mother says an ignoiant 
 man is at the mercy of other people. He must go to 
 them to read and write for him, and cast up his accounts. 
 And then, where almost every man, woman, and child 
 knows how to read and write, a grown-up person must 
 feel somehow below others, that does not know, and this 
 is a very disagreeable feeling. Besides, Clap, mother 
 says we are not to live for ourselves alone. We must 
 all do something for our fellow-creatures, and to do for 
 them, we must be something ourselves." 
 
 " Gorry ! " exclaimed Clap ; " I do something for my 
 fellow-creatures ! that s an idee, Hal ! That will be when 
 the sky falls, and we catch larks, I guess." 
 
 Clapham spoke jestingly ; but he was conscious of a 
 new feeling in his bosom. Harry Davis was one of the 
 best lads in Salisbury, and one of the brightest scholars 
 in the school, and Harry Davis Rad shown himself his 
 friend. He had that day risked his life for him, and he 
 was now advising and encouraging him, and poor Clap- 
 ham felt, for the first time, that there was one person in 
 the world who took a real interest in him, and who had 
 gome faith in him, and he felt a desire to preserve that 
 
34 BOYS SPORT. 
 
 interest, and to make himself worthy of it, and he felt, 
 too, that it was possible he might ; and visions of decent, 
 living, and school-going, and going ahead, dawned upon 
 him, and he threw himself back on the ground, k .cked 
 up his legs, and cried out, with a ringing laugh, " Hal, 
 I ll go it ! " 
 
 " That s it, Clap ; as mother says, be sure you re right, 
 then go ahead." Harry had hardly uttered the words, 
 when Clapham turned over on his face, and burst into 
 tears and sobs; and when Harry said, "What is the 
 matter now, Clap ? " he replied, " I can t tell you ; but if 
 you knew all, you would despise me, you would not have 
 any kind of a hope of me, you would not even fish with 
 me again no, you would not." 
 
 " But try me, Clap, and see if I won t. You can t 
 make matters worse by telling me." 
 
 "No, don t ask me^al. I can t I can t I won t 
 not now, I mean I can t" 
 
 " Well, be quiet consider of it we won t talk 
 any more about it now." 
 
 * The boys kept their homeward way, Harry asking 
 Clapham s attention to the pleasant spots, as he called 
 
BOYS* SPCMi. .15 
 
 them ; and Clapham, in reply, said, " It is a master- 
 pretty brook!" And so it is, with its hill sides of 
 stately trees, margins of flowering shrubs, herbs of 
 virtue, and flowers of many kinds. 
 
 A love of nature is not enough cultivated amonsr 
 rich or poor. Without it, one is like a blind man in 
 a gallery of beautiful and ever-changing pictures, like 
 a deaf man in a wide- world concert-room the Daint- 
 ings and the music of divine creation. 
 
30 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 Scorn not the slightest word or deed, 
 
 Nor deem it void of power ; 
 There s fruit in each wind-wafted seed 
 Waiting its natal hour " 
 
 CLAPHAM had given to Harry some "posies," as he 
 called a bunch of lovely fringed gentians, for his 
 sister Annie, and the boys had separated. Clapham 
 took a foot-path, which led through woods, to his home, 
 a wretched, lonely hut, on the mountain side, some two 
 miles from the village of Salisbury. It had oriffiriallv 
 been put up for a few weeks shelter to a collier. It 
 was not so comfortable as an Indian wigwam, and little 
 bettei than the den of a wild beast ; but, such as it was, 
 Norman Dunn and his wife Massy were content to 
 inhabit it, or rather to make it their head-quarters, 
 whence to go forth to prey on society. 
 
 Harry Davis s home was a small house on the out- 
 
THE GOOD RLRAL MATRON. 37 
 
 skirts of the village of Salisbury, within hearing of the 
 perpetual song of the little brook with which our readers 
 have been made acquainted, and which, as it crosses 
 the valley, widens to a stream as ornamental as a string 
 of pearls on a lady s neck. An intsrval of sunny land, 
 between the hill side and the brook, gave space for a 
 garden. 
 
 " I suppose your husband takes care of your garden, 
 Mrs. Davis " said a lady visitor, who one day dropped in. 
 
 " Not I, indeed," said Davis-, looking up from his 
 writing. "I have always something of rather more 
 consequence than that on hand." 
 
 " How do you manage to keep it so nicely, then ? n 
 asked the lady, " with all you have to do ? " 
 
 " Why, I must have a garden," replied Mrs. Davis. 
 " Mr. Davis don t refuse to plant the potatoes, and the 
 little girls are helpful at the weeds. And Harry we rks 
 in it at all his odds and ends of time, and I love it 
 so well, it s no chore to do what I can." 
 
 " Your potatoes look finely, Mrs. Davis." 
 
 " Yes, ma am, thanks to Harry ; he never neglects 
 hoeing them ; he knows they are my dependence." 
 
38 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 "But I am sorry to see so much room tak^n no 
 with cabbages, Mrs. Davis, they are so unwholesome." 
 
 "Why, I don t know, ma am. Working people don t 
 find so many tilings unwholesome as ladies do. Besides, 
 my husband is very partial to cabbages, and I like to 
 have him suited." 
 
 "What is that beyond the beans?" 
 
 " A bed of parsnips. They are relishing in the 
 spring, and my husband is fond of them. So, we never 
 spare parsnip seed, f have plenty of beans, too, you 
 see. The children are fond of beans, and they are 
 profitable ; they go a great way." 
 
 " I should not think it very profitable, Mrs. Davis, for 
 you to cultivate lettuces in that way. Does It not take 
 a great deal of time to tie them up so nicely ? " 
 
 "There s but a few tied up, and those are just to 
 please old Mrs. Allen. . The old lady thinks every thing 
 of head-lettuce, and her people don t make iruch of a 
 Balden." 
 
 " I suspect you make little account of trouble," said 
 tho lady. " You have peas, I see. Our landlord at the 
 inn tells us, in excuse .^>r Imving no peas, that they 
 
THE GOOD RU11AL MATRON. 39 
 
 * 
 
 take so much ground, and yield so little, that he cannot 
 be at the trouble of them." 
 
 " But when it s for their own children, no one thinks 
 of trouble. I like to be sure of green peas and roast 
 lamb. Independence day. The children enjoy "it, and it 
 somehow sets out the day from the rest of the year." 
 
 " And for whom are the peonies, and pinks, and 
 lilies, so well taken care of, dear Mrs. Davis, and the 
 roses so skilfully tied up and trained? And there s a 
 honeysuckle, too, my favorite flower." 
 
 "Why, ma am, for every one that loves to enjoy 
 them. They can t be confined to any body in particu 
 lar. God seems to me to have provided them, as he 
 does the rain, for the just and unjust. It s a pleasure 
 to me to see people stop and look over into the garden ; 
 and to a poor person, that has but little to give away, 
 it s a pleasure to give a bunch of flowers ^to a child, 
 or send it to a sick body." 
 
 "God bless you, Mrs. Davis," said the lady, as sho 
 took her leave; "I could not have believed that the 
 woman to whom I send my clothes to be washed co.ild 
 give me such instruction as to the use of rny fac- 
 
40 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 ) 
 
 ties, and the abounding means of good and content 
 ment." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to* describe Mr. Davids dwell" 
 j ing to convince our readers that, though in a ruinous 
 condition, it had all the decency and comfort that en 
 ergy and neatness in the mistress could give it. The 
 furniture, though racked by more moves than three, 
 
 which Franklin pronounces to be equivalent in destruc- 
 
 
 
 tion to a fire, was yet decent, and indicated a history 
 of better times. 
 
 There was one valuable piece of furniture in the 
 room that served Mrs. Davis s family for kitchen and 
 parlor a capacious old-fashioned bureau, surmounted 
 by a writing-desk and book-case, in which, with a few 
 volumes of history, poetry, and travels, and some well- 
 preserved school-books, there was a large family Bible, 
 not a grease-spot to be found on its well-read leaves, 
 not a dog s-ear on their corners. It had been used 
 with care and reverence. It is worth while to extract 
 a passage from good old Mr. Bethan s will Mr. Be- 
 Uian was Mrs. Davis s father concerning this Bible. 
 "Besides the five hundred dollars aforesaid, I give 
 
THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 41 
 
 and bequealli to my daughter Martha my great family 
 Bible, the same received from my honored father on 
 my wedding-day. I have brought up my children 
 ten in number on the milk and meat of its holy 
 word, and I recommend to my daughter Martha, 
 aforesaid, to do the same ; and may its nurture and ad 
 monition prosper with future generations, as, by the 
 blessing of God, they have done with my aforesaid 
 daughter Martha/ The good man s pious prayer was 
 granted. 
 
 Mrs. Davis did not lay her Bible on the shelf, 
 but she put it to the holy use suggested by her 
 father. She read in it daily to her children, and 
 explained it as well as she was able. She took 
 care not to weary them with the reading. She 
 turned to the Bible whenever she had occasion to 
 instruct them in a particular duty, or to reprove or 
 admonish them. If the children were out of humor, 
 and quarrelsome, she found in her Bible an admo 
 nition to peace art: brotherly love ; if they were 
 
 
 
 selfish, she showed them the requirement to do unto 
 
 others as you would that others should do to you 
 4 
 
42 THE GOOD RURAL MATHC JT. 
 
 a requirement that lays the axe at the rooc of all 
 selfishness. If they were unjust, unkind in their 
 judgment of others, impatient or discontented, ii 
 any thing went wrong, instead of flying cut upon 
 them, and scolding, she took the right moment, and 
 opened that precious gift of her father; and, in a 
 sweet and tender, and never an angry voice, she read 
 to them some passage which plainly forbade their 
 wrong-doing or feeling ; and then she would turn to 
 some word of encouragement, some promise of good 
 or favor, which made the children feel that He who 
 gave the law was their Benefactor as well as Judge. 
 " No tongue can tell," Mrs. Davis would say, " how 
 I feel my weakness in bringing up my children, 
 especially in correcting them ; but when I open my 
 Bible, there is strength and authority." 1 
 
 But to return to the book-case One of the 
 shelves was appropriated to Mr. Da vis s use. This 
 was filled with pamphlets and newspapers, one large 
 volume entitled " Wonderful Shipwrecks," a dream- 
 book, and a history of remarkable inventions, with 
 sketches of the lives of inventon rather apocalyptic 
 
TUB GOOD RURAL MA ."RON. 43 
 
 On the evening of Harry s return from his fish 
 ing, Davis was seated at his desk, with a large sheet 
 of paper before him, on which he was drawing the 
 figure of a plough he was in the act of inventing. 
 "Is that you, Harry?" he said; "I have wanted 
 you confoundedly, to copy this drawing for me ; you 
 can draw better than I, and it s fair I should get 
 something for the time you have wasted learning." 
 
 "Wasted, father! I hope not. I have got a 
 great many ideas from it already, as Mr. Lyman 
 says, and I am sure I have had a great deal of 
 pleasure, and that s worth something . And Mr. Ly 
 man says, if any one has the art of doing any 
 thing well, it will be sure to turn to account. 
 What would poor Mr. Lyman himself do, if it were 
 not for his knowledge of drawing?" 
 
 "Pooh! nonsense! Luck is a lord, and Lyman 
 is lucky." 
 
 "I should not call it luck exactly, sir." 
 
 "No matter what you call it. I want to send 
 a drawing of this to Washington.". holding up the 
 sheet of paper on which his plough was clumsily 
 
44 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 delineated, " and you will copy it ft r me this 
 evening, and make all these lines that are a little 
 agee and blotted, straight you see my hand trem 
 bles. Will you do it?" 
 
 Lyman was a young man ill the village who 
 had lost the use of one leg by a fall in his child 
 hood. When about fifteen, he had been sent to the 
 Boston Hospital for surgical aid. He was a long 
 time under medical treatment, but without material 
 
 benefit. Mrs. heard his melancholy case spoken 
 
 of with much interest by a medical friend, and 
 heard, at the same time, that his only pastime 
 
 was drawing, for T Thich he had a gift. Mrs. , 
 
 though the working head of a large establishment, 
 with unnumbered occupations, went to the Hospital 
 and instructed the lad in the science of perspective, 
 which she thoroughly understood, and gave him les 
 sons in drawing. This is but one of a hundred 
 
 similar acts of efficient charity of Mrs. . "What 
 
 a singular woman is Mrs. ! " said one of her 
 
 fashionable friends, with a curl of her lip. Would 
 to Heaven she were not singular, but that many 
 
THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 45 
 
 others would turn their talents and accomplishments 
 into daily bread for the less favored or unfortunate! 
 
 Daily bread it proved to young Lyman. He did 
 not recover his leg, but he went home with the 
 means of gaining his living. He diligently practised 
 the lessons he received ; and he has since had 
 plenty of employment from engravers, from an oc 
 ulist to illustrate diseases of the eye, and from 
 engineers to make drafts. 
 
 Lyman acted on Dr. Franklin s principle, he 
 "made the favor go round." He could only return 
 gratitude to his benefactress ; but when he found 
 our friend Harry had a taste for drawing, and an 
 inclination to improve it, he gave him an hour of 
 his winter s evenings. 
 
 Harry had cheerfully promised to comply with 
 ais father s wishes, and make the drawing, when 
 Davis gave utterance to a new want. "It s getting 
 dark," he said ; " do, Martha, light a candle." 
 
 "We have not one in the house," replied hia 
 wife, who was jogging the cradle with one foot, 
 while she chopped some potatoes for supper. 
 
46 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 "Have not: Well, send Annie over to Mrs. 
 Hubbard s, and borrow one." 
 
 " If I could see any way to pay it, I would." 
 
 "The wicked borrow, and never return." inter 
 posed little Annie. 
 
 "You will have to make out as I do, father," 
 continued Mrs. Davis, without heeding Annie s reply, 
 and she took from a closet some pine knots Harry 
 had collected, and, throwing one on the fire, it flamed 
 up and diffused a brilliant light through the room- 
 
 "This will do for the present," said Davis; "but 
 we must have a candle after supper. I have here 
 the most wonderful thing you ever heard of. Are 
 the fish almost ready to fry, Harry? I begin to feel 
 sharp. It beats the world. It is a self-moving 
 plough. It s all done to the moving power, and 
 that I shall work out in the course of the night. 
 Mind and fry some pork, that s thicker than a wafer, 
 with your fish, Martha. Talk about a candle ! 
 Why, in less than a year after the plough is on 
 sale, we ll have them by the box. There was never 
 such an invention heard of as a self-moving plough 
 
THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 47 
 
 Only consider, pbughs are used all over the world; 
 there s no limit to the demand. Cut a pie for sup 
 per, mother ; we had a slim dinner. There s no 
 calculating what my patent, may be worth to me ! " 
 
 "As much, may be, Thomas, as your patent for 
 the * Self-Churning Churn, or the Independent Wash 
 ing-Machine. " Mrs. Davis spoke with a smile, hall 
 sad, half incredulous, but not tauntingly; and, as ii 
 conscious of some difference of feeling between her 
 self and her husband, to soften it, she threw another 
 pine knot on the fire for his benefit. 
 
 "The churn, to be sure," said Davis, in rather 
 a meek tone, " had one fault it would not bring 
 the butter; but the Independent Washing-Machine was 
 complete, only the women-folks are so full of pre 
 judice, they would not use it. Desire Nash herself 
 told me it saved half the soap." And she might 
 have saved the other half too, for any good it did 
 the clothes in that machine, Martha Davis could have 
 retorted; but she was not in the habit of speaking 
 words that would irritate without doing any pos 
 sible good. She had lived with her husband fif- 
 
48 THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 
 
 teen years. He was what is called a scheming 
 man. He had a mechanical turn, and, if he had 
 kept steadily to the trade of a cooper, to which he 
 was bred, he would by this time have been a man 
 of substance ; but, being lazy as far as bodily ex 
 ertion goes, he was always contriving some short 
 and easy road to fortune. He would rather sit down 
 to the old desk and invent a plough, than to plough 
 a furrow. Wiser men than Thomas Davis have 
 miscalculated their powers, and mistaken their call 
 ing. That which spoils many a decent mechanic 
 had ruined him, an over-conceit of himself, and 
 an indolent disposition. His churn, he declared in 
 his purring advertisements, "might be managed by 
 a child six years old ; and a woman might sew, 
 knit, or read, while she churned." One poor woman, 
 who perseveringly tried it, said "she might have 
 read through Scott s Bible, notes and all, before the 
 butter came." 
 
 A bright vision of the " Independent Washing-Ma 
 chine " followed the churn. The getting up of these 
 cost vastly more. Once wound up, they went of them- 
 
THE GOOD RURAL MATRON. 49 
 
 selves but, after going one or two trips, they were 
 obstructed by some imperfection in the machinery, and, 
 like Balaam s ass, go they would not; and those who 
 had been persuaded to try them, gave them so bad a 
 name tha, the greater number unsold, decayed and fell 
 to pieces. Poor Mrs. Davis s little inheritance all went 
 to pay for the patents, the advertisements, and the 
 manufacture of the machines. One might hope that 
 this experience would teach Davis that his genius did 
 not lie in invention. Not at all. By this time, he had 
 neither workshop nor tools of his own; and once in a 
 while, when his wife s productive labors were suspended 
 by a lying-in, he turned into some other man s wort 
 shop, and earned enough to supply the most pressing 
 wants of his family. Davis had rather work than fore 
 go his three meals a day, and, to do him justice, he 
 was good-natured, and could not quietly see his family 
 suffer; but, the pressure removed, he reverted to his 
 old occupations, and was again at his desk, drawing 
 pi ins for patent clocks, patent axles, patent hoes; and 
 now he had been a month working out his design for 
 
 the " Self-Moving Plough: 1 One of the mischiefs of 
 5 
 
50 THE GOOD RURAL MATKON. 
 
 the sanguine disposition that usually attends this in 
 vention, was a perpetual moving from place to place, 
 now to some little trading town on the Hudson, where 
 he expected new facilities, then back into the interior, 
 for some visionary advantage. Always to be blessed. 
 Each remove involved fatigue and loss to his much- 
 enduring wife. 
 
 Davis willingly left his desk for the savory invita 
 tion of the supper-table, and, ,when there, after helping 
 his wife and children to the perch and simfish, he 
 coolly took the trout to himself, saying that he had 
 always been remarkable for his love of trout. 
 
 " Don t you like trout, too, mother ? " asked little 
 Lucy. 
 
 " Yes, Lucy, but your father cares more about them 
 than I do." 
 
 " Surely, Martha," said Davis, helping himself to 
 the last trout in the dish, "you did not cook all 
 the trout Harry caught. My appetite is only just 
 whetted." 
 
 " I did save out a relish for old Mrs. Allen s break 
 fast. The old lady is partial to trout" 
 
THE GOOft RURAL MATRON. 
 
 "Pooh! Old folks should not be setting their hearts 
 on such tilings." 
 
 "O father!" exclaimed little Lucy. The others 
 said nothing. Harry blushed, and they all felt their 
 father s coarse selfishness. 
 
 "Why upon earth, Martha," asked Davis, while he 
 gleaned out every morsel, " did you not put more pork 
 with the fish? I desired you to." 
 
 "There is no more in the house." . 
 
 "But there is plenty at Smith s. A little more 
 sugar in my tea, Martha." 
 
 "I put in the last spoonful." 
 
 "Well, wife, I don t see the use of vour slaving 
 yourself all summer washing for those New York gen 
 try up at the tavern, if we cant get sugar for our 
 tea." 
 
 "We have many oilier umigs besides sugar to 
 get." 
 
 " Never mind ; we ll have sugar plenty, and of the 
 best, when my ploughs begin to turn up the ground." 
 
51 BERRYING 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " All was so light, so lovely, so serene, 
 And not a trouble to be heard or seen. 
 
 SATURDAY is school-children s holiday all over our 
 world, and on the Saturday following that of the 
 boys fishing sport, Mrs. Davis had promised her chil 
 dren that they should go berrying. It was rather late 
 for blackberries ; but Clapham knew a place among the 
 hills where blackberries, always late, were now in 
 abundance and perfection, and Clapham had promised 
 to come down and pioneer them to the spot. Poor 
 Clapham had washed himself in the brook, as clean as 
 water without soap (an article his home did not afford) 
 could make him, had combed out his hair, which 
 turned off from the comb (a comb Harry had given 
 to him) in curls, clustering one over another, had put 
 on a well-j) .tchod roundabout, a present from Harry, 
 
BERRYING. 53 
 
 and SOWD ap the rips and tears in .his pantaloons as well 
 as, he could, and was going forth whistling, with a 
 light heart, when his mother called after him, " Mind, 
 Clap, you don t forget to bring me the snuff. You 
 know you promised, if I washed your shirt, you would." 
 
 "I ll get it, and no mistake," said Clap, keeping 
 on his way. 
 
 " And, Clap," said she, running after him, " here is 
 my mixtur-bottle it don t hold nothing, hardly just 
 get it rilled with Jamaica my stomach is so cold 
 to-day. Here is a ninepence." 
 
 Clapham stopped. " You told me," he said, " when 
 you asked me to sell berries for the snuff, that you had 
 not a cent in the world." 
 
 "I had not then, Clap don t be mad you know 
 I never tell lies. I found this, since, in dad s cor 
 duroys." 
 
 "Put it back, then, mam. We are bad enough 
 without stealing from one another;" and he flung the 
 bottle against a rock, and shivered it to atoms. 
 
 " You re an ondecent, ongrateful boy ! You ve no 
 feeling for your own mother," scolded and whimpered 
 
54 BERRYING. 
 
 Massy. Clapham did not heed her. He had looked 
 forward, all the week, to this afternoon ; his home was 
 behind him, and even his wretched mother could not 
 cast c. shadow over the sunshine of his present pleasant 
 expectations. It was one of the brightest of Septem 
 ber days, warm, but not too warm, with a freshness 
 in the air that painted Clapham s cheek with a glow 
 as ruddy as that of the leaves which here and there 
 were already dyed in their rich autumn colors. Clap- 
 ham, at this moment, looked so handsome, so joyous, 
 
 that it seemed as if some good angel must rescue him 
 
 > 
 
 from the probable destiny of his life. That good angel 
 must be the firm resolve, the manly struggle of the 
 boy himself! 
 
 It seemed to Clapham that he saw Rhigi, the 
 brook, the sky, the world, with a new eye skice Harry 
 had RDoken of the "pleasure of being out in pleas 
 ant places." It never before looked so beautiful to 
 him, and down he went along the stream, swinging 
 from bough to bough, singing and whistling as he 
 went. 
 
 He had left the stream at a fall of some fifteen or 
 
BERRYING. 55 
 
 twenty feet, and come again upon it at some distance, 
 when a curve of the shore brought him directly in face 
 of it, where some stout old grape-vines, hanging from 
 the trees, had been woven into a seat. Clapham stopped 
 to look at it, and, Avhile he was lookmg, something glit- 
 cered among the weeds at his feet. It was a purse of 
 silk and steel beads, and near it lay a pencil. " Ah, Mr. 
 Lyman s!" thought Clapham. "I might have guessed 
 he had been drawing here, when I saw the seat." He 
 slid the purse s rings. " Goodness me ! five dollars, and 
 evev so much change ! " He replaced the bank note 
 and silver, as if they had scorched his fingers, thrust 
 the purse into his bosom, and buttoned his roundabout 
 tight over it, and walked on faster than before. Many, 
 many thoughts crowded upon the poor boy. " No, 
 no ! I will not," he said aloud. " I m not fit com 
 pany for Harry and Annie with these old duds of 
 pantaloons, and no shoes; but I should be unfitter if 
 I bought new with this money. No! I will carry it 
 to Mr. Lyman, and Harry will know it, and like me 
 better for it; and then I shall may be dare to tell 
 bim all. But that s no great honesty just to give Mr. 
 
5G BERRYING. 
 
 Lyman his own, to get Harry s friendship. If I could 
 do it just because it is honest and right to do it, and 
 for nothing else, then I should think something of 
 myself; I should somehow be sure of myself, and that 
 somehow would be better than even having Harry think 
 well of me. Hurrah ! I ll go it ! " he shouted, clapping 
 his hands. "I ll carry it to Mr. Lyman, and get his 
 promise not to say a word about it." Clapham Dunn 
 was a happy boy that day. 
 
 In a little time, he bounded into Mrs. Davis s house, 
 exclaiming, " All ready ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed," replied Harry and Annie, in a breath, 
 " only mother is afraid to let Lucy go. She thinks 
 she will be too tired." 
 
 " O, please, Mrs. Davis, let her go. Why, it is not 
 any thing to get her up there. She is as light as a 
 feather, Lucy is. I can carry her all the way in my 
 arms, or on my back." 
 
 " So he can, mother, as easy ! " pleaded little Lucy. 
 
 " Well, go, child ; and take the plaid shawl with 
 you, Annie, to tie round her, if it comes cool towards 
 evening. Lucy is not as strong as the rest of you 
 
BERRYING. 57 
 
 but you need not carry her, Clapham ; only now ind 
 then, if she gets tired, give her a lift." 
 
 "She shall not get tired, dear mother," said Harry. 
 " Clapham and I can make a hand-chair, and carry her." 
 The boys clasped hands, Lucy jumped on to the seat, 
 and put an arm on the shoulder of each boy ; Annie 
 followed with the baskets ; and so they all went forth, 
 chattering and laughing, while the good mother stood 
 at the door, her eye fondly following them, and her 
 heart echoing the music of their gleeful voices. After 
 going along the margin of the brook for a while, they 
 turned off, and ascended through the woodlands to the 
 blackberry field, the land of promise. It was a large, 
 scrambling field, on the declivity of Rhigi, with the 
 oriery blackberry skirting all the woodland, and growing 
 in scattering clumps about the field. Our young friends 
 were soon reenforced by children from Salisbury and 
 young mountaineers from Rhigi. A voice of some 
 fortunate and generous child would be heard shouting, 
 "O, what a good place I have found!" and then a 
 swarm would gather and share the spoil, while others, 
 more selfish, more wary, and more intent on filling 
 
58 BERRYING. 
 
 their baskets than on any social pleasure, would creep 
 about in hidden places, and never impart to others 
 their good fortune. The Davises and Clapham kept 
 together. Clapham s wood-craft stood him in good 
 stead. He Jmew every bush in the field; he could pick 
 twice as fast as any one else. Annie wondered how 
 her basket filled so rapidly, till she detected Clap- 
 ham dropping in a handful of the largest and ripest 
 berries ; and she exclaimed, " O, it s you that have filled 
 my basket, Clapham, and not I ; " and little Lucy said, 
 " It s all of you that fill my basket, and they are all so 
 ripe and good ; but Clapham s are the bester of all." 
 
 " And you are the bester little girl," said Clap- 
 ham ; " and do you stay here with Annie, while Hal and 
 I go up to a clearing, where there s a royal place. 
 We ll be back in less than no time." The girls as 
 sented, and the boys run off. Annie made a little 
 cushion of the blanket shawl for Lucy, and the girls 
 sat down to eat a bit of gingerbread their mother 
 had tucked in one of their baskets. 
 
 " How pleasant it is here ! " said Annie, lying down 
 on the ground. "See, Lucy, how the white clouds 
 
BERRYING. 59 
 
 sail over our heads ; and hark ! don t yc n hear the 
 fall?" 
 
 " O, yes ! I wish we lived here always. What 
 do peoples live in houses for, Annie ? " 
 
 " Why, would you like to live here at night, Lucy ? " 
 
 "Yes, Annie, if the sun would only shine at night, 
 and mother would come here, and you, and Harry, and 
 Clapham would live with us. I love Clapham; don t 
 you love Clapham, Annie?" Before Annie replied, 
 Hancock Coles and James Willett, two boys from 
 the neighborhood, joined them. "Love Clap Dunn! 
 that s a good one," cried young Coles. " He s a pretty 
 fellow to love, or like, or put up with any way. Harry 
 Davis disgraces himself to keep company with him." 
 
 " Hancock disgraces hisself to say so, don t he, 
 Annie ? n whispered Lucy. Annie, who had risen to 
 her feet at the approach of the boys, nodded a very 
 hearty assent, and Lucy turned to Hancock, and, doub 
 ling her little fist, and shaking it most energetically 
 at him, she said, "You don t know Clapham!" 
 
 * Don t I ? That s a good one, an t it, James ? Don t 
 knoTr Clap Dunn, and his father before him! My 
 
60 BE R HONG. 
 
 father says, Norman Dunn, and Massy, and Clap into 
 the bargain, ought to be sent to State s Prison. Don t 
 know Clap Dunn! Clap, that robbed our hen-roost 
 when he was seven years old ! " 
 
 Annie could no longer restrain her bursting indig 
 nation. "If he did, he has never robbed since," she 
 said ; " and who was it, Mr. Hancock Coles, that robbed 
 poor old Mrs. Allen of all her plums when he was 
 twice seven years old? You may look mad, but you 
 can t deny it. And if poor Clapham has a bad father 
 and mother, he can t help that ; and I don t think they 
 are any worse than " 
 
 Annie s kind heart checked her, or perhaps it was 
 a certain innate sense of the hardship of reproaching 
 a child with a father s wrong-doing. She had that 
 \rery morning been present when one of the gossips 
 of the village had related at the Davises an anecdote 
 of Coles, Hancock s father, who was a noted horse 
 jockey, having taken advantage of the necessities of a 
 poor woman who had just lost her husband, and so 
 overreached her in the purchase of a pair of horses 
 that his conscience forced him to allow her five dollars 
 
BERRVIHG. 
 
 over and above the bargain, and that he gave it to 
 her, saying. "I feel so much for you, ma am, being 
 a widow, that I present you five dollars."* Annie 
 might not have quite comprehended the transaction, 
 but she perceived that, in addition to dishonesty, there 
 was meanness and ostentation, and that therefore it 
 was worse than bare thieving. 
 
 We wish that the principles of strict honesty and 
 unwavering truth, in which Mrs. Davis educated her 
 children, were universal. Then there would be an 
 end of the false coloring, the false weighing, the 
 false counting, the keen bargaining, to which the 
 greed of gain leads a portion of our New England 
 people, and which is we say it with shame and 
 sorrow their besetting sin. Greed of gain is the 
 besetting sin of the most civilized, the best, and the 
 most favored people of God s earth. My young 
 friends, reform it, reform it altogether. 
 
 Annie had checked herself as she was on the 
 point of reproaching Hancock with his father s mis 
 deed but little Lucy, who shared her sister s re- 
 
 * Fact. 
 
62 BEEKYlNCr. 
 
 sentment without feeling the same impulse to restrain 
 it, said, "My Annie means that Clapham s peoples 
 ain t any worse than your peoples, Mr. Hancock." 
 
 " Take that for your impudence, miss ! " said 
 Hancock, kicking over little Lucy s basket of black 
 berries ; and he was on the point of stamping on 
 the fruit and crushing those beautiful, selected ber 
 ries ; but, seeing Harry and Clapham emerging from 
 the woodland above, he sneaked off with his com 
 panion. Lucy was left crying bitterly. "He s an 
 awful boy!" she said; "I ll tell Harry of him, and 
 I ll tell Clapham every thing he said about him." 
 
 " O, no,- no, no, dear Lucy, don t ; it will make 
 the boys so mad ; and may be they will have a fight 
 with Hancock. Don t say one word about it, Lucy, 
 I will pick up all the berries. Clapham will feel 
 dreadfully if you - tell him. See, they are not tho 
 least hurt, the grass is so clean. Do not say one 
 word to Clapham. Mother says we must never tell 
 one person what another says against him; it only 
 makes more trouble, mother says, and I know Clap- 
 ham will feol so bad poor Clapham ! " 
 
BERKi lNG. 63 
 
 "I won t tell him then, Annie but it s too bad;" 
 and the little creature wiped away her tears with 
 her stained hands, suppressed her sous, and cleared 
 up her face as well as she could, before the boys 
 carne up to them. 
 
 "Why, what s the matter, Lucy, darling?" ex 
 claimed Harry; "the blackberries spilt? O!" 
 
 "Is that all?" said Clapharn. "Never mind, Lucy; 
 it s no fault of yours, I dare say it s a sideling 1 
 place here. Don t, Annie, plague yourself to pick 
 up the rest. I have some first-rate ones here in 
 this nice paper your mother wrapped the ginger 
 bread in. I picked them on purpose to cream over 
 your and Annie s baskets. There," he added, shaking 
 them over the tops of their baskets, "there, it s all 
 neat and complete." 
 
 Lucy s happiness was quite restored. There was 
 no vestige of the grief and disturbance, except now 
 and then a glance askance, from her sweet blue 
 eye, at Annie, which indicated a consciousness that 
 a great secret was sleeping in her little bosom. 
 
 The young people proceeded homeward, and wore 
 
Cl BERRYING. 
 
 again traversing the foot-path along the brook, in 
 whose pure water they had washed away the stains 
 on Lucy s face and hands. She was on Clapham s 
 back. He had gathered for her, by the way, the 
 golden-rod, asters, and the lovely fringed gentian, 
 and Annie had tied them in her pocket handkerchief, 
 which swung on Lucy s arm. The flowers were 
 peeping out in every direction. They had stopped 
 under a sumac, whose leaves were already of a bril 
 liant red, and Harry, at Lucy s request, had pulled 
 away from the sumac a clematis that was wreathed 
 around it, and which is scarcely less beautiful in the 
 silken green tassels of its seed-time, than with its 
 delicate summer flowers. The whole vine had fallen, 
 and its branches dropped around the children, so as 
 to wreathe them together enchantingly. At this mo 
 ment, Lyman met them, and the group struck the 
 painter s eye. He thought he had never seen any 
 tiling so beautiful. "O, stand still!" he said; "stand 
 still, every one of you, for a few moments. Let the 
 vine be just where it is over your heads, and shoulders, 
 and arms. No, Annie, don t move the baskets ; leave 
 
BERRYING. 65 
 
 your shawl on the ground. O Many, this is what I 
 call a painter s opportunity! If I could but give such 
 coloring as I see now, Lucy s face so lovely, so 
 fair on one side, Clapham s 
 
 Those azure veins 
 Which steal like streams along a field of snow 
 
 and that snow against Clapham s brown and ruddy 
 cheek, and that hair like sunbeams floating over his 
 massy, dark curls, and that chubby hand over his 
 shoulder with the handkerchief of flowers, and you 
 all interwoven in the clematis, and the brook and Ilie 
 hill side, and the last rays of the sun on the distant 
 mountain tops, O, it is a living picture ! But I can 
 do nothing with it," he said, despairingly, putting up 
 his pencil ; " perhaps, hereafter, I may recall it." 
 
 But their happy day was coming to an end; and 
 the young people, released from their sylvan bondage, 
 hastened homeward, stopping only once more, and 
 then at old Mrs. Allen s, who, as Harry said, waa 
 old and lame, and should not be forgotten. They all 
 insisted on her taking a portion from their overflowing 
 baskets; and, as they went away, richer for what they 
 
66 BERRYING. 
 
 had imparted, the grateful old lady wiped a tear of 
 pleasure from her eyes, saying, " Never were there 
 just such children! Like mother, like children; and 
 Clapham they are sort of missionaries to him. 
 What a smile the boy has ! such white teeth ! and 
 he looked so happy, poor child!" 
 
 Poor child he was not that day not to be pitied. 
 "We have had a real good time a lucky day," he 
 said to his young friends, as they bade good night; 
 and he went off to sell his berries in the village, to 
 buy the snuff for his mother, and, last of all, to restore 
 Mr. Lyman s purse. Lyman said he had not yet 
 missed it ; and, counting the money, he said, " There s 
 not a penny gone. I never should have known where 
 I lost it, or suspected who found it," he said. "Clap- 
 ham," he added, "you are more honest than you have 
 the name of being." 
 
 "I am," replied Clapham, blushing, but returning 
 his glance with a steady eye. "You shall be re 
 warded though, Clapham ; " and Mr. Lyman offered him 
 all the silver the purse contained. 
 
 " I do not wish any reward," Clapham said ; " but 
 
BERRYING. 67 
 
 one thing, Mr. Lyman, I ask of you. Be kind enough 
 not to tell any one that you lost the purse, or that I 
 found it." 
 
 "Why, how odd, Clapham!" 
 
 "Will you promise this, sir?" 
 
 "Yes. But you are a strange boy." 
 
 "Perhaos 1 am," said Clapham; and they parted 
 
68 A CONFESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A CONFESSION. 
 
 " He built a foundation of Repentance with the strong cement 
 of Sincerity. Thereupon was placed the superstructure or Hope, 
 on whose summit the light of Heaven steadily shone." 
 
 ON the Thursday evening following, Clapham ap 
 peared at Mrs. Davis s door. A change seemed 
 to have come over his spirit since the pleasant berry 
 ing day. He looked more neglected, sadder, more 
 troubled, than usual. Nothing in particular had oc 
 curred to make him so; but his present life, in con 
 sequence of his association with the Davises. and of the 
 hopes Harry had inspired, and the prospects his friend 
 had set before him, was becoming more distasteful to 
 him, and his wretched home more and more hateful. 
 He felt too, more and more, the burden of an uncon- 
 fessed sin on his mind ; and he was constantly tor 
 mented with the fear that if Harry knew all, he might 
 withdraw his friendship. 
 
A CONFESSION. 69 
 
 Norman, as usual, had sent his jug down to be 
 filled, and Clapham had left it behind a rose-bush 
 at the gate. He had sold a string of fish in the 
 village, reserving a half dozen, which he asked Mrs. 
 Davis to accept. "There is but one trout," he said; 
 " and that I brought for little Lucy, she is so fond 
 of counting the bright spots on them. Where is she, 
 Mrs. Davis?" 
 
 " In the bed-room, Clapham. Poor little Lucy is 
 not well ; go in and show her the trout. Thank 
 you for the fish, Clapham ; it s the gift in season. 
 I had nothing fresh in the house for father he is 
 very fond of fish." 
 
 " I wish Mrs. Davis would keep the fish to her 
 self," thought Clapham; but he did not say it. He 
 proceeded to the bed-room. Lucy s cheek, burning 
 with fever, dimpled at his approach. She was de 
 lighted with the trout, and still more delighted with 
 a bunch of fresh fringed gentian which Clapham 
 had brought to her, and which Annie promised to tie 
 into one of Lucy s favorite wreaths. " How pretty ! " 
 said Lucy, pulling open one of the flowers ; " as 
 
70 A CONFESSION. 
 
 blue as the blue sky." Annie took up the word, 
 and quoted a stanza from Bryant s Fringed Gentian. 
 
 "Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
 Look through its fringes to the sky ; 
 Blue blue as if that sky let fall 
 A flower from its cerulean wall." 
 
 " Why, that s just what I said ! " resumed Lucy. 
 " How kind you are, Clapham ! O Annie ! " she 
 added, and drew Annie down to the bed and whis 
 pered to her; and Annie took from her work-basket 
 a pocket-handkerchief on which the Declaration of 
 Independence was printed. Harry had bought it with 
 money of his own earning, to give to Clapham. 
 Little Lucy had hemmed one of its sides, her first 
 "real sewing," she said, for she counted the patch 
 work on which she had learned for nothing. Annie 
 had finished the hemming, and marked Clapham s 
 name full out. Lucy told its history, and said, " Now, 
 Clapham, 
 
 You must keep it as long as you live, 
 And never lose it, and never give. " 
 
 "Never! never!" said Clapham; "and I thank 
 you all a thousand times." 
 
A CONFESSION. 71 
 
 "And that is quite enough," said Mrs. Davis. 
 "Now, Clapham, will you lend Harry a hand at carry 
 ing my clothes home for Mrs. Dawson and the other la 
 dies ? " Clapham, as always, was ready. " And, Harry," 
 added Mrs. Davis, "take a vial, and get some castor- 
 oil, at Johnson s, for Lucy. Bring a light here, Annie. 
 I must get out some money to pay for it." 
 
 Annie brought in a candle, and Mrs. Davis went to 
 a bureau which stood near a small sliding window, 
 opened a drawer, and took from a box a purse con 
 taining all her treasure, the product of a summer s 
 washing for a large family from New York, who had 
 been boarding in the village, and who had paid her, 
 ungrudgingly, New York prices. She had, in her own 
 mind, appropriated every shilling of it to some good to 
 be obtained for her children. No wonder she looked 
 at it with pride and pleasure. A small sum, hardly 
 earned, gives more happiness to the contented laborer 
 than a great amount of riches to the rich man. Thus 
 a kind Providence throws in compensations ! 
 
 While Mrs. Davis was selecting a quarter of a 
 dollar from a handful of silver in her hand, on which 
 
2 A CONFESSION. 
 
 til 3 candle was gleaming, there was a noise against 
 the outside of the house, by the window. 
 
 "What s that, mother?" asked Annie, starting. 
 
 " It s the cow," said Harry, " knocking down father s 
 model plough ! " 
 
 " But I thought I saw a shadow of something," said 
 Annie. 
 
 " No doubt ; and a shadow of any thing is enough 
 to scare you. What harm can a shadow do you, 
 Annie ? " 
 
 "But there is always a substance where there is a 
 shadow, Harry." 
 
 "Nonsense, Annie! I wish you would not be a 
 goose, like other girls. Come, Clap, let us go. Per 
 haps we shall meet this dreadful substance, Annie." 
 The young people laughed, little dreaming that Annie 
 had seen indeed a substance and the shadow of a 
 fearful coming event! 
 
 The boys, after depositing the snow-white clothes, 
 proceeded to Mr. Johnson s shop Clapham to fill the 
 jug, and Harry the vial. The shop was closed. 
 
 "Deuce take it!" said Clapham; "just my luck!" 
 
A CONFESSION. 73 
 
 " Never mind. Clap ; you can go on to Smith s shop, 
 or, what is still better, take your jug home empty." 
 
 "Yes, and get a beating, that father has promised 
 me if I bring it home empty ; and this is the only kind 
 of promise he keeps. I have spent two hours trying 
 to sell my fish; and but for the New York people, I 
 should not have got a penny in cash. Our Salisbury 
 folks know where money goes that comes to us. But, 
 Harry, are you not coming along with me to Smith s ? " 
 "No; mother told me, if I did not find Johnson s 
 open, to get the oil at the doctor s." 
 
 " O ! but, Harry, I say, do go to Smith s with me." 
 "I am in a hurry, Clap, to get home." 
 "We won t be a minute; we ll run all the way." 
 "Thank you, I am too tired to run. I have been 
 on foot to Canaan to-day, for father." 
 "Do come, Harry." 
 
 "I cannot, Clap; mother will want me." 
 But Clapham, contrary to his usual habit, insisted, 
 almost with tears ; and when Harry said, " Why, what 
 is the matter, Clap? can t you go alone?" he replied, 
 
 " No, I cannot ; " and, turning off, he muttered, " I ll go 
 7 
 
74 A CONFESSION 
 
 home, and ,ake the beating, and .nam will cry because 
 I have not got her snuff. Hang it! I wish we were 
 all dead together!" 
 
 " O, mercy, Clapham ! don t talk so. I will go with 
 you ; but what is the reason you cannot go to Smith s 
 without me?" 
 
 "Ask me no questions, and I ll tell you no lies, 
 Harry." Not another word was spoken till they got 
 to Smith s, excepting that once, when they paused for 
 breath, Clapham said, " Harry, you ve got a home. We 
 live in hell." The upper part of the shop-door was 
 of glass. "Stop a minute," said Clapham, as Harry 
 put his hand on the latch; and then, keenly reconnoi 
 tring the shop, he added, "Mr. Smith is not in; you 
 may open the door, Harry." 
 
 The boys drew up to the counter, and stood quietly 
 there, while the only clerk in the shop served two 
 women. Clapham hid his jug as well as he could 
 with his tattered frock coat In a few moments, the 
 clerk s eye fell upon them. Harry perceived his 
 countenance changed at the sight of Clapham ; he per 
 ceived, too, that Clapham drew nearer to him. The 
 
A CONFESSION. 75 
 
 clerk continued eyeing him askance, while he tied up 
 the women s parcels ; that finished, he approached the 
 boys. Harry asked for the oil, and Clapham, laying 
 down a half dollar, asked for a half gallon of rum, and 
 a quarter of Scotch snuff. 
 
 The clerk half smiled as he turned away and went 
 to the farther extremity of the shop, where a high 
 writing-desk was placed. The boys now perceived 
 that the master of the shop was sitting behind it; and 
 Harry was conscious that this discovery caused Clap- 
 ham slightly to tremble. The clerk spoke so low to 
 Mr. Smith that they could not hear a word he said; 
 but, as what passed came out afterwards, there is no 
 harm in telling it in this place. 
 
 " Clapham Dunn is in the store, sir," said the clerk. 
 
 "He is, is he?" said Mr. Smith, starting from his 
 chair; but, on perceiving Harry Davis, he sat down 
 again. " Did he come in with Harry Davis ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir, and they seemed to be in company. He 
 wants Him and snuff, of course. He has got the money 
 in hand." 
 
76 A CONFESSION 
 
 "Well, you may keep dark this time. Draw the 
 rum for him." 
 
 Mr. Smith was partly influenced by the presence 
 of Harry, partly, we fear, by the opportunity of sell 
 ing the rum. Thank God, the days are passed when 
 every shop had its barrel of rum, where the poor man 
 found a ready temptation to part with his small gains; 
 where such boys as Clapbam Dunn began their ap 
 prenticeship to vice and ruin; and such wretches as 
 his father found the means of drowning the conscious 
 ness of misery and guilt ; and where decent men, like 
 Mr. Elam Smith, could quietly sell this poison to body 
 and soul, pocket the money, reckon up their gains, 
 and fancy all the sin was at the buyers door! 
 
 In a few minutes more, the boys had done their 
 business, and left the shop. 
 
 Hurried as Harry felt, his curiosity was too strongly 
 excited to be deferred. It was not idle curiosity; his 
 best feelings were touched by Clapham s attachment to 
 him, and dependence on him, and, perceiving he had 
 the power to serve him, he had the will too. "Tell 
 me, Clapha.-n," he said, "what does all this mean?" 
 
A CONFESSION. 77 
 
 u What ? " asked Clapham, without raising his eyes 
 
 "You know what I mean." 
 
 "So I do, Harry," he answered, now honestly turn 
 ing up his face, and looking his friend in the eye. 
 " And I will tell you. I declare I will tell you all ; 
 but, hang it, I can t tell it now; it s a long story, and 
 a bad one." 
 
 "Well, make a long story short, Clap, and have it 
 off your mind ; you ll have time before we come to the 
 turn." 
 
 "But, Harry, you ll despise me, and so will your 
 mother, and Annie, and little Lucy, and I could not 
 stand it. You ll never go a fishing with me again; 
 they ll never speak to me." 
 
 "Clapham, you don t know them; you don t know 
 me. I ll stick by a friend through thick and thin." 
 
 "But, Harry there is too much thick ; you won t 
 go it" 
 
 "I ll start fair with you, Clapham. I ll tell you 
 what I ll go. You must speak just the whole truth 
 to mo, and then I shall be sure of a foundation to 
 stand on, and, standing on that, with a long pull, and 
 
78 A CONFESSION. 
 
 a strong pull, and a pull both together, we ll get you 
 out of the mire if you are ever so deep in." 
 
 Clapham began, and told his story, at first with a 
 faltering voice, but, as he went on, with a firmer 
 tone. 
 
 We must go a little farther back, in Clapham s 
 history, than Clapham s limited time allowed him to 
 co, or than he could have done. 
 
 But Clapham was born in a jail, and, from his 
 earliest recollection, his parents had been skulking 
 from one place to another, living on the outskirts of 
 villages, on the borders of Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
 or New York, where these three states meet, and afford 
 a very convenient neighborhood for those who evade 
 the laws by what is called dodging flie line! Norman 
 was a strong, well-built man. He often boasted that 
 he could travel farther in a day, and fast longer, than 
 any man he ever knew. He could endure wet, and 
 heat and cold, without flinching. He would sometimes 
 live out, roaming about the woods for a week together, 
 and then come home, and eat, drink, and sleep, for a 
 week. He had never been taught to read or write. 
 
A CONFESSION. 79 
 
 This was a soiuce of deep mortification to him. But it 
 was a greater disadvantage than Norman was aware of. 
 Norman was naturally proud of his size and strength, 
 and power of endurance, and he was humbled when he 
 saw a little fellow, whom he said he could throw over 
 the tallest pine-tree in the woods, really his superior, 
 and, because he could read and write, able to take a 
 place, and keep it, among his fellow-men. Norman 
 had the qualities that distinguish a savage. If he 
 had been born among the Indians, he might have been 
 their chief and led them. But knowledge is necessary 
 to live in society, and knowledge and goodness are 
 the only true distinctions between man and man, in a 
 social state. We may have an equality of rights and 
 privileges ; in this favored country we have. Riches 
 do not make a man more respectable or happier than 
 his neighbor. Knowledge does. We are forced to 
 respect those that know more than we do. We feel 
 that, other things being equal, a superior education 
 gives the man who has it a power superior to ours. 
 Norman Dunn felt this, and it galled him. He felt it 
 tne more, because by nature he had a good head, and 
 
80 A CONFESSION. 
 
 he felt it the more bitterly because he had not the 
 virtues and good feelings that, more than any thing 
 else, compensate for the want of education. An in 
 dustrious, honest, kind-hearted man may hold up his 
 head beside the wisest man and the greatest scholar 
 in the world. But neither honesty, nor any thing akin 
 to it, had Norman Dunn. He had just enough sense 
 of right to feel his degradation, to hate to come in 
 contact with his fellow-men; so he sulkily shunned 
 them. Clapham s mother was a poor outcast, half 
 Dutch, half Yankee. She was lazy, dirty, and shiftless. 
 She was never very bright, and so between drinking, 
 snuffing, and Norman s hard usage, the little light she 
 originally had was nearly put out. One virtue we 
 must give her credit for; how she came by it nobody 
 could tell ; but Massy Dunn was never known to 
 take any thing that belonged to another. She ate of 
 stolen turkeys, fowls, and eggs, without asking a quds- 
 tion. She had been found sleeping in sheets pilfered 
 from the clothes-lines of a neighboring village. She 
 cut up and made over for Clapham many a garment 
 which she knew her husband had stolen; but never 
 
A CONFESSION. 81 
 
 was she known to take a penny s worth herself. We 
 is ; we only state the fact. It 
 I measure, our friend Clapham s 
 iis father s trade. 
 
 vitJi me," he said to Harry, "when 
 not six years old; and before I 
 many a hen s-nest, and many a 
 Since then, I have done, in 
 
 the main, better. I have taken many a beating rather 
 than do as father bid me, and his hand is heavy, and 
 cruel hard, Harry. Once he wrenched my shoulder 
 out of joint, and another time he broke two of my 
 finger-bones. 
 
 "Last spring I did chores for Mr. Smith, and he 
 paid me in notions, a little molasses, and rum for 
 father, and now and then a codfish, and so on. He 
 got a great deal out of me, and gave me but little 
 for it; but there s few that would employ father s boy; 
 so I had to take what I could get. He trusted me, 
 and I felt beholden to him for that, and never so 
 much as took a nut of any kind, or raisin, though 
 I passed the box twenty times a day. I hated 
 
82 A CONFESSION. 
 
 thieving and lying, I can t tell why, brought up as 
 I have been; but as true as truth is truth, I did; and 
 yet O dear! the day came that I found I waa 
 just father s own son, and nothing else. 
 
 "There was a traveller, one evening, stopped at 
 the shop to buy an umbrella. Mr. Smith was called 
 off. The man took the umbrella, laid down the 
 price, two half dollars, and left the shop. There 
 lay the- money. Mr. Smith had not seen it. The 
 traveller had, as I believed, passed on out of town. 
 There was to be a training, the next day, in Shef 
 field, and a menagerie was coming there, and for 
 two days I had heard folks talking over the adver 
 tisement of it that was up in Mr. Smith s shop, with 
 pictures of all the animals around it. You have seen 
 such, Harry. Of all things in the world, I wanted 
 most to see the animals. Every body was going but 
 I. There the money lay. If I took it, I could go. 
 Father would let me, I knew, if I gave him the half 
 of it. Still I held back. I heard Smith coming, and 
 I thought he had never paid me half he must have 
 paid another boy for the work I did, and I took it 
 
A CONFESSION. 83 
 
 Yes, Harry, I stole it! Father was not by. ft was 
 Sfobody told me to take it. This 
 
 Now you know all." 
 
 Mr. Smith find it out?" 
 
 I found it out. The traveller had 
 
 of a mile when it began to rain, 
 
 thing the matter with the spring 
 
 of. the umbrella ; so he came back to change it He 
 
 then told Mr. Smith he had put the money on the 
 
 counter. Mr. Smith charged me with stealing it, and 
 
 he thrust his hand into my pocket, and found it 
 
 Then he called me every thing, and twitted me with 
 
 my father and mother, and I got mad, and told him, 
 
 if he d been honest by me, and paid me what I 
 
 earned, I should have been honest by him. Then he 
 
 turned me out, and told me never to darken his doors 
 
 again. Now, Harry, you know all." Clapham was 
 
 silent for a moment Harry said nothing. " I knew 
 
 it would be so," resumed Clapham, his voice trembling 
 
 so that he could scarcely articulate ; " you know me, 
 
 now, for a thief, a thief on my own hook, and 
 
 you can t be friends with me, any way." Harry hes- 
 
84 A CONFESSION. 
 
 itated one moment, and but one. "Yes, one way, i 
 can," he said ; " the Scripture way, * Go, and sin 
 no more. Mother often says to us, God forgives the 
 penitent, and how dare we not to forgive our fellow- 
 creatures ? I believe you, Clapham ; I believe you 
 have told me the truth, and the whole truth, and I ll 
 stand by you so long as you ll stand straight." 
 
 Clapham turned his eyes, streaming with tears, on 
 Harry, and his face beamed with an expression of 
 gratitude and joy which Harry never forgot. "Thank 
 ye, thank ye, Harry ! " he said, in a subdued voice. 
 " This is more than your saving me from drowning 
 I thought I could pay you for that ; I never can foi 
 this." 
 
 The boys separated. "If I am ever good for any 
 thing," thought Clapham, as he pursued his way alone, 
 " I shall have Harry Davis to thank for it. I might 
 have been punished, and talked to, and preached to 
 forever, but it would not have done it. Harry believes 
 me; he s friends with me, and that keeps me from 
 despising myself; and when I am with Harry s folks, 
 I feel as if I might be something if I could get out 
 
A CONFESSION. 85 
 
 of his clutches." No wonder that Clapham, in his 
 giving the name of father to 
 was like a cruel fate to him. 
 ons rose before him as he, that 
 4 solitary way. The Davises were 
 all his castles in the air. His 
 rargin of Rhigi s brook; it glit- 
 * in the moonlight. The leaves 
 scarcely stirred as the soft, night breezes stole over 
 them. Clapham stopped for a moment, conscious of a 
 new feeling, and gazed around him with sensations he 
 had never before experienced. Is there not something 
 in the soul that answers, like an echo, to the music 
 of nature ? 
 
 " Tis softer than the west wind s sigh; 
 Tis wilder than th unmeasured notes 
 Of that strange lyre, whose strings 
 The genii of the breezes sweep." 
 
 This poor mountain-boy felt this something within 
 him vibrating -to the voice of nature. He looked up 
 to the vast, bright firmament, and a feeling of awe, 
 an indefinite sense of God s presence, without fear or 
 dread, stol<? over him. Perhaps it was that Harry s 
 
86 A CONFESSION. 
 
 kindness to him had inspired a sense of God s infinite 
 goodness and love x of whiili it was the true, thougn 
 faint image; however that might >3, there was a new 
 feeling. He turned from the brook into the wood, 
 where the trees were so thick that scarcely a ray of 
 light penetrated to the path he followed. Suddenly 
 he emerged into an open space, where the broad, yel 
 low moon sent in her light, intercepted only by the 
 shadow of the tall trees, that, like a wall, enclosed it 
 It was a startling contrast to the darkness from which 
 he had come. Impulsively, and for the first time in 
 his life, he fell upon his knees. Every feeling in his 
 bosom Avas a true prayer. Few, untaught, and simple, 
 were the words he uttered. There was a struggling 
 cry for pardon for the past, and strength for the future, 
 and a burst of gratitude for his friend. 
 
 It was sincere desire true prayer. Of such it 
 is that God says, "I will hear ye when ye cry unto 
 me." 
 
 A half hour after, Clapham entered his father s hu; 
 with an indescribable loathing. It was filled with 
 smoke, made visible by a blaze, over which Massy waa 
 
A CONFESSION. 87 
 
 frying a mess of fish, pork, and onions, the fumes of 
 which, mingling with the smoke of Norman s pipe, 
 settled about the beams and rafters. A cross-pole was 
 garnished with broken kettles, baskets, gourds, dried 
 herbs, strings of apples, and strips of drying pumpkin. 
 A blackened and greasy table, with a molasses jug, 
 
 and broken brown ware, was set out for supper. 
 
 " Sure it was all a grievous, odious scene, 
 Where all was dismal, melancholy, mean; 
 unwholesome and unclean." 
 
 Norman was half reclining in one corner, on a 
 filthy pile, called a bed. .He growled at Clapham, 
 as he entered, for his long delay ; and, seizing the 
 jug, he took a heavy draught from it. 
 
 Massy received her portion rather more parentally, 
 and thanked Clapham as she untied her parcel of 
 snuff. The knot was difficult, and Massy s fingera 
 none of the steadiest. Norman called out to her, with 
 a curse, that her fat was on fire, and she d burn them 
 all up alive. In turning hastily to extinguish the 
 flame, she spilt her snuff into the mess. Norman, 
 enraged at the prospect of losing his supper, sprang 
 off his lair, and began beating her. Massy screamed. 
 
A CONFESSION. 
 
 A tired hound, that had been sleeping at. full length 
 before the fire, joined, growling, ir 
 
 It was such scenes as these, 
 Clapham say to Harry Davis, " Y(i 1 
 live in a hell ! " No, not quite a li 
 f-bere one spirit capable of love a 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 COM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 nh his sacred seal has set 
 On bright and by-gone houra ; 
 And they we mourn are with us yet, 
 Are more than ever ours." 
 
 HARRY DAVIS t9ok his homeward way with a 
 light heart, and entered his mother s door with 
 a joyous spring. The tea-table was neatly prepared 
 for that pleasantest of New England rustic meals, 
 "the tea." 
 
 There were few industrious and sober people in 
 the county poorer than the Davises. But poverty, in 
 its received sense, is not a word applicable to any 
 such American family. Wha; would a starving house 
 wife in an Irish shanty, or one of the poor peasant 
 women of the continent of Europe, say to Mrs. Davis s 
 tea-table, with its white cloth, its whole and fitting 
 
80 A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 earthen ware, its bright knives, its tea sugsr, and 
 cream, its white bread, blackberry pie, and frieu fish ? 
 
 "This looks comfortable," said Davis, obeying the 
 pleasant announcement, "Tea is ready!" and turning 
 his chair around from his desk and his inventions. 
 "I have done a good* job at head-work to-day," he 
 added, "and have had nothing to eat but a slice of 
 bread and some knick-knacks the neighbors sent in for 
 Lucy. Mother is so notional, she won t let the poor 
 child touch them." 
 
 "Ah! but, father," interposed Annie, "the doctor 
 said, if there were more people would do as mother 
 does, and give to the well the custards, and cake, 
 and sweetmeats, the neighbors send in for the sick, 
 they would save a great many patients from his 
 han j.- 
 
 " Tut nonsense, Annie as if sickness did not 
 come of itself, or when the Lord chooses to send it. 
 How came Lucy sick? I should like to know that 
 Your mother keeps her on bread and milk, and pota 
 toes and meat not above once a day. How came she 
 brought up with a fever ? " 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 91 
 
 "The doctor says, sir, it was brought on by the 
 unripe plums you gave her at Deacon Carr s. When 
 fevers are about, doctor says they will set in upon 
 any bad derangement of the stomach." 
 
 "O, that s nothing but a new-fangled notion. 
 Children eat every thing. I have eaten just what I 
 fancied, and all the tasty things I could get all my 
 life, and I never had a fever." Davis s lank, sallow 
 cheeks were not the best evidence of his wise mode 
 of living ; and, poor man ! as little Lucy became 
 worse from day to day, he silently resolved never 
 again to give his children unripe fruit. Alas ! the 
 wisdom only learned by failure comes too late. We 
 have seldom the same experience twice. 
 
 Mrs. Davis did not reproach her husband. She 
 was not of those who find relief in imputing blame. 
 She hoped, from day to day, that little Lucy would be 
 better. She took the whole care of the child, with the 
 aid of Harry and Annie. She would not follow the 
 common rural custom of letting in upon the patient 
 all the kind neighbors who call to express sympathy and 
 offer aid. She had often observed sick children either 
 
92 A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 shrinking from the touch of strangers, or too much 
 
 excited by them. Contrary to all usage- in -ew-wr-* - 
 
 parts, she declined watchers; and 
 
 kind friends to accept their server 
 
 I could not sleep soundly Avhile 
 
 she had the best watcher in Salis^n 
 
 her, and Avake at her least move . It is ; 
 
 tax upon me, but it is a hard strain upas tact 
 
 have always been against having Avatchers Avhen you 
 
 can help it, and I wish to be consistent." 
 
 " Consistent " good Mrs. Davis was in making all the 
 detail of her life a manifestation of her theory of her duty. 
 Davis never watched. "He Avas a remarkable heavy 
 sleeper," he said ; " watching never agreed Avith him ! " 
 
 There Avas one visitor only excepted from the gen 
 eral prohibition the poor, outcast Clapham. He was 
 expected daily, watched for by Lucy, and Avelcomed 
 with her sweetest smile and out-stretched hand. The 
 doctor prescribed feverbush tea, and Clapham, of 
 course, brought the feverbush from the mountain. 
 The next day, winter-greens Avere recommended, and 
 each day some rural febrifuge, Avhich Clapham s wood- 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 93 
 
 craft enabled him to supply. With the herbs, Clap- 
 ham brought strings of bright berries, which Annie 
 strung, and Lucy amused herself, at her best intervals, 
 with wreathing around her white arms. The flowers 
 were few and faded on the hill side and by the brook, 
 but the lovely fringed gentian was still in perfection, 
 and Clapham had always a handful of these, which he 
 called "Lucy s flowers." 
 
 "I do wish, Clapham," said Lucy, " that you and 
 Harry would carry me along the brook, and lay me 
 down on the soft grass, where the cool wind blows, 
 and where I could drink all the time. Here it s so 
 hot! Feel, how my hand burns! You will carry me 
 there when I am a little better, won t you, boys?" 
 Both boys eagerly promised ; but alas ! the cruel dis 
 ease was making rapid progress. 
 
 The next day, when, as usual, Clapham came in late 
 in the afternoon, the family, with the exception of 
 Davis, who had gone of an errand to the village, were 
 in the little bed-room. A change had taken place. 
 Lucy was dying. Her distress was over. Nature had 
 given up the struggle, and her young life was ebbing 
 
94 A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 away. Mrs. Davis heard Clapham lift the latch of the 
 
 outer door, and beckoned to hin; 
 
 He did so, and knelt at the foo 
 
 Lucy was supported by pillows. Hie bile o 
 
 paled on her cheek. Her mot! 
 
 was of the deepest crimson. Pie 
 
 knees, and so were Harry and Lucy, each holding one 
 
 of those little hands that seemed Lo gru&p eveiy fibre 
 
 of their hearts. "My children, pray with me," said 
 
 the mother; and in a low, but perfectly distinct voice, 
 
 she said, "Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed 
 
 be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 
 
 done " She stopped. There needed no more. 
 
 These all-comprehending words expressed the un 
 bounded prayer of her heart ; her faith that God 
 was her Father, the Father of her children; her de 
 sire to utter his name with awe and love; her com 
 plete resignation of her own hopes and purposes for 
 her child ; and the present indulgence of her affections. 
 As she concluded, Harry said to her, in a low, trem 
 bling voice, "Mother, it never before seemed to me 
 hard to pray that prayer!" 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 96 
 
 "Is it hard, now, my son?" 
 
 "Hard? Yes, mother." 
 
 "It should not be, my children. We give up 
 little Lucy to wiser, greater love than ours. The 
 kingdom of heaven is coming to her. No more pahi 
 for her " 
 
 Lucy at this moment opened her eyes, and con 
 sciousness, without pain, revived. There was even a 
 slight movement of her lips to kiss her mother, and, as 
 her mother pressed hers to her, she faintly, but per 
 ceptibly smiled, and with her finger made a beckoning 
 motion to Clapham to come nearer. He rose and 
 knelt by Annie. Lucy spread out her little hand so 
 as to embrace both theirs. At this moment, the set 
 ting sun shone out from a cloud, and its rays fell, 
 like a halo, around little Lucy s fair hair. 
 
 "Pretty moon!" she said. The mists of death 
 were gathering over her sight, and the sun was no 
 longer bright to her eye. 
 
 They all felt as if they were near the visible 
 presence of God. The curtain that hides the other 
 world was slowly rising, and they felt the beautiful 
 
90 A. VOICE FROM THF SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 reality of the goodness and love to which the precious 
 
 child was going. It was not death. 
 
 immortal life. A solemn but not pain 
 
 vaded them. No one stirred or 
 
 looked from one to the other, and th 
 
 on Harry, and he seemed unconscious! 
 
 the glance in saying, " How I love ycc, rbrlin;; : 
 
 replied, slowly, feably, but with perfect dial 
 
 that each heard her, "We all love one another!" 
 
 These were the last words she spoke words that 
 
 bound them in a sacred band, to be cruelly assailed, 
 
 but ney,er broken. 
 
 From this time, her breathing became fainter and 
 fainter. There was no struggle, and when the twi 
 light had faded away, and the stars began to appear, 
 she sank to her rest as quietly as if it had been to 
 her night s sleep. 
 
 The spell of solemn silence was first broken bv 
 the sweet voice of the mother. 
 
 "She is gone! my children," she said "gone 
 to Him who said, Suffer little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 97 
 
 kingdom of heaven gone from our sight, but not 
 from us." 
 
 "Not from us, mother?" asked Annie, in a per 
 plexed tone of voice. 
 
 "No, my children, I hope not. I believe not. 
 Little Lucy is an angel now, and I think she will 
 love to be near us ; and nothing but our evil-doing 
 can separate us." 
 
 This was a new thought to the children. It 
 seemed to them to take away the sting of separation, 
 and, at the same time, to give them an acute sense of 
 responsibility, an intense desire to be pure, so that that 
 purified and loved spirit might dwell with them. Mrs. 
 Davis s calmness, her faith, and her gentle submission, 
 had converted this chamber of death into the vestibule 
 of heaven. Death did not appear to these children the 
 king of terrors, but a messenger of love who had come 
 to take their dear little companion to happiness and 
 immortality, and to inspire them with a faith and hope 
 that taught them how to value and how to use life. 
 
 To Clapham it seemed a vision ; a revelation ; and 
 after all the necessary offices had been performed, 
 
98 A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 after the kind neighbors had come and gone, after 
 the good village minister had made his prayer with 
 the family, and after he had seen the form of little 
 Lucy laid out in its white robes, her head encircled 
 with a wreath of the fringed gentians he had brought 
 that afternoon for her, and on her bosom sweet, half- 
 open rose-buds old Mrs. Allen had sent in from her 
 monthly rose, after this, he took his way homeward. 
 Slowly, thoughtfully he went. Suddenly a loathing 
 revulsion from his own most loathsome dwelling came 
 over him; he turned back, retraced his way, and lay 
 down on the ground on the outside of that little bed 
 room window. There he waked and slept alternately, 
 and had visions of his little friend now by the brook 
 on Rhigi, and now an angel amidst beauty and glory 
 that never before had dawned on his mind. Thoughts 
 of his real condition, of his dreadful home, came 
 like demons among these angel visitations. The poor 
 boy was struggling in the mysteries of life. Still 
 there was something that whispered hope and peace 
 something that breathed into his soul the feeling 
 expressed in the following beautiful stanza. 
 
A VOICE FROM THE SPIRIT LAND. 99 
 
 "Brother, the angels say, 
 
 Peace to thy heart ! 
 We, too, brother, 
 
 Have been as thou art 
 Hope-lifted, doubt-depresseo, 
 
 Seeing in nart, 
 Tried, troubled, tempted. 
 Sustained, as them art. 
 
100 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A GATHEEING STOKM 
 
 " Twas past the dead of night, when every sound 
 That nature mingles might be heard around ; 
 But none from man." 
 
 CLAPHAM did not return to his mountain-home ti 7 
 late in the afternoon of the next day. Hss 
 mind was full of the holy scenes he had witnessed. 
 He had seen death for the first time; and had seen 
 it, most happily for himself, in the home of the Chris 
 tian, where death was received as God s messenger, 
 sent to take the most loved being in the household 
 to a happier home, to a higner school, to the in 
 struction and guidance of Him whose love and wis 
 dom are infinite. He had seen httie i^ucy, the swee 
 nestler in every heart, given up with calm submissioi 
 The world seemed changed to Clapham ; but O, 
 with what weight it fell back upon him as his own 
 
A GATHEiUftG StitfR M. lO l 
 
 home came in view ! His father was sitting on the 
 door-step smoking his pipe. He saw, through the 
 open door, that his mother was dozing on the bed. 
 
 "Ain t you a pretty chap?" said Norman, surlily. 
 " Where have you been browsing all night, and to 
 this time of day?" 
 
 "At Mr. Davis s," replied Clapham, quietly. 
 
 " That s one lie ; now tell another. What have 
 you been about there?" 
 
 "I have been seeing little Lucy die." 
 
 " Do tell ? " said Norman, and a human feeling 
 stirred in his bosom. He knocked the ashes out of 
 his pipe, and put in fresh tobacco, saying, meanwhile, 
 "She was the likeliest-looking young one ever born 
 in Salisbury. Sich as she always die." 
 
 The last words struck on Massy s ear, and waked 
 her from her dose. 
 
 "Who is dead now?" she asked, not more .han 
 half awake. 
 
 " Not you, mam ; but you might as well be," 
 replied her brutal lord, "as lying there, when I told 
 you I was waiting for a patch on my coat Up 
 
102 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 with you, or I ll bang you. It s Davis s girl that s 
 dead, and our Clap is chief mourner." 
 
 "You have not got no feelings, Norman," said the 
 gentler helpmeet ; " you re tween man and brute 
 worse than neither. When is the funeral, Clapham?" 
 
 " There is to be no funeral here," replied Clap- 
 ham. "Mrs. Davis wished to lay little Lucy with 
 her people, and she has taken her down to the 
 Canaan bury ing-ground." 
 
 " Who went in the procession ? " asked Massy, 
 who, in common with persons of her caste, was curious 
 about the minutiae of funerals. 
 
 " They had no procession. Mr. Davis wanted to 
 have the people collect and go with them, but Mrs. 
 Davis was very much set on having it quiet; and so 
 Sheriff Parley offered them his wagon and horses, and 
 they went, at two o clock, down to her uncle s, which 
 is near to the bury ing-ground." 
 
 "Did they take the corpse, and Harry, and Annie, 
 all in one wagon?" 
 
 " No ; only little Lucy. Annie had one of her 
 sick-headaciies, and Harry staid at home with her." 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 103 
 
 Norman seemed very attentive, though as yet he 
 had asked no question. He now, with affected care 
 lessness, demanded how long they were to be gone. 
 
 "Till to-morrow morning," Clapham replied. 
 
 "Good!" muttered Norman; and then, his man 
 ner suddenly changing, he eagerly asked, "Are you 
 sure of that, Clap?" 
 
 "Yes, I am. I went with Harry to get the team, 
 and his mother bade us tell Sheriff Parley she should 
 return to-morrow morning ; and she never broke her 
 word in her life." 
 
 "I hope this won t be a first time," said Norman. 
 " What time will they be home ? " 
 
 "I don t know," replied Clapham, rather impatient 
 at idle questions, (as he deemed them,) which grated 
 on his feelings; and he turned to go away, not 
 caring whither, when his father seized him by the 
 arm, and jerked him back. "Stand still, can t you?" 
 said he ; " you are as slippery as an eel." He 
 hemmed two or three times, then cleared his throat, 
 and added, " She died in the bed-room, did not 
 she r " 
 
104 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 "Yes; little Lucy and Annie always slept there 
 in the trundle-bed." 
 
 "I should not think them young folks would like 
 sleeping in the room where the corpse was," said 
 Norman, looking, not at Clapham, but up at the trees 
 He paused for a moment, but eliciting no reply from 
 Clapham, he added, "I say, Clap, what are you so 
 dumb for? Where are they going to sleep?" 
 
 Clapham was incapable of being irritated, and he 
 replied, quietly, "I don t think they have any fear to 
 sleep where little Lucy lay, with flowers all around 
 her, looking like an angel." 
 
 "Well, then, the gal is going to sleep in the 
 bed-room, is she ? " 
 
 Had not Clapham s mind been completely pre 
 occupied, he might have suspected some sinister 
 motive in all this questioning; but he did not, and 
 he replied with the particularity his father wished. 
 "The bed-room window was open in the morning, 
 while it rained, and the room got damp, and Harry s 
 mother told him to move the trundle-bed into the kitch 
 en, and to bring down his bed and sleep by Annie." 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 105 
 
 "Will he do it?" 
 
 "I rather guess so," replied Clapham, with a 
 emile ; " the time has not come yet that Harry has 
 disappointed his mother." 
 
 "I wish all young youth were like him," mur 
 mured Massy. 
 
 "And all old mams, like you," said Norman; "that 
 would be a nice fit! But, I say, Clap, you are sure 
 they sleep in the kitchen?" 
 
 "I am sure I -helped Harry fix the beds there, 
 before I came away." 
 
 "You re a wise lad, Clap, and no mistake," said 
 Norman, with a chuckling laugh in his throat, which 
 his son well knew was an expression of evil omen; 
 and he involuntarily fixed his eyes inquiringly on the 
 bad man. "None of your impudence, you rascal!" 
 he exclaimed, shaking his fist at Clapham. 
 
 " Impudence ! I did not speak." 
 
 "Your eyes did, though." 
 
 "And what, did they say?" asked Clapham, with 
 a dim smile. 
 
 "You re a fool, boy," said his father; and then, 
 
106 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 suddenly checking his irascible and irritated temper, 
 he added, quietly, "I am the wrong side of the fence 
 this time. I am not mad with you, Clap. Mam has 
 worn me out, waiting here all day for my coat 
 Come, old woman, ain t that hole sewed up yet ? " 
 
 Massy tossed the coat to him, saying, "You are 
 the onreasonablest man that ever a poor woman-critter 
 was slave to ; my whole life goes waiting on you." 
 
 "That is what you are made for, my dear. You, 
 and all the rest of the women-folks, are made to 
 serve their masters ; hey, Clap ? " 
 
 Clapham thought of his dear friend Harry s mother, 
 and he thought some women-folks were quite equal 
 to their masters. Norman put on his coat, re-filled 
 his pipe, and walked off. After going a few paces, 
 he turned suddenly around, and said, in a voice of 
 unwonted kindness, "I say, Clap, I started a sight 
 of partridges up there by the pond, and if you want 
 to look after them, you may take my gun and some 
 powder and shot ; you ll find it there under my pil 
 low. But mind and come home this evening. I 
 shall be home to supper, and do you be here ; and, 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 107 
 
 remember, Clap, you must do me a good turn 
 I want it Promise me. You re a boy of your word, 
 I ll say that for you. I never catched you in a lie 
 yet Come, promise." 
 
 "Why, father, 1 would do a most any thing in 
 the world for you, if you would speak as you do 
 now." 
 
 "That s you, Clap. You promise?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "It s a bargain, then; and mind you re home to 
 supper." 
 
 "What has got into father?" said Clapham, as 
 Norman, entering the wood-path, disappeared. 
 
 " It s no good," said Massy. " Sunshine or thun 
 der-claps, it s all the same. He s been clean pos 
 sessed, ever since yesterday morning, about a rifle on 
 sale down to the Furnace. He says he never saw 
 the like on t. He was talking about it in his sleep 
 last night, though his tongue was so thick I could 
 not understand more than one word in ten. He d 
 clean drained the jug. He would not give me even 
 one spoonful, to take the bad taste out of my mouth, 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 No, I believe I do believe, Clap, and if it were 
 my last, dying word I would say so, I do believe 
 he d sell his soul for rum and a rifle. And now, 
 Clappy," she continued, in a whining tone, "if you ll 
 only take this fourpence, and get me a little some 
 thing down below." 
 
 Clapham looked earnestly in his mother s face, 
 and shook his head. "I cannot, mother I cannot," 
 he said; "my hands have been on that good child, 
 God s child now, and I cannot touch that hateful 
 jug, or any thing that holds that dreadful stuff. I 
 have had such thoughts these last two days ! I have 
 been with good folks, and I want to be fit to live 
 among them. Don t ask me, mother." There was a 
 quietness in Clapham s tone, a dignity and deep re 
 solve in his manner, that gave to the boy the power 
 of manhood. Massy was, for the moment, awed ; 
 and, without renewing her request, she permitted him 
 to take the gun, &c., and go up the mountain-path. 
 Her eye followed him till he was out of sight. 
 She then sat down, whimpering, on the door-step 
 "Well," she said, talking to herself, "if this don t 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 109 
 
 beat me! Norman is too bad to live "with, and Clappv 
 is too good. It does give feelings, though, to hear 
 my child talk that way Norman Dunn s boy too! 
 Where did he larn it ? He has never been justly 
 one of us ; but now he s clean changed. I felt as 
 underval ed as if a judge was talking to me. Well, 
 well, it did go to the spot. He wants to do right; 
 he wants to be fit to live with good folks; he must 
 not stay with us then ! " The poor woman began to 
 cry heartily. She was a mother; and ignorant, ab 
 ject, drunken, drabbish, as she was, sunken to the 
 very lowest depths of sordid wretchedness, there was 
 yet that in her heart which answered to her boy s 
 heaven-born desire for something better than his evi] 
 home. God s image is never wholly effaced from the 
 soui. No man or woman is irreclaimable. 
 
 Twilight was breathing its sweet peace over the 
 earth ; the last lingering birds were singing their 
 good-night notes ; and every woodland thing was 
 giving out its odor, when Clapham, with a string of 
 game over his shoulder, came down the Rhigi road. 
 This game was converted into a savory stew, and 
 
110 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 awaiting Norman, when, late in the evening", he 
 came home from the Furnace. He was silent and 
 Bulky, and had evidently been drinking. There was, 
 in those days, always more or less drinking going 
 on among the loungers about the Furnace Tavern. 
 The supper was such as sportsmen most relish, but 
 no word of praise did he bestow on it; and, when 
 Clapham fished up from the mess the quarters of a 
 large grey squirrel, and told him of the very spot 
 he found him, and how he treed him, Norman gave 
 no sign that he heard him. "You don t seem sharp 
 set," said his wife; "I guess you ve been feeding at 
 the Furnace." 
 
 " Feeding on air, then, for I have not eaten a 
 mouthful since breakfast." 
 
 "Then dad has had a plenty of something else, 
 I guess," said Massy to Clapham, with a wink " what 
 takes tne wire-edge off from hunger." 
 
 "Guess again, mam. I have not drank the value 
 ot haif a pint to-day." 
 
 "Well, then, I guess you had bad uck about the 
 nne." 
 
A GATHERING STORM. Ill 
 
 That s another of your eternal guesses Fvo 
 bargained for it, and am to have possession when 
 I ve paid ten dollars." 
 
 " You pay ten dollars ! That will be when the 
 sky falls, and we catch larks. Hey, Clappy ? " 
 
 Clapham made no reply. He had a more than 
 usual dread of a storm, and, having satisfied his 
 hunger, he lay down on his forlorn little bed, and 
 was soon in a sleep that many a king would have 
 envied. Does the hearty boy, or the temperate la 
 boring man, who lies down to sweet sleep, know 
 what a blessing is "this chief nourisher at life s 
 feast"? Surely labor is no evil, plain fare is none, 
 if they bring with them a good which no money and 
 no greatness can buy. 
 
 Norman did not sleep. He did not close his eyes. 
 Poverty must have the attending angel, a good con 
 science ; it cannot alone bring sleep. Clapham was 
 dreaming now of little Lucy. He saw again the 
 plaited ruffle of her night dress, around her white 
 bosom, the rose-buds lying on it, and a smile on 
 those pretty lips. Then he was with Harry, on 
 
112 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 Rhigi, dashing through the brook, or watching the 
 game. Suddenly, it seemed to him that Harry grasped 
 his arm. He awoke. It was not Harry, but his father, 
 who said, " Hush, Clap ; it s me. What are you so 
 scared for? Get up. Don t wake mam; let her snoro 
 her soul out." 
 
 "Why! what is the matter, father?" 
 
 " Nothing. Do as I bid you. Dress you, put your 
 cap on, and come out with me." 
 
 "It is not yet day." 
 
 " No, nor won t be this three hours ; mind me, 
 and be still about it." 
 
 Clapham augured no good from this movement 
 of his father. He knew too well the object of his 
 night-pro wlings, and he had resolved never again to be 
 the companion of them. "I am sleepy, father," he 
 said; "I was awake all last night, and I don t want 
 to get up." 
 
 " Remember our bargain," replied his father. " Re 
 member your promise. You re bound. Come, come 
 along." 
 
 Clapham rose, dressed, and followed Norman. 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 113 
 
 After going a little way towards the village, lie 
 made a dead stop, and said, "Now, father, I ll tell 
 you what it is. I have been thinking a good deal 
 lately, and I have determined to make an end of 
 this night-work. I m tired on it. I hate it." His 
 father seized him by the collar; but Clapham, un 
 daunted, added, "I won t do it." 
 
 Norman stood for a moment, glaring fiercely at 
 the boy, his hand still grasping his collar. Clapham 
 did not flinch ; he stood as firmly braced as if he were 
 a match for the tall, strong man; and the spirit of 
 the boy, even in that slight and powerless frame, 
 awed, for a moment, the bad man. 
 
 The moon was in her second quarter. There 
 was a strong south wind, and clouds scudding over 
 the sky. At this moment they rolled off the moon, 
 and it .shone brightly in Clapham s face. It was 
 deadly pale, but calm and determined. 
 
 Norman hesitated ; his eye fell. A spirit good and 
 strong, a spirit of truth, was looking out of the boy s 
 clear eye. 
 
 Norman s tone changed. "Now, Clap," he said, 
 10 
 
114 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 what for are you making this fuss ? I have only told 
 you to come along with me. One person may lead a 
 horse to the water, you know, but it takes two to make 
 him drink. Keep quiet, can t you? till I ask you to 
 do something more than walk down to the Furnace 
 with me. I m after that rifle, and if I ain t down 
 there by daylight, I lose it. There s one of them 
 New York sparks that s up here a gunning. He s 
 out afore the sun is up. Bill Haskins says he told 
 him about the rifle, and he said he d go down and see 
 it this morning early, and I mean to be ahead on him." 
 "O, if that s all, father!" said Clapham, cheer 
 fully. " You ve come to your milk, have you ? Make 
 tracks a little faster, then, will you?" On they 
 went. The path they were in passed Davis s house 
 at the distance of a few rods. When at tie point 
 nearest to it, another path diverged from it, and led 
 directly to Davis s door-step. Into this path Norman 
 turned, and walked on rapidly ahead of Clapham They 
 were within a few yards of the house when Clap- 
 ham s heart sank. He caught his father by tho sleeve, 
 and, said "Father, what are you coming here for?" 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 115 
 
 " Hush ! " said Norman, in a low tone, that went 
 like a sharp whistle through the boy s head. And 
 he half carried, half dragged Clapham along, till they 
 stood at the only window of that consecrated bed 
 room, at the very spot where Clapham had lain on the 
 ground the preceding night. It was a small sliding 
 window, and not secured by any fastening whatever. 
 " In there, in a bureau drawer, you know just where," 
 whispered Norman, "is a purse. I must have it, and 
 you must get it. No holding back now." He softly 
 drew the window open. "Come, snake in, and done 
 with it." 
 
 "I ll die first," answered Clapham. 
 
 " No ! " muttered Norman, with a horrid oath. 
 " You do it, or Harry Davis dies." He drew a knife 
 from beneath his coat, and, Clapham still immovable, 
 he added, "I swear I ll kill him with this knife if 
 you don t do as I bid you." 
 
 " Father ! father ! " said Clapham, laying both hands 
 on his father s aisn. 
 
 "I swear I will," repeated Norman. "I will, if 
 the business is not done as I bid you. If you speak 
 
116 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 a loud word, or make a breath of noise to wake him, 1 
 will break open the door, and do it for him and 
 the gal too. I had as lief as stick a pig, and then 
 burn the house down; and who s the wiser? I have 
 determined on t aforehand. Will you mind me now ? " 
 
 Clapham knew his father s savage temper, his iron 
 will. He fully believed he would do as he threat 
 ened; and the image of Harry and of Annie mur 
 dered murdered by his father s hand was before 
 him. He listened he heard no human sound. He 
 looked around on every side ; there was no human 
 creature stirring no help. "Will you do it? Speak," 
 said Norman, pointing his knife to the door. 
 
 Clapham, forced to the decision, said, "I will;" 
 and he mounted to the window. The opening was 
 but just large enough to admit his body. As he 
 slid down into the room, his foot touched a foot 
 stool that had been left standing there, and, turning 
 over on the bare floor, it made a loud noise. Nor 
 man s head was at the open window. " Damnation ! " 
 fcji 
 
 he muttered in a suppressed voice. 
 
 "I did not mean it," whispered Clapham, who was 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 117 
 
 now fully persuaded that his friends safety depended 
 on his executing well his father s purpose. He heard 
 a movement in the next room. The sleepers were 
 awakened. He stood stock still, and heard Annie 
 ask, " What is that noise, Harry ? " 
 
 " I don t know. Shall I jump up and see ? " re- 
 piied Harry. 
 
 " Shall I give him notice, or what shall I do ? " 
 thought Clapham, when Annie again spoke, saying, 
 "No, don t get up, Harry. It s no matter. It s only 
 Tom." 
 
 " Yes. It must be. The window was open when 
 little Lucy was lying there, and we all forgot to shut 
 it; so puss has jumped in." 
 
 "You think it certainly is the cat, Harry?" 
 
 " Yes, Annie ; but, cat or no cat, there s nothing to 
 hurt us; so go to sleep, Annie." 
 
 " I will ; but when I am asleep, don t you get up 
 and leave me, Harry." She spoke drowsily ; and he 
 answered, "Never fear. I shall be asleep myself." 
 
 Cold chills were running over Clapham. Those 
 dear, fami iar voices ; the danger so near to them ; 
 
118 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 the blessed memory of that morning when he had 
 stood on that very spot, and looked on little Lucy for 
 the last time, altogether paralyzed him, till his father, 
 in a voice, though not ahove a whisper, expressing 
 rage and impatience, said, " Do it." Clapham drew 
 open the drawer in which he knew all Mrs. Davis s 
 little store was deposited, took out the purse, threw 
 it to his father, reclosed the drawer, and withdrew 
 through the window. Harry was listening. The par 
 tition was so thin that he could scarcely persuade 
 himself that he did not hear a drawer open and shut. 
 He thought of his mother s money, and was impul 
 sively springing up, when Annie, aroused too, caught 
 him by the arm, saying, " Stop a minute." Before the 
 minute passed, all was again quiet, and Norman and 
 Clapham were out of hearing, and, in a little while, 
 Harry and Annie were again asleep. Norman silently 
 strode homeward. Clapham followed, his heart as 
 heavy as lead. When they were within a few paces 
 of their own door, Norman stopped, and turning short 
 round upon Clapham, he said, " I ll tell you the case, 
 Clap. You ve got some new notions into you, and it s 
 
A GATHERING STORM. 119 
 
 all nonsense. There s nobody cares for us, and why 
 should we care for any body ? I ask no favors, and 
 I ll grant none. As we brew, so we must bake. 
 As we ve begun, so we must end. Nobody is friends 
 to us, and we ll be friends to nobody." 
 
 "I have friends," said Clapham, "and I ll be true 
 to them ; and if I live another day " 
 
 " Hush up, square ! " interrupted his father, " and 
 hear me out; as sure as you blab, I ll be the death 
 of you." 
 
 " I don t care a straw," answered Clapham ; " I 
 wish I were dead, and under ground, now; and, if 
 killing me is the worst you can do, you are wel 
 come. Now, hear me. I swear, not as you do, 
 but as the folks swear in court, I swear, and hold 
 up my hand to it, so help me God, come what come 
 may, I ll tell the truth." 
 
 " You will, will you ? " answered Norman, his voice 
 trembling with rage ; " then we ll see which will be 
 master. I ll swear and hold my hand up to it, too 
 if you let on, by word or sign, of what we ve 
 done to-night, I ll burn down Davis s house in the 
 
120 
 
 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 dead of night, and all the folks in it; I will, so 
 
 help me ." The name he would have impiously 
 
 invoked stuck in his throat. "Are you afeard of 
 me now ? he added. 
 
 "I am! I am!" replied Clapham ; and the poor 
 boy threw himself on the ground, and cried with a 
 sense of utter helplessness and misery. Norman 
 seized him, raised him to his feet, and dragged him 
 onward to their hut. "Be still," he said; "shut up; 
 go to bed, and go to sleep. If you mind me, all 
 is right." Clapham stumbled in, and on to his straw 
 bed; and, burying his face in it, he sobbed till, 
 nature overpowered, he fell asleep. 
 
 Norman did not sleep. His mind was busy with 
 plans to evade justice and secure his ill-gotten gains. 
 After revolving various plans, he determined that he 
 would be early at the furnace, buy the rifle, " get 
 over the line," and go roaming. Bad as he was, 
 Clapham had made some impression on him ; and 
 he was willing, if he could provide for his own 
 safety, to bear the imputation of the theft and save 
 Clapham. As his passion subsided, there rose a 
 

 A GATHERING STORM. 
 
 sense of his boy s courage and fidelity. "I never 
 feared nothing," thought Norman ; " but, as he stood 
 there with his hand raised, he made my heart beat. 
 All the witnesses on earth, swearing agrin me in 
 court, could lot no it. 15 
 
 11 
 
122 k TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 " J he sheriff and the watch are at the door. They tte come to 
 the house. Shall I let them in ? 
 
 MRS. DAVIS and her husband returned earlier 
 than they were expected on the following 1 
 :aorning. Deputy Sheriff Parley, from whom she had 
 bred her conveyance, had told her that he was 
 i bliged to take some debtors to the county jail on 
 hat day, and he should be glad to have his wagon 
 *s early as she could return. Mrs. Davis was glad 
 o have this plea with her husband, who was habit- 
 lally a late sleeper. "It was natural to the Da- 
 rises," he said. She was saddened by her recent 
 loss, and desired to relieve her mind bv plunging 
 into her usual occupations. She roused Davis before 
 the day dawned ; and, just as the sun arose, she 
 stopped at the sheriff s gate to inform him of her 
 return. He was a bustling, prompt man; and, being 
 
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 123 
 
 ready to proceed to Canaan, whence he was to take 
 his prisoners, he jumped into the wagon, intending to 
 take possession of it at Davis s door. When they 
 arrived there, Mrs. Davis asked the sheriff to wait 
 till she could bring the money from the house to 
 pay him for the " team." The children were still 
 asleep. She sighed heavily as she passed them, 
 thinking that she should never again see little Lucy 
 lying by them, and proceeded into the bed-room. 
 "I am sure I did not leave that window wide open," 
 thought the careful mother, as the damp, morning 
 breeze blew on her. She opened the drawer, and was 
 struck with its confusion. The things were up 
 turned, and the purse not in its place. She uttered 
 an exclamation, and involuntarily called to Harry. 
 He sprang out of bed, wrapped a sheet round him, 
 ar.d saying, "Dear, dear mother, are you here?" he 
 was in a moment at her side. Annie followed 
 The loss was communicated, and Harry at once re 
 curred to what had happened in the night, and 
 related it. " There had been a thief in the house : 
 who could it be?" Mrs. Davis called in the sheriff, 
 
124 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 and he, with official coolness, began an investigation. 
 He looked outside the window for tracks. The ground 
 was hard trcdden there, and showed none. "The 
 window," he remarked, " would scarcely admit a 
 man ; " but, on measuring it, he concluded . that one 
 narrow in the shoulders might get in. But who 
 could it be ? No depredation of the sort had ever 
 been committed in Salisbury ; and, though there was 
 scarcely a house in the place with a fastening on 
 its doors, none had been entered. There had been 
 pilfering of meat, hung in outer sheds and hen 
 roosts, but they had all been traced to Norman Dunn, 
 and he could not get half his breadth into that win 
 dow. " To be sure," added the sheriff, " there s his 
 boy, Clapham." 
 
 "Clapham!" interrupted Harry, "it is not he!" 
 
 " No, no ! indeed it is not ! " echoed Mrs. Davis 
 and Annie. 
 
 " I do not believe it is," said Sheriff Parley ; 
 "the boy is a changed boy regular and quiet." 
 
 While he spoke, the sheriff was shuffling his foot 
 backward and forward : in doing so, he hit it against 
 
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 125 
 
 the overset footstool, and removed it. Harry natu 
 rally cast his eye down, and just peeping from beneath 
 it, he saw a pocket-handkerchief. He knew it instantly. 
 It was the one Annie had given to Clapham. The 
 blood rushed up to the very roots of his hair. His 
 first impulse was to snatch and conceal it ; but, before 
 he could make a movement, or think another thought, 
 the sheriff, who had seen his change of color, and 
 followed the direction of his eye, caught it up, and 
 shook it out, saying, "What is this? Here s a clew, 
 may be. C. D. Clapham Dunn ! The secret is 
 out!" 
 
 Mrs. Davis sat down, trembling. Annie turned 
 pale, and Davis said, " Yes ; out, fully ! " 
 
 " O, no, father ! " said Harry ; " you don t know 
 Clapham. You mistake, sir," addressing the sheriff. 
 "Mother, Clapham was here all those two last days: 
 could he not have dropped it then?" 
 
 Mrs. Davis made no reply. A conviction that 
 Clapham was the guilty one, was stealing over her. 
 and her heart sank within her. She recalled his 
 standing by her when she took out the money to 
 
126 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 send for little Lucy s medicine. She said nothing till 
 the sheriff asked, " What was the situation of the room 
 when you left it, Mrs. Davis ? Was it cleared up ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did you put it to rights yourself ? Don t be 
 scared. You are not on oath." 
 
 " That makes no difference. I must speak the 
 truth, though the poor boy should seem condemned by 
 it. I did put the room in order before I went away." 
 
 "Might not the footstool have been turned over, 
 and you not seen it?" 
 
 " Yes, mother, I know it might ! " exclaimed Harry. 
 Mrs. Davis shook her head. "Do you remember any 
 thing distinctly about the footstool?" pursued the 
 sheriff. 
 
 "Yes. It s little Lucy s. She always sat on it; 
 and for fear something might happen to it, I came 
 back after I went out to get into the wagon, and brought 
 it in from the kitchen, and placed it under the win 
 dow, where the table had stood with the coffin on it" 
 
 " There is no need of further investigation, sheriff," 
 interposed Davii. "I don t wish my family to shield 
 
A TOTAL ECLIFSE. 127 
 
 that bad boy any more. I always mistrusted him. 
 You know, mother, I never approved of Harry keeping 
 company with him. What s the next step, sheriff?" 
 The sheriff, after a moment s consideration, said that 
 he thought they had best jump into the wagon at once, 
 and proceed to Norman s ; and Davis suggested that, 
 as they must call at Squire Baner s on their way, for 
 a search warrant, it would be best to get his boys 
 to go up with them, as Norman was an ugly cus 
 tomer when he was mad. The prudent sheriff assented 
 to the propriety of this reinforcement, and they were 
 proceeding, when Harry said, "You can take but one 
 of the Baners, for I must go. I must hear the truth 
 from Clapham." 
 
 " The truth from Clapham ! " echoed Davis ; " that s 
 a good one ! the truth from the thief." 
 
 "I must go, sir," replied Harry, with a calm de- 
 3ision, that rather staggered his father; and he said, 
 winking at the same time slyly at Sheriff Parley, 
 "Well, it s the sheriff s wagon. What say you, Mr. 
 Sheriff?" 
 
 "I say that I can t take a supernumerary. I shall 
 
128 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 take but one of the Baners. We must drive full 
 speed, or the bird will have flown. Don t put yom 
 finger in the pie, Harry Davis. It s a bad mess, 
 depend on t." 
 
 Harry begged, he entreated ; but the sheriff was 
 resolute, and drove away at full speed. He was much 
 edified on the way by sundry remarks of Davis on the 
 impossibility of women taking care of money after 
 they had earned it, and on the obvious advantage of 
 their at once paying it over to their husbands ! 
 
 We return to Norman s hut. He had awakened 
 from a short sleep, had watched in the day, and was 
 awaiting its advance impatiently. He feared to excite 
 suspicion if he should appear at the Furnace at an 
 unusually early hour, and he counted the minutes till 
 he could go, secure the rifle, and be off. Then he 
 cared not how much he was suspected or accused ; 
 but, above all things, he dreaded confinement in a jail. 
 It was as intolerable to him as to a Pawnee. 
 
 Clapham was sleeping profoundly. It will be re~ 
 membered that the night preceding the theft he had lain 
 outside little Lucy s window. It had been one lo.-g 
 
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 129 
 
 vigil, filled with new thoughts, pure affections, and 
 right purposes. How different had been the last night ! 
 Sad, but not to the poor boy guilty. He had resolved 
 that as soon as morning came, and his father had gone, 
 he would go to the Davises, and make a full disclosure, 
 come what come would ; and, feeling relieved by this 
 determination, he sank into a deep sleep. 
 
 The sheriff was obliged to leave the wagon a quarter 
 of a mile from Norman Dunn s, and ascend the moun 
 tain with his companions by a foot-path. Norman 
 heard their footsteps, and was instantly aware of the 
 threatened danger. He had but one moment to con 
 sider, and he obeyed the first suggestion of his evil 
 mind. He took the purse from under his pillow, and 
 thrust it through a hole of Clapham s ticking, amidst 
 the straw, and returned to his bed, where he affected 
 to be awakened from sound sleep. Clapham was 
 awakened too. He recognized the sheriff. He started 
 at the sight of Davis. He well knew the quest they 
 must be on, and he drew the ragged coverlet over 
 his head, and lay still. 
 
 Norman, having demanded, with the air of lord of 
 
.30 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 the castle, their errand, and told them, with an imcon 
 cerned tone, to "proceed," kept up an under- iurrent 
 of muttering. He thought people that did not meddle 
 nor make in the village might be left in quiet on 
 the mountain. Davis s money ! Davis s was the last 
 house in the county he should go to to look for money. 
 Where did Tom Davis get it? Selling Self-churning 
 Churns ! or Independent Washing Machines ! He had 
 not been to Tom Davis s this ten years. 
 
 " But your boy has," said Davis, " and we ll trouble 
 him to get up;" hoping to quiet the slurs which he felt 
 diverted his companions. 
 
 " Come, my lad," he said, shaking Clapham ; " up 
 with you. You are smart enough \vnen you are 
 crawling into people s windows, at the dead of night. 
 Clapham uncovered his pale face, rose, and put on his 
 clothes. He looked miserable, but any tiling but 
 guilty ; and every one instinctively felt what a contrast 
 he was to the loathsome scene about him and above 
 ill to his father, whose eyes were blood-shot, his face 
 bloated, and black with a beard of a month s growth, and 
 his nose, like Bardolph s, " an everlasting bonfire light. 
 
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 131 
 
 " We must make a thorough search here," said the 
 sheriff, "for here, as the children say, we are getting 
 hot." He shook out the bed-clothes, and, saying it 
 would not hurt the musty straw to give it an airing, 
 he took the bed to the door, tore it open, and shook 
 it out The purse rung, as it fell heavily on the 
 door-step. " Pretty well done, for a beginner ! " he 
 said, picking up the purse, and then holding it up. 
 " There s one witness against you, my lad ; " and then, 
 drawing out from his pocket Clapham s handkerchief, 
 " And here s another ! " he added. " Truly, you are a 
 chip of the old block; though he don t look like it, 
 does he ? " he added, in a lowered voice, appealing to 
 the standers-by. There was compassion in his voice, 
 a compassion it was impossible not to feel. Clap- 
 ham s cheeks and lips were bloodless, but his eye 
 looked steadily up. "Give me that handkerchief," he 
 said, faintly. It was given to . him. It had been 
 steeped with tears of sympathy and love tears for 
 little Lucy. Bitter tears now drenched it as he cov 
 ered his face, staggered against the wall, and said, in 
 a voice but just audible, " Ruined, ruined ! " 
 
132 A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 
 
 Massy now crawled out of her lair, and began 
 crying aloud. " Why, Clapham ! Clapham ! " she said, 
 "I never would have thought it of you. Why, sheriff, 
 though he does belong to us, there never was an 
 honester boy. Clappy never stole in his life, but 
 when he made him. Twas only two days ago he re 
 fused to spend a shilling for me, just cause I took it 
 out of his pocket." This declaration made no impres 
 sion at the time, but it was afterwards remembered in 
 Clapham s favor. " Don t," she continued, " don t, Mr. 
 Sheriff, snap him up. You ve got the money; what 
 more do you want ? He s young to shut up in a jail. 
 Them that s put there always comes out worse than 
 they go in. Norman always did." 
 
 "Keep your breath to cool your porridge, old 
 woman," said Norman. " Did you ever see a- cat let a 
 mouse go? When you see that, you ll see a sheriff 
 open his clutch. Come, clear out; I don t want any 
 more powwowing here." 
 
 The sheriff ordered Massy to tie up all the boy s 
 clothes, as it was not likely he would return very soon. 
 Clapham inquired whither he was to be conveyed. 
 
A i OTAL KCLIPSE. 133 
 
 The sheriff condescended to inform him that he wag 
 going to transport some debtors from Canaan to the 
 prison at L - , and he should take him there for com 
 mitment. "Can t I see Harry Davis before I go?" 
 asked Clapham, beseechingly. 
 
 "I will take upon me to answer that question," 
 answered Davis, with an air of great authority. "You 
 cannot. You have had a little too much of seeing 
 Harry Davis." 
 
 " Does Harry believe I stole the purse ? " 
 
 "To be sure he does." 
 
 " How can he ? He does not know the purse is 
 found." 
 
 "But he heard you in the night; he found the 
 window open; he saw the handkerchief; and lie knows 
 
 Clapham said not another word. It was to him a* 
 if there were no more light in the world. 
 
J34 A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
 
 Man proposes. God disposes." 
 
 THE events we have related occurred in the month 
 of September. They had given considerable no 
 toriety to the Davises, and brought them into the eye 
 of the little public of Salisbury. Mrs. Davis was too 
 well known, and too much respected there, to be con 
 demned for having permitted an intercourse between 
 her children and Clapham Dunn. The common re 
 marks were, that " her goodness was imposed on ; " that 
 " she never would be! eve evil of any body ; " tnat " it 
 was well for ner that her son Harry was such an on- 
 common boy ; " that " he was one of the few in the world 
 who could touch pitch and not be defiled." Poor Clap- 
 ham ! No thought of pity or charity wandered towards 
 him, except (an honorable exception for him) from the 
 
A CHANGE OF SCENE. 135 
 
 bosoms of that little family who best knew him. Many a 
 prayer arose from Mrs. Davis s secret chamber that " the 
 lost might be found;" and Harry and Annie had many 
 a talk together of a hundred instances of Clapham s hon 
 esty, and a thousand of his good-heartedness, and they 
 generally concluded with expressing a hope that there 
 was some unfathomable secret that would some day ex 
 plain away the proofs, they could not openly controvert, 
 of Clapham s guilt, and a conviction that he was not, at 
 any rate, so guilty as he seemed. If only Mr. Lyman 
 had been in town, he might have done something ; he 
 was always a good friend to Clapham ; he would at least 
 have given him an opportunity to speak to a friend. 
 That this was due to him, Harry so vehemently insisted, 
 that he persuaded his father, who was going through 
 
 L , on his way to Washington, to take a letter 
 
 from him to Clapham. In this letter he expressed, 
 most affectionately, his grief for what had happened; 
 his mother s, and Annie s. He said they were not 
 willing to believe any thing against him, and that what 
 other people called proofs, they only called mysterious, 
 unexplained circumstances. "I have believed in you, 
 
136 A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
 
 Clapham," he said. "I yet hope. Write the truth to 
 me. You cannot write yourself. If there is no one 
 in the jail who will write for you, send for the minis 
 ter of L . I dare say he is a good man, minis 
 ters almost always are, and he will write for you." 
 
 Had poor Clapham received this letter, what a 
 healing balm it would have been to his wounded spirit ! 
 What a motive it would have given for effort and per 
 severance ! But he was destined never to see it. 
 Davis, whose improvidence and carelessness were the 
 bane of all dependence on him, put Harry s letter where 
 he usuallv carried his business papers, in the crown of 
 his hat, and lost it. Day after day, Harry hoped and 
 sighed for an answer, but no answer came ; and, when 
 Davis returned from Washington, not liking to confess 
 he had lost the letter, he asked Harry, carelessly, if 
 he had received an answer from Clapham ; and, on 
 Harry replying, " No," he merely said, " I thought not ! " 
 His morality was as slipshod as his other qualities. 
 
 The country " season " was now closing, and Mrs. 
 Dawson and the New York party who had delayed 
 their return to the city to enjoy October in the country 
 
A CHANGE OF SCENE. 137 
 
 were packing for their departure. Mrs. Dawson had 
 taken a great liking to Harry Davis. She had been 
 struck with his intelligence, his good manners, and his 
 manliness. She found he had profited by a very good 
 common school education ; that he had taken ad 
 vantage of the opportunities of reading, afforded by 
 the diffusion of cheap publications ; that he had wisely 
 taken advice of his cultivated friend, Mr. Lyman, 
 and, rejecting trash, read only books that are books. 
 
 One of the greatest men of letters England has 
 produced Gibbon declares that his love of reading 
 was more to* him than all the rest of his education. 
 Harry Davis did not expect to be a man of letters. 
 He was not an ambitious boy ; but he was early 
 taught that, in whatever condition he might find him 
 self, a well-stored mind would be imperishable riches, 
 contribute ig to his respectability and happiness. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson kindly called on Mrs. Davis soon 
 after little Lucy s burial ; and, introducing what she 
 rightly thought a most consolatory topic, she said, 
 "Your son Harry is a remarkable boy, Mrs. Davis." 
 
 "He is a good child, ma am." 
 12 
 
138 A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
 
 " That he is. I have been much struck with seeing 
 him so cheerfully fetch and carry our clothes to your 
 wash. Some boys would have let their mothers do it; 
 but your son seems to know that the true honor lies 
 in performing the service for his mother." 
 
 " He has always taken pleasure in serving me," said 
 Mrs. Davis, with a smile of sweet satisfaction. 
 
 "Well, he will be rewarded, Mrs. Davis. He may 
 be president of the United States, yet." 
 
 "I hope not" 
 
 "Hope not?" 
 
 "I mean, Mrs. Dawson, that I don t wish my son 
 to be ambitious ; that I think it is the fault and folly 
 of our people to be all striving for something beyond 
 them. There is so much said now-a-days about people 
 going ahead, that they are all pushing forward look 
 ing beyond grasping at something they cannot quite 
 reach, instead of being contented with what they have 
 building castles in the air, instead of raising a com 
 fortable dwelling on solid ground. No, Mrs. Dawson, 
 I am sincere when I say that my highest ambition is 
 to see my son an intelligent farmer or mechanic, a 
 
A CHANGE OF SCENE. 139 
 
 good member of society, but not a doctor or lawyer, 
 and, above all things, not by trade a politician." 
 
 " I admire your moderation, Mrs. Davis, but I con- 
 fees I look for something a little better for Harry." 
 
 Mrs. Dawson had conceived certain plans for 
 Harry. She was a woman of unbounded sympathy, 
 and the most diffusive kindness ; but, we must con 
 fess, with rather more zeal than judgment. 
 
 "Your ideas are excellent, Mrs. Davis," she re 
 sumed ; " but Harry is such an uncommon boy that 
 we may expect something a little out of the common 
 way for him. Why, Mr. Lyman says he draws very 
 nearly as well as he does. Who knows but he might 
 make a great painter?" 
 
 "O Mrs. Dawson, that s not to be thought of. He 
 draws well because he has taken a deal of pains. 
 Even Mr. Lyman, though he is so fond of him, says 
 he has no genius." 
 
 "How would you like to have him a merchant?" 
 
 "A merchant! He would have small capital to 
 begin on." 
 
 "That is nothing. Most of our rich men have 
 
140 A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
 
 be^un with no other capital than enterprise, industry, 
 and good character. Have you any plan for Harry?" 
 
 Mrs. Davis had. She was at that moment awaiting 
 an answer from a respectable carpenter, a friend of 
 hers settled in L . The answer came, and was un 
 favorable. The carpenter had no vacant place. Mrs. 
 Dawson renewed the proposition for a mercantile 
 career. She proposed that Harry should enter a retail 
 shop in New York. At first, Mrs. Davis shrank from 
 the temptations of city life, and uncertainties of trade. 
 But Mrs. Dawson urged so earnestly, entered into all 
 Harry s future with such friendly and flattering zeal, 
 that both mother and son were persuaded to think of 
 the project Two or three other failures to obtain 
 places for which Mrs. Davis had applied, occurred at 
 this time ; and finally it was agreed, when Mrs. Daw- 
 son left Salisbury, that she should make application 
 and report her success. 
 
 Soon after her departure, a summons came. Harry 
 had as neat an outfit as could be procured by twenty 
 dollars, eked out by his mother s judgment and skill in 
 buying this and "making that do" twenty dollars 
 
A CHANGE OF SCENE. 14J 
 
 left her of her earnings, after they had been recovered 
 at Dunn s. Davis took credit to himself for leaving 
 her so much. "The rest," he said, "would barely 
 take him to Washington and back ; but he should get 
 his patent, and then he should show his wife that a 
 man could earn a hundred dollars where a woman 
 could ten. But," he concluded, "that is not their 
 fault, poor creatures ! There s a difference by nature 
 in men and women, that s a fact!" 
 
142 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 " He carried in his face the open sesame to door and heart M 
 
 cc -m /|-Y DEAR MOTHER: 
 
 -L.T_JL "Firstly, I enclose the two dol 
 
 lars you gave me for travelling expenses. I met 
 Mr. Lyman on board the steamboat, and he gave me 
 five dollars, which he said he owed me for my aid in 
 the drawings he made for the New York architect 
 Fine ! After the wet time of parting was over, I was 
 in luck. Mr. Porter would not take any thing for 
 bringing me to the boat, thirty good miles, because 
 1 helped him pick up apples one day after Jesse Porter 
 broke his arm. I was pretty hungry; but hearing they 
 charged half a dollar for supper, I bought some 
 crackers and cheese before I went on board. So I 
 came to the city for fifty cents. Such bustle and 
 
HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM JNEW YORK. 143 
 
 confusion as there was on the wharf where we landed! 
 1 made my way through it as well as I could, and 
 inquired the way to Chambers Street, not far, No. v 
 where Mrs. Dawson lives. I saw the windows were 
 all closed, and so I sat my box of clothes down, and 
 sat on it. I began to feel both lonesome and hun 
 gry ; nothing seemed like morning the fresh, beauti 
 ful morning of the country. The sun shining on 
 chimneys and brick walls, instead of hill-tops and 
 sparkling waters ; not a solitary bird singing ; not 
 even a cock crowing. After a while, milkmen began 
 to appear. There was a different one for almost every 
 house, and each made a horrid outcry ; and, after 
 a while, a woman came out of a cellar, and took a 
 measure of milk. Though they live in great houses, 
 this seems poverty to me. By and by, there came a 
 lively little driver with baskets full of bread. I re 
 membered Dr. Franklin s account of his buying a loaf 
 of bread and eating it as he walked through the 
 streets of Philadelphia, when first he went there ; 
 and, though I do not expect to eat bread in kings 
 houses, as he afterwards did, I thought there would 
 
J44 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 be no harm in following his example ; so I bought a 
 sixpenny loaf of bread, and, with a draught of milk 
 from a milkman, I made a good breakfast. You see, 
 mother, I am determined to make my money last, if 
 possible, till I can earn more, and not call on you or 
 trouble our kind friend Mrs. Dawson. As soon as 
 her blinds were opened, I rung. The man who opened 
 the door smiled when I asked for Mrs. Dawson, and 
 said she would rise in about two hours. How long 
 those two hours were ! But when they were over, 
 and I was summoned to her, she was as kind as ever. 
 She told me she had procured for me an excellent 
 place in a retail shop in Broadway, where, if I did as 
 well as my employer expected from her account of 
 me, I should receive enough, even the first year, to 
 pay my board. Before going there, she advised me to 
 secure a boarding-place; she had made inquiries for 
 this, and gave me references, and off I set. I went 
 from one to another. At one there was a multitude 
 of clerks, and a coarse, slatternly housekeeper; at 
 another there was a set of low traders. I went in 
 while they were at dinner, and a very slight observa- 
 
HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. ) 45 
 
 tior of their vulgar manners and conversation con 
 vinced me they were not associates that I slould 
 relish or you would approve. The next was full, 
 and the last was too filthy for any thing. As I 
 came off the steps quite discouraged, there was a 
 little fat lady walking before me in a gray silk 
 gown, and a white shawl, looking as neat as a new 
 pin. Two dirty shavers of boys had filled a squirt- 
 gun in the gutter, and had taken aim at the lady s 
 nice gown. I sprang upon them just in time, 
 wrenched the squirt-gun from their hands, and sent 
 H off out of sight. They began kicking and bawl 
 ing; and she, turning round, learned the mischief 
 they had intended. She was very thankful to me, 
 very good natured, and talkative. She told me the 
 gown was new, just come home, and she had put it 
 on for a wedding-visit, a visit to her niece s hus 
 band s first cousin ; it was her best gown, too ; she 
 had heard of the boys playing such tricks ; boys 
 would be boys, &c., &c. O, mother dear ! her 
 tongue goes by machinery. (Not father s !) She had 
 
 such a friendly way, and did not seem a very great 
 13 
 
146 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 lady, and asked me so many questions, my name, 
 where I came from, &c., that I thought I would tell 
 her what I was in search of. This silenced her 
 for a moment; then she said, "Come home with me, 
 and we ll see what can be done. I ll talk to Plenty, 
 Plenty is my sister, and perhaps but I won t 
 raise expectations yet. We live in Mercer Street, 
 retired and central too." 
 
 " We were soon at her house, a small, two- 
 story wooden building, that looks like a mere crack 
 between the two tall brick houses on each side of 
 it I followed her into a little front room. The-ie 
 was sitting an oldish lady, taking care of a little 
 blind child. The child uttered a cry of delight at 
 hearing the sound of my new friend s voice, returned 
 her half a dozen hasty kisses, and called her aunty 
 Peace; and the old lady, into whose hands she put 
 a piece of wedding-cake, said, O, thank ee ; tell us all 
 about the wedding. Directly, directly, replied my 
 new friend; and, bidding me sit down, and giving me 
 a generous bit of the wedding-cake, she bustled out 
 of the room, saying she would return in a few min- 
 
HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 147 
 
 utes. She did, and brought her sister with her, 
 her twin sister, and Peace and Plenty stood before 
 me, looking almost precisely alike, fat and full, smiling 
 and abounding two cornucopias. They could have 
 been called nothing but Peace and Plenty, or Milk 
 and Honey. The only difference I could see betweer 
 them was, that Peace had a dimple in one cheek only, 
 and Plenty in both ; that Peace wore a front, and 
 Plenty her own gray hair. However, I suspect the 
 * front was put on for high dress. They are droll 
 looking, but such pleasant faces ! Nice, complete sets 
 of white teeth ; and well they are so, for their mouths 
 are never both shut. Their eyes are rather small, 
 but bright and warm as sunshine in June, and their 
 cheeks are rather fat, but there is not a wrinkle 
 near them, but a bright color on them. I did not 
 expect to find such people in a city, so kind, so plain, 
 so as if they were content to be themselves, and did 
 not aim to be like any body else. 
 
 " Well, dear mother, we had a great deal of talk, 
 which I would write, but have not time or paper. 
 The amount of it was that (suppose me to be blush- 
 
148 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 ing) Miss Peace was pleased with my appearanct ; 
 that she felt moved towards me by my saving her 
 new gown and shawl ; that, as soon as she knew my 
 wants, it occurred to her that, if Plenty felt as she 
 did, they could board me. Their house was pretty 
 full, to be sure ; the old lady and her grandchild, 
 Nannie, occupied the back room, Peace and Plenty 
 the front chamber, her three nieces the back one, 
 and there was nothing left but a little place over the 
 entry, that they used for a clothes-press ; but they 
 might take the clothes out, and put me in; I should 
 have to stand on my bed to dress, but I could keep 
 my clothes in boxes under it, and there was room to 
 put my arm between the wall and bed to get them, 
 and I could hang some tilings up, and it would be 
 handy reaching. I did make one suggestion, mother 
 Where should I put a wash-basin ? 
 
 " I like that, said Peace, and Plenty nodded iiei 
 approbation; indeed, I find it s always a voice anc an 
 echo, no matter which speaks first. 
 
 " There s a nice little closet for washing, in the 
 area, she said ; it has a window, and room for a 
 
HARRVS FIRST LETTER FROM NEW FORK. 149 
 
 wash-stand and a small tub ; and there s a lock on the 
 door, and you shall have it all to yourself. 
 
 " Now, but two points remained to be settled. 
 Miss Peace would make suitable inquiries about me 
 of Mrs. Dawson, because it was customary. It was 
 enough for her to look in my face ; (blushing again, 
 dear mother.) The other point was the price of my 
 board. The cost, she thought, would be about two 
 dollars ; and her profits, she said, with a smile, she 
 would get out of little services I could render. It 
 would be handy having one mankind in the house. 
 
 " Two dollars I can pay, as Holson has promised 
 me a salary of a hundred dollars a year, with two 
 weeks vacation. So, mother, I felt very happy. Miss 
 Teace went with me to Mrs. Dawson s, without any 
 Jelay ; and, after a short private interview, they were 
 both perfectly satisfied. Mrs. Dawson had heard of 
 the twin sisters, and was rejoiced that Providence had 
 directed me to so good a home ; and my new friend s 
 face sparkled all over, at the good account our kind 
 benefactress had given of us. In addition to the low 
 board, for I find it is very low here. the sisters 
 
150 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 have my washing done in the house. They have one 
 servant, and they say, that on washing-days they will 
 do a littb more for her, and it will not come hard to 
 any one. It is all live and let live here. Their 
 nieces are three orphan girls; one but two years older 
 than little Lucy, whom I am to carry to "school and 
 fetch home, when the days are stormy; one eight, 
 and one fourteen, thinner, more city looking than 
 Annie, I mean in point of health, but as unaffected 
 and frank as Annie herself ; and, being just about 
 Annie s age, she seems very natural to me, and I 
 think we shall be quite friends. Her name is Mary 
 Hale. 
 
 "After getting all things settled in my press-room, 
 I went to Mrs. Dawson, who wished to introduce me 
 to Mr. Holson. He was very civil to our friend; but, 
 I must confess, I did not like his looks; and his man 
 ner seemed to me both sly and fawning. He spoke 
 of the very uncommon terms on which I was coming; 
 of my rare good fortune being a raw hand in 
 obtaining a salary ; said I must thank Mrs. Dawson 
 for it ; Mrs. Dawson was one of his best customers 
 
HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 151 
 
 hoped she would continue so ; said he should expect 
 extra service for such extra salary; mentioned some 
 shops where no salary was paid, and others where 
 clerks paid for their places; and said, in rather a 
 lower voice, still I heard him, that dress was very 
 important to the impression of the shop ; that clerks 
 should have a fashionable air; that my clothes were 
 country-made ; that it was a disadvantage ; but, for 
 Mrs. Dawson s sake, he would put up with a great deal. 
 "I was a little provoked, mother, but I tried to 
 remember that you had told me, again and again, not 
 always to expect smooth sailing ; that life was a sort 
 of checker-work, and that I must be grateful for the 
 good, and make the best of the evil, and that what 
 seems evil to us often turns out, in the end, to be 
 good, &c., &c. I have far more good than evil in my 
 fortune. Nothing can exceed Mrs. Dawson s kindness; 
 and then my luck in my boarding-house ! Mother, it 
 will be a home to me. Mr. Holson told me to come 
 to his shop in the evening, and he would give me his 
 instructions. The clerks surveyed me superciliously. 
 I hjard the words shabby, and down east, and one 
 
152 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 of them was ill-bred enough to touch his own neck 
 cloth and point to mine, and, at the same time, wink 
 to his companion. Mother, I felt mortified, plagued ; 
 I am ashamed to confess it, but I did. I know 
 there was a want of manliness and independence in 
 this, and I am ashamed of it; but things look so 
 different in New York and in Salisbury ! When I 
 left home, I felt as if you had provided every thing 
 I could want, as if I were a little too smart, if any 
 
 thing, and now ! But I am determined not to 
 
 give up to it. I will not sacrifice a principle to an 
 appearance. I will not make myself one of the 
 clothes people! 
 
 "While I was at tea, Mrs. Dawson s servant 
 brought me a note enclosing fifteen dollars a present 
 :om her to enable me, she says, to present myself 
 nore acceptably in Mr. Holson s shop. 
 
 "This is very, very kind, very generous. But, 
 mother, I shall not accept it. In the first place, it 
 would be going right in the face of your instruc 
 tions I must depend on my own exertions. 
 
HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 153 
 
 Charities are for the helpless. A dependence on 
 gifts, if it does not make us mean and cringing , 
 does make us helpless. This I learned from you ; 
 and, from my own reflection, I am sure I stall respect 
 
 myself more a month hence, if I go before those 
 
 _ 
 impertinent young men in my plain, rather coarsish 
 
 country clothes. So I ll face it out like a man. 
 
 "I spent the afternoon in walking round the city, 
 and in looking at the beautiful fountains. There 
 are three large ones, and are to be many more. 
 The water is thrown sixty feet into the air, and then 
 falls back in showers of jewels, as it seems when 
 the sun shines. I sat down in Union Park, and 
 looked and listened, till I fancied I felt the cool 
 breath of Rhigi by the brook-side. These fountains 
 in the city seem to me like a bit of lovely poetry 
 in a book of tiresome prose. They are a voice from 
 another land, a breath from home. I remained, sit- 
 ting near the fountain, refreshed and thoughtful. I 
 do not know whether it was dream or reverie, but I 
 was coming down Rhigi with Clapham ; and then 
 
154 HARRY S FIRST LETTER FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 we were all kneeling around dear little Lucy s red 
 
 and Clapham was with us. Suddenly I started up, 
 
 and saw the stars shining, and felt my cheeks wet 
 with the spray or with tears, dear mother 
 
COMRADES. 155 
 
 CHAPTEJl X. 
 JAIL COMRADES. 
 "Is the boy of the wicked?" 
 
 CLAPHAIL was committed for trial by tie justice at 
 L ., The sittings of the Court of Common 
 
 Pleas began the following week. He was instructed 
 that he might have counsel allowed him, and might 
 have the privilege, common to all criminals, of pleading 
 not guilty; but he was, at the same time, told that 
 the proofs were too strong against him to admit a 
 hope of escape, and was advised to plead guilty, and 
 gain favor by occasioning the least possible trouble. 
 No boy ever more dreaded being shut up in a jail, 
 but he was in a state of despair. He had lost, as 
 he believed, forever, the affection, so well earned, of 
 his beloved friends; he had lost every thing but hia 
 self-respect. This was not gone, and it was so strongly 
 
156 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 indicated in his upward, straightforward glance, in 
 the open expression of his face, and his quiet, and 
 almost dignified demeanor, that his counsel did not find 
 it difficult to get an abatement of the usual sentence 
 in like offences, and, instead of being sent to the 
 State Prison, he was remanded to the County Jail, 
 to remain there for two years, beginning with one 
 month s confinement in a dark cell. 
 
 It is a punishment almost too heavy to be borne, 
 to be, at any age, shut up in solitude and darkness ; 
 but to this mountain boy, this free ranger over hill 
 and valley, who had lived with 
 
 "The mountain wind most spiritual thing of all 
 "The wide earth knows," 
 
 to be thus caged in the growing time of youth, when 
 activity was the Jaw of his nature, was most painful 
 His hours dragged heavily. At first, the future was 
 all a blank to him. He snrank from it. It held out 
 no hope to him, no prospect of any thing pleasant 
 or inviting. The past was all. And over the past, 
 in spite of the evil that had attended it, there was 
 a golden light from the friendship of that blessed 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 157 
 
 little family that had encouraged and stimulated him. 
 He reviewed, again and again, his past life, and he 
 had infinite comfort in remembering many temptations 
 he had resisted, many good resolutions he had formed, 
 and kept; and, gradually, as his ideas became more 
 settled, he felt more patient. A great many things 
 he had heard Mrs. Davis say, and which, at the time, 
 made little impression, and which he had quite for 
 gotten, now recurred to his memory, and seemed to 
 come out in letters of light. "God does not see as 
 man sees ! " " Despair and a good conscience don t 
 keep company." "Trust in God, do right, and all 
 will come right." These, and many others of her 
 good, familiar sayings, were on his horizon like the 
 first faint streaks of dawn, and, after the first throb 
 bing agony was past, he had many peaceful waking 
 hours. But, when he was asleep, owing to bad air 
 and want of exercise, he had horrid dreams. His 
 mother would seem to be lying dead-drunk upon him, 
 and he could not remove her. His father was drag 
 ging him over stones, and through sloughs, and then he 
 would hear smothered cries of " Murder ! " and " Fire ! " 
 
158 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 and awake in a cold sweat, and shivering with ague. 
 Once in a great while, he would have a sweet sleep, 
 and pleasant dream of fishing down Rhigi s sparkling 
 brook, and Annie would be standing with a basket of 
 berries beside him, and he would feel little Lucy s warm 
 kiss on his cheek. O, then how dreary the waking! 
 
 It seemed to Clapham, when he had passed one 
 day in that dark cell, that the month would never 
 come to an end; but it was soon gone gone with 
 its record to Him who awardeth judgment ; and most 
 happy for Clapham, that he had used some of these 
 hours for meditation, for penitence and prayer, and for 
 good resolutions against the day of freedom and out 
 ward temptation. 
 
 The month was gone, and Clapham was removed 
 to a large apartment, in which were several persons, 
 some already sentenced to a term of imprisonment, 
 and others awaiting their trial. Some were in for 
 grave offences, others for trivial ones. The proved 
 guilty and the possibly innocent in close companion 
 ship ! Few improvements had then been made in the 
 jails. They were strictly places of punishment Cor- 
 
JAIL COMRADE 159 
 
 rection and reformation were woras almost unwritten 
 in the penal code. The criminal was then considered 
 a hopeless outcast, not, as now, a weak, r^glected, 
 unfortunate brother, to be pitied and cared for not, as 
 now, an infirm child, to be restrained because danger 
 ous, to suffer because disobedient, and to be restored 
 to trust as soon as he deserved it. 
 
 At the period of Clapham s imprisonment, there were 
 no employments provided. If a man were industrious 
 and ingenious, he might, perhaps, obtain materials for 
 labor, and work on his own account ; but, for the most 
 
 part, the prison at L , like others, was a scene of 
 
 complete idleness. One man had a dirty pack of 
 cards, with which he and a comrade played from 
 morning till night, with interludes of telling fortunes, 
 and playing tricks with them. 
 
 Others pitched coppers all day long. One man, 
 whose wife supplied him with tobacco, smoked un 
 ceasingly; and all, with the exception of one French 
 man and a shoemaker, chewed and spit to the right 
 hand and the left, from morning till night a fitting 
 pastime for a jail. 
 
 
 
160 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 Clapham had come forth from his solitary cell with 
 feelings that made this society most odious to him. 
 The vulgar, profane, and indecent language he heard 
 shocked him, and, incredible as it may seem, he some 
 times wished for his solitude. 
 
 Slocum, the owner of the cards, invited him to 
 take a hand, and offered to teach him. He saw the 
 boy was wretched, and probably had a good-natured 
 desire to make him less so. But, when Clapham de 
 clined his advances, he and his companion laughed at 
 him, and, as they called it, poked fun at him. One 
 called him a toad, and advised him to crawl back to 
 his hole ; and the other an owl, who had no use of 
 his eyes now he had come back to daylight. The 
 Frenchman, Deleau, took his part. He was a kind- 
 hearted man, and ingenious, and diligent, as most 
 Frenchmen are ; for, in the worst circumstances, they 
 can find something to do. Deleau had been in part 
 nership with a pedler. It was proved their goods were 
 stolen. Deleau maintained that he was ignorant of 
 this ; but the pedler escaped, and Deleau was taken, 
 and as he could not prove his innocence, he waa 
 
JAIL COMRADES. i 
 
 sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment in the L 
 
 jail. He spoke broken English, and was mimicked 
 and laughed at by the jail company ; but this he did 
 cot mind. He was always good humored, and ready 
 *x> do small favors, and, by degrees, he became a gen 
 eral favorite. Even the worst people feel those little 
 hourly acts of kindness that are the cement of society, 
 and spread over its face cheerfulness and smiles. 
 
 " What for trouble you this little lad ? " said Deleau ; 
 " you should be, for him, father and mother." 
 
 " Come to your ma , my dear," screamed Slocum, 
 and he caught Clapham in his arms, and swung him 
 backward and forward, singing " Rock-a-by, baby bunt 
 ing." Clapham resisted manfully, straggled and kicked, 
 till Slocum, feeling himself hurt, flew into a passion, 
 and hit Clapham a blow in the face. He staggered 
 and fell, bruised and bloody. The noise called up the 
 jailer, who, on opening the door, and perceiving, as he 
 said, that the boy had "got into a fight already," 
 tlireatened to send him back to the solitary cell : and 
 then, as if he had quite done his duty, he relocked the 
 
 door. 
 
 14 
 
162 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 "Monsieur Jailer is one very good keeper for de 
 wild beast," said Deleau, " but a miserable for de young 
 man. It signify not. I will do what I can do, in this 
 very pretty place." He then filled his basin with 
 water, (he had procured some comforts for his own 
 private use,) and called Clapham to his end of the 
 room, and while he was washing off the blood, he said, 
 "Listen me, my dear; I will be your good friend; 
 when you cannot be master, stay quiet." 
 
 " But I ll not be made a baby and a fool of ! " said 
 Clapham, whose temper was thoroughly roused. 
 
 " Quite to the contrary, my friend ; he is the fool 
 who makes the wrong, and he the wise little man 
 who suffers it" 
 
 "I am not so \?ry little either," replied Clapham, 
 " and I ll let those fellows know I ll not be imposed on." 
 
 "You have reason, my friend; but if dey kindle a 
 fire, what for you burn yourself up in it ? No, no ; keep 
 clear of bad fellow ; do nothing wid em ; say noting to 
 em. Tis not one very pretty place here! but we can 
 make place for ourself. I am not happy man to be 
 here. I do not merit it; but I could not help it I 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 163 
 
 was stranger in de country. Nobody knew me. I was 
 de sheep found wid de fox. But what for, my dear, 
 cry, and lose life de laugh is more for de health!" 
 
 "I, too, was the poor sheep found with the fox," 
 thought Clapham ; " but I cannot laugh." 
 
 However, the kind philosophy of the Frenchman 
 had a good effect, and it was followed by substantial 
 services. Deleau had purchased favors of the jailer 
 by making rings of horse-hair for his wife and daugh 
 ters. They were made of black and white hair, with 
 names interwoven. These rings were shown, and De 
 leau had many applications to make more ; so that, for 
 some time, he drove quite a gaining trade. He told 
 this to Clapham. 
 
 "The trade," he said, "has now abated; still I 
 make two, sometime three, four a week, and four make 
 one dollar. I have one little sum to begin the world 
 when I leave this place. Now you shall be my part 
 ner. I teach you, and you shall have a share of my 
 business, and in two month more, all to yourself." 
 
 Clapham s face brightened. He had again found a 
 friend. He set about learning to weave the rings 
 
164 % JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 with fifood heart. At first, he was awkward enough; 
 but he was patient. Deleau encouraged him, and 
 when Clapham thanked him, he said, " Very well, mv 
 dear. I like to hear thank you; it is good of man 
 ner ; and de boy of your country are as fraid of man 
 ner as if dey were small-pox ; but what please me 
 more than words is your face, and your voice, no 
 no longer miserable. Dere, dat bit is fine ! Now 
 make one all yourself. Put in dat name you like 
 best." 
 
 Clapham began with fresh zeal. Deleau, who was 
 singing over his own work, now and then cast a side 
 long glance at Clapham, to assure himself the boy 
 made no mistake. "It is done!" said Clapham, show 
 ing it to nis master, with a smile of satisfaction, "and 
 all right, I I believe." 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo, my friend ! as right as if Monsieur 
 Deleau had done it himself! Annie! dat is de name 
 you like best?" 
 
 "No, no. Harry is the lame I like best in the 
 world; but boys do not wear rings, so I made it for 
 Harry s sister Annie; lut neither Harry nor Annie/ 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 105 
 
 he concluded, with a sigh, " will wear a ring of my 
 making, now." 
 
 "Never despair, my dear friend; good people for 
 give and forget. Put up de ring safe; one bright day 
 you may put it on Mademoiselle Annie finger for a 
 wedding-ring." 
 
 " O, never ! never ! never in the world ! A wed 
 ding-ring! How foolish, Mr. Deleau!" "As if I 
 should ever be married," thought Clapham ; " and if 
 I were, as if ever Annie Davis would look at such 
 a thing as I am a jail-bird." 
 
 Not many days after this, fortunately for Deleau, 
 unfortunately for Clapham, Deleau received a permit 
 
 to leave the prison. The pedler, his former partner v 
 
 * 
 had been taken. He had confessed his guilt, and 
 
 averred Deleau s innocence. This came to the knowl 
 edge of a young lawyer, who had defended Deleau at 
 the time of his commitment, and who had then be 
 come interested in the poor Frenchman. He had 
 voluntarily taken the pains to procure Deleau s re 
 lease. "I am as sorry to leave you," he said to 
 Clapham, at parting, " as if you were my own poor 
 
166 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 little boy. I had once one little boy." For the first 
 time, Clapham saw his eyes fill with tears ; he wiped 
 them away, and proceeded. " He is gone to de gooo. 
 God. De sweetest flowers are always taken for de 
 Paradise." 
 
 " So they are ! " exclaimed Clapham. He though 
 of little Lucy. 
 
 " Ah, we must all finish ! " resumed Deleau 
 "perhaps de sooner de better." 
 
 "I think so, Mr. Deleau." 
 
 " Ah, you must not tink so. You are too young 
 to tink so. A cloudy morning may turn out very 
 bright day first rote ! So, I expect, will Clapham. 
 Courage, my good boy ! When you come out oi dis 
 pretty placa, write to Paul Deleau, New York. 
 While you stay here, make de ring ; or do someting, 
 always do someting. Above all, keep away from do 
 bad fellow wid de cards and de pitch-penny." 
 
 They parted, and poor Clapham felt desolate 
 enough. The ring trade had become very dull. 
 The jailer took no pains to dispose of them. Clap- 
 ham, however, went on making them as long as his 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 167 
 
 materials lasted. Then the jailer was surly, and 
 would procure him no more. So Clapham fell back 
 into inevitable idleness. His days dragged heavily 
 on. He very civilly asked the jailer to bring him a 
 spelling-book, at the same time telling him he had 
 plenty of money to pay him for it. The jailer, at 
 first, made a sort of half promise he would attend 
 to it; but, when Clapham again and again reminded 
 him of it, he became vexed, and said he had some 
 thing else to do than to be bothered with buying 
 spelling-books for chaps. Slocum had been for some 
 days watching Clapham, and had become wonderfully 
 civil to him. Slocum s wife had brought him a 
 
 basket of apples and gingerbread. He offered Clap- 
 
 
 
 ham a share. Clapham took it, and thanked him. 
 
 " Now, that s friendly," he said ; " I knew you was 
 not a boy to bear malice. I told Dick Hunt, when 
 that outlandish Frenchman went away, you would find 
 out we were full as good friends to you as he 
 Come, don t be sucking your thumbs all day. Sit 
 down here, and look over the cards. You will soon 
 know how to play as well as we." Clapham drew up 
 
168 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 to them and became interested. Slocum winked to 
 his comoanion. "To-morrow you shall take a hand," 
 he said ; " there s no harm in life in playing when 
 there s nothing else to do." It soon became too 
 dark to discern the spots on the cards ; and, no 
 lights being allowed in the prison, the cards were 
 put aside. 
 
 Clapham had no sooner lain down on his bed 
 for the night, than the thought came to him like a 
 blow, "How could I forget Mr. Deleau s advice to 
 keep clear of Slocum ? I am sorry ! sorry ! But 
 what shall I do with these everlasting long days ? 
 If I had any kind of a book, perhaps I might spell 
 out the words. Perhaps Plum will let me wax his 
 threads for him. I ll try him." It was a good 
 consequence of Clapham s solitary confinement, that 
 he had acquired the habit, so soon as he laid him 
 self down, of considering his past conduct and future 
 duties. 
 
 When the jailer presented himself the next, morn 
 ing, Clapham begged him to lend him any old book. 
 "Bat you can t read," said the man, gruffly. "Per- 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 169 
 
 haps I tin learn," urged Clapham. "And what use 
 will you make of it ? No, no ; the less such as you 
 know the better." And thus this ignorant man dis 
 appointed Clapham, and himself lost one golden op 
 portunity of doing good and kindness. 
 
 Thus rebuffed, Clapham turned to his last hope ; 
 and a forlorn hope was that forbidding-faced man, 
 Plum. Poor Clapham timidly approached him. " I say, 
 Mr. Plum," he began, in a low voice, for he dreaded 
 Slocum and Hunt s laugh ; " don t you want a pren 
 tice?" No answer; and he repeated the question. 
 Plum shook his head. "I ll not plague you," con 
 tinued Clapham; "I ll begin with waxing the threads." 
 
 "You ll break and waste." 
 
 " Only try me, Mr. Plum." Again Plum shook his 
 head. " I can at least hammer the soles for you." 
 Again a decisive shake of the head. " Do let me 
 try, Mr. Plum, I am so tired doing nothing. I soon 
 learned to make rings of Mr. Deleau; why can t I 
 learn to mrke shoes ? " 
 
 " And then sell them on your own account, as 
 
 vou did the rings, hey? I can make myself all that 
 15 
 
170 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 will sell. If you don t learn it will be bother, and 
 if you do learn it will be loss." Still Clapham 
 urged. He had felt the good and happiness of oc 
 cupation that it could even make the hours glide 
 lightly on in that loathsome jail. "I will try my 
 best, Mr. Plum," he said ; " as long as I stay in 
 this place, I will work for you. I promise you." 
 
 " Promise ! hum ! What is the promise of the 
 like of you worth ? " 
 
 "I am not a liar!" said Clapham, coloring up to 
 the very roots of his hair. 
 
 "That s more than I know or believe. Boys is no 
 use ; I hate them I always did." 
 
 "And they will hate you," replied Clapham, his 
 too quick temper rising beyond his control ; " you 
 are a hateful and hard-hearted man ! " 
 
 Clapham had unconsciously raised his voice. Slo- 
 cum and Hunt cried out, "Hurrah! that s it, my boy! 
 go it, Clap ! you re coming on ; pay it on to the old 
 carrion ! " 
 
 Clapham did not answer them. He. slunk away 
 by himself, ashamed of having said any thing these 
 

 JAIL COMRADES. 171 
 
 bad men applauded. Slocum and Hunt thought 
 this too good an occasion to renew their attack on 
 Clapham to be lost. They knew he had two or three 
 dollars which he had earned in the ring trade ; this 
 money this precious means of procuring rum and 
 tobacco, for which they were always hankering they 
 were pretty sure of getting possession of, if they 
 could once cajole him into playing. 9 But all their 
 solicitations were, as yet, in vain. The poor, tempted 
 boy was, as yet, steadfast in his firm resolutions. 
 The memory of his friends was, as yet, a guardian 
 angel to him. 
 
 We may as well conclude this chapter with a 
 brief notice of Plum, who was a very strong illus 
 tration of a passion that, in a greater or less degree, 
 wofully prevails in our land, a strong but a singular 
 illustration of it, for, if our people are avaricious, 
 they are often very generous, sometimes profuse. If 
 Clapham had not been urged on by the keenest de 
 sire of employment, Plum s aspect must have repelled 
 him. He was short and spare, with a little head 
 bent forward ; his face was shrunken, and his skin 
 
172 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 shrivelled like an overbaked pear ; his sunken eye 
 glowed like a coal of fire in a dark place ; his 
 thin lips, sharply closed, seemed scarcely to have 
 smiled, even when he was a baby in his mother s 
 arms ; he did not appear as if there had ever in 
 his life been a period of youth and freshness. One 
 passion a greed of gain had ruled him from child 
 hood ; he was now past fifty. He had no wife, no 
 children, no one to provide for, and certainly he never 
 allowed himself an indulgence from the fruit of his 
 labor. Still, for fifty years, he had toiled from day 
 light to dark, as if to save himself from starvation. 
 
 His shoe-shop was in a small town near L . He 
 
 was a man of few words, quiet and inoffensive ; 
 doing, as was believed, neither good nor harm. It is 
 true that he had been several times suspected of 
 making false charges; but they were so petty, and 
 the man so industrious, and so free from temptation 
 to fraud, that the persons wronged concluded there 
 was some mistake, and let it pass. 
 
 There was a tannery in Plum s neighborhood, 
 from which its proprietor had missed leather; never, 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 173 
 
 however, more than one hide at a rime ; so he made 
 no fuss about it, though he was much troubled by 
 being forced to suspect one person after another. 
 He was detained in the tanyard, one day, much be 
 yond his usual time ; it was starlight. He perceived 
 a man crouched, burdened, and stealing along by the 
 fence. He followed him till the person entered 
 Plum s house ; and he saw that it was Plum him 
 self. One may imagine Plum s dismay, when, two 
 hours after, the tanner entered his dwelling with a 
 sheriff and search-warrant. What a dwelling for an 
 industrious man! One apartment was a work-shop, 
 and the other not much larger than a coffin 
 served him for kitchen and bed-room. The tanner 
 and sheriff proceeded to a loft and cellar, and both 
 were filled with stolen property, for the most part 
 of little value; and, except the few hides he had 
 stolen from the tanner, of no worth to Plum. It 
 was almost laughable that, among other lumber, {here 
 was a bat and ball, and a sled that a little boy, 
 through all the pleasant coasting days of winter, had 
 missed and mourned. Plum seemed to have stolen them 
 
174 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 from the mere passion of acquisition, or, perhaps, as 
 lie said to Clapham, he truly hated boys, and had a 
 dreary pleasure in spoiling their sport. At last, 
 buried in the cellar, under every thing else, the 
 
 searchers discovered bags of specie, assorted ; dollars 
 
 % 
 in one, half dollars in another, and so on, down to a 
 
 bag of cents. While they were counting the money, 
 which amounted to fourteen hundred and forty 
 dollars and thirty-two cents, Plum, who, till then, 
 had been silent, only becoming more and more livid, 
 began to cry and wring his hands, and offer to pay 
 double the price of the hides if they would go away 
 and leave him. The tanner told him the matter had 
 gone too far ; he was in the sheriff s hands ; but he 
 would befriend him if he would tell him how he 
 had come to the pass of prowling about nights like 
 a hungry fox, and preying upon others property, when 
 he had plenty of his own. 
 
 The amount of his confession was, that he had 
 been a working, saving lad from the beginning ; 
 that he was honest at first, but he loved money (the 
 poor wretch called it gain) so well that he sold hia 
 
JAIL COMRADES. 175 
 
 school-books, and whatever little presents were given 
 him, and laid up the money. Even in those early 
 days, nothing pleased him like making " a good 
 bargain." 
 
 His first theft was during ID S apprenticeship, 
 small bits of leather, with which he cobbled shoes 
 at an under price when the shop was shut, and his 
 master believed he was in bed. Then he took 
 leather enough for a pair of shoes, of which he 
 made private sale ; and so he had gone on, from 
 year to year, increasing his burden of guilt and 
 fear, and gaining what ? some round bits of silver 
 and copper to bury in his cellar, when stones would 
 have served that purpose as well. 
 
 But are there not men with a wider horizon 
 than Plum s, as diligent, and more fortunate, who 
 accumulate gains and go on getting, each new load 
 pressing a little more of the life-blood out of their 
 hearts ? The earth, instead of being fed from their 
 fountains with streams of liberality and gladness, is, 
 r or them, converted into a banking-house, wboso 
 
176 JAIL COMRADES. 
 
 vaults are filled with gold and silver; (fearful wit 
 nesses at the last tribunal !) and Heaven is to them_ 
 a brazen, arid vault, to which no breath of love or 
 gratitude ascends from others ; which no prayer of 
 faith or hope of theirs can pierce. 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. J77 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A-CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 " Some men employ one portion of their lives to make the other 
 miserable." 
 
 HARRY DAVIS had a much harder struggle than 
 appeared by his letter to his mother, in refusing 
 Mrs. Dawson s gift of the fifteen dollars. It was ac 
 companied by a note, in which, with the most delicate 
 kindness, she urged its acceptance. Harry was to enter 
 the shop the next day, a stranger to its modes of 
 business, under a master who had not made, to say the 
 least of it, a favorable impression on him, with new 
 associates, who too often look with a critical eye on 
 a new-comer. To all this was to be added the dis 
 advantage of appearing in a garb that had already 
 excited a demonstration of displeasure from Holson 
 and sinister looks from his clerks. If it be consid 
 ered what the temptations are to dress in a city under 
 
178 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 ordinary circumstances, and how great a majority of 
 men and women, young and old, yield to them, Har 
 ry s perseverance in his resolution must be allowed to 
 border on heroism. It must bo confessed that he rose 
 even earlier than utual tho next me ruing; that he 
 took extraordinary pains in polishing his boots ; that 
 he arranged his hair most carefully ; and (he can afford 
 to have this little weakness told) that he tied and retied, 
 a half dozen times, his plaid cotton neckcloth, and at 
 last turned away from his three-inch glass, saying, 
 with a sigh, "Hang it! I cannot make it set like 
 those fellows ! There s no use in trying." 
 
 Peace and Plenty were not larks in the morning; 
 but, being aware that Harry s duty was to open the 
 shop, and that he must be there at an early hour, 
 they kindly prepared his breakfast over night; and, 
 though he protested he wanted nothing more than bread 
 and a glass of water, lie found then, and from that 
 time henceforth, prepared neatly, on a little waiter, 
 bread, butter, and a bit of cold meat. Our motherly 
 maidens said they did not " hold to setting a growing 
 boy to work on bread and water." 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 179 
 
 We pass over the few first weeks of Harry s 
 novitiate, and will make extracts from his letters, which 
 will best tell his experience. We shall be com 
 pelled to intersperse the extracts with a few notes, as 
 Harry did not choose to communicate to his mother 
 all the discomforts of his situation. 
 
 After having been a month at work, " I am be 
 ginning," he says, "to feel more easy in the harness, 
 dear mother. If it yet galls in some places, there are 
 others that have already become callous, and do not 
 feel it. Eugene Nevis was the youngest clerk, when I 
 came in, and I became, in his place, prince of the 
 lamps and knight of the broom. Eugene is a gen 
 tleman s son, and a real gentleman in his spirit; 
 well-bred and kind-hearted. From the first, he has 
 treated me as if I were his equal in every way. 
 He even said, the first time I trimmed the lamps 
 and swept the shop, I feel how much you have 
 the advantage of me, by knowing how to do these 
 things. When I began sweeping, I blistered my hands ; 
 and I had a regular scolding every day from Holson 
 and the head clerks. And, as to the lamps, I daubed 
 
180 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 them, and spLled the oil, and my poor father had 
 to pay Holson twenty dollars for the damage I oc 
 casioned the goods. I don t believe it amounted to 
 thai, but Holson is a skin-flint every way. Dear 
 mother, I thank you for every thing you taught me. 
 I find that no knowledge, be it even so humble as 
 how to fill a lamp well, comes amiss. Little did I 
 think, when I swept the rooms for you every day while 
 you were nursing Annie through her long fever, that 
 I was studying for a New York clerkship. The clerks, 
 for the most part, were pleased to find a clean shop 
 and bright lamps, and they treated me more civilly 
 than, by all accounts, they usually do new-comers. 
 One, to be sure, mean fellow asked me where I last 
 served as chambermaid, and another called me Betty, 
 and so on; but I had nerved myself to bear it, and 
 when they saw that I was tolerably manly, and no 
 Betty, they changed their tone. There are two or 
 \hree among them (we have twelve clerks) whom I do not 
 at all like ; they are ostentatious and mean, ignorant 
 and arrogant. They have precious littie instruction 
 from books, and not one tithe of the knowledge which 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 181 
 
 poor Clapham got from an ever wide-awake observation 
 of nature. Country life for me, mother. Mr. Edward 
 Rice is our head clerk. He wears a gold chain and 
 satin waistcoat, and so on, and has a very genteel air, 
 which Mr. Holson thinks attracts customers ; under 
 bred ones I rather think it does ; but the coarse-grained 
 wood shows through the high varnish. The gold chain 
 notwithstanding, Mr. Edward refused yesterday to sub 
 scribe a sixpence for a sick clerk whom Holson had 
 turned off. I doubt if he had a sixpence. When I 
 put down half a dollar, he raised his eyebrows till 
 I thought they would roll over the other side, and 
 he said, Flush for a freshman ! Straws show which 
 way the wind blows. I knew he meant to intimate 
 a suspicion against me. I felt hot. I did not speak, 
 but I looked him steadily in the eye ; his fell, and 
 I walked off to my business, satisfied that he felt 
 hotter than I. But I like even him, I like them all, 
 better than Holson himself. 
 
 "1 have told you, my dear motner, that I did not 
 like Holson. I like him less and less every day. Kind 
 
182 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 Mrs Dawsor hns been blinded by his intensely obliging 
 manner to customers. If she could see behind the 
 scenes, she would be disgusted with his selfishness, 
 his rapacity, his ill-temper, and tyranny. To me, his 
 sycophancy to his customers, and his mean ways, are 
 most revolting sometimes ludicrous. If a lady asks 
 for pmk silk, and he has not it, he tries to persuade her 
 that red is pink, or that cherry is more fashionable 
 than pink, or crimson richer, or scarlet more becoming , 
 and the worst of it is, he does persuade half the 
 women. Yesterday he was outwitted. A lady was 
 looking at the silks. She fixed her attention on one. 
 Holson, who is very quick at detecting a lady s fancies, 
 thought it was a sure nibble, as poor Clapham used to 
 sav ; and, as usual, he set to work to obviate whatever 
 objections she might raise against it. I must say, 
 ladies are pretty ingenious at this. * Quite a charm 
 ing thing that, he said; just opened. I bought tho 
 onl/ case of these silks in this city. I saw tho 
 same pattern at Beck s, said the lady, dryly. Ah, 
 indeed ! did you ? Possibly Mr. Beck imports. He 
 tried another bait, often successful. I sold a dress 
 
A CLERKS TRIALS. 18M 
 
 off this to Miss Liston. Indeed! exclaimed the lady; 
 but what Miss Liston? Really, I don t quite know. 
 Then I cannot buy it, and run the dreadful risk of 
 its being Miss Liston, the grocer s daughter, and not 
 Miss Liston of the Fifth Avenue. In short, Mr. Holson, 
 I prefer to be a leader, and not a follower. 
 
 " Ah indeed very good ! said the fellow, with 
 one of his odious convulsive little titters. Upon my 
 word, I think this piece has not been cut, after all. 
 Rice, it was quite a different thing Miss Liston bought ? 
 Quite, said Rice, and Miss Liston was dismissed. 
 I was looking for a fatigue dress, said the lady, 
 still hovering over the same piece of silk. Just the 
 thing, then, madam ; you see it is dust-color, adapted 
 for riding or walking. It must be suitable for an 
 evening dress, persisted the lady. Exactly, madam. 
 A change of ribbons and a lace cape we have loves 
 just opened makes it an evening dress at once. 
 
 " I was looking for a summer silk 
 
 "Just the thing, ma am.* 
 
 " But, she said, chopping round again, I always 
 buy a silk for wear. 
 
184 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 " Of course, ma am, of course. You see this is 
 quite solid. 
 
 " * How do you think it will do for travelling, Mr. 
 Uolson? Admirably; the thing. A mantilla over it. 
 we have them at all prices makes it quiet at once ! 
 
 " Still the lady did not come to the desired point, 
 and Holson, hardly concealing his impatience, said, 
 What objection can you make to it, ma am? 
 
 " None in the world, she replied, coolly turning 
 on her heel, and walking out of the shop, but that 
 it does not suit my fancy! 
 
 "It was not very dignified for a lady to play at 
 his own game with Holson; but, I confess, I was 
 pleased to see him beaten, and I betrayed my satis 
 faction by a smile. Holson saw it. I was standing 
 at his elbow ; and he looked like a thunder-cloud, 
 and he has been more testy to me than usual ever 
 
 "Yesterday, an intelligent looking gentleman ca.me 
 into the shop, and introduced himself to Holson as 
 one of the trustees of the Mercantile Library. He said, 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 185 
 
 looking roind upon us, that he had taken advantage 
 of a rainy day, when he believed he should not in 
 terrupt us, to call and solicit our subscriptions, or 
 rather to offer us an opportunity to subscribe to the 
 * Mercantile Library Association. He presumed most 
 of the young men in so prosperous an establishment 
 as Mr. Holson s were acquainted with the institution ; 
 but those that were not, he would inform that it 
 comprised a good library, carefully selected, and a 
 reading-room warmed and lighted, to which any clerk 
 could obtain access every evening by paying an initia 
 tion fee of one dollar, and two dollars annual subscrip 
 tion. This also entitles him to draw a book from the 
 library every week. He then went on to say to 
 Holson, that of course every gentleman at the head 
 of such an establishment as his, must feel a deep re 
 sponsibility for the young men in his employment, 
 and under his guardianship; that he must feel pain 
 fully anxious to shield them from the temptations 
 incident to idle hours in a large city; and to pro 
 vide for them innocent and profitable occupation. 
 
 The retail shop, he said, was often the threshold 
 1C 
 
186 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 to a higl commercial position, and it was very im 
 portant tc the young men to be furnishing their 
 minds with the knowledge befitting an honorable 
 station; that the time had gone, or was going by, 
 when merchants and traders were looked down upon 
 by an idle class ; that our merchants were our princes, 
 and they should show the world what stuff princes 
 should be made of. He said that every American 
 lad should know what was requisite to make a man 
 a man; fine clothes were not; fine friends were not; 
 but probity and a well-informed mind were. The 
 first very merchant would be careful to inculcate 
 for his own sake, by precept and example, (mercy, 
 mother! he did not know Holson,) and to promote 
 the last, the Mercantile Library had been instituted. 
 He hoped the young men would be as eager to 
 subscribe as he was desirous to have them. He 
 first presented his paper to poor ZJmcon Carey, as the 
 boys call our book-keeper a thin, pale, sad man, 
 both bald and gray. He shook his head, and de 
 clined : but said, respectfully, * I have neither money 
 nor time, sir; if had I would subscribe, if it were 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 187 
 
 only for the sake of my lame son. The stranger 
 bowed, and passed on to Mr. Rice. Rice shrugged 
 his shoulders, and said books were so cheap it was 
 not worth his while. But, urged the stranger, you 
 will have the advantage of a reading-room open, 
 lighted, and warmed till ten o clock in the evening. 
 
 " A gay place ! said Rice, with a contemptuous 
 curl of his lip. I never saw a calmer tempered man 
 than this gentleman; he did not seem in the least net 
 tled. Without paying the slightest attention to Rice s 
 sneer, he said, There is a greater variety of reading, 
 and better selected, in the library than you will find \ 
 in the cheap prints ; and besides, these cheap prints are 
 a tremendous expense to your eyes. Rice shrugged 
 his shoulders and shook his head, and Holson said, 
 * Pass on, sir, if you please ; pass on. The boys are 
 wasting time. Wasting time ! Mother, I believe Hoi- 
 son, thinks time was given to spend in making money, 
 and for nothing else. As it proved, the gentleman s 
 good arguments, though lost on Rice, had their effect 
 on the rest Six out of the twelve set down their 
 names; I among the six. Now, mother, don t you 
 
188 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 and Annie stare as did Holson and Edward Rice. 
 Let Annie cast up my account. 
 
 "Travelling expenses, 50 
 
 " Subscription to the sick clerk, 50 
 
 "Initiation fee, 1 00 
 
 "I could afford to subscribe. I have three dollars 
 ^emaining of my five. I hope to earn something over 
 and above my salary before the year is out; but if 
 I do not, I have enough in reserve to pay my library 
 fees, and one dollar for extras. O, one thing I must 
 not forget to tell you, it pleased me so much. I 
 signed last, and was at the desk, returning the pen to 
 Mr. Carey, when the gentleman said to him, Put your 
 name down. I will see to the fees for this year at 
 least, and I dare say this young man (looking at me) 
 will take the trouble to draw out the books for your 
 lame boy. Mr. Carey smiled, the first smile I have 
 seen on his face since I have been in Holson s shop, 
 and he looked cheerful all day. It is pleasant for 
 those who have money to go round buying smiles 
 and cheerfulness for those whose fate is hard, like poor 
 Carey s. Don t you think so, mother?" 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 180 
 
 Harry had many vexations to endure, of which he 
 made no report to his mother. Those clerks, at their 
 head Edward Rice, who took airs on themselves, put 
 all odd jobs on Harry, and he was sometimes kept at 
 the shop till nine, ten, and eleven o clock, though the 
 nominal hour of closing it was eight. He was patient, 
 because he was manly, and determined not to fret 
 about trifles. Trifles he called them; but they de 
 prived him of his greatest enjoyment his reading, and 
 his pleasant social hours at his happy home. A much 
 more serious trouble to him was the continual displeas 
 ure and fault-finding of Holson. " It s all your fault," 
 he said, "Davis, that Eugene Nevis has left the shop. 
 Not that I care for the rascal; I can get twenty better 
 clerks in his place; but it s your (we omit the word 
 
 with which he graced it) country notions. His 
 
 relations were good customers, and now they have all 
 quit, for he has told his own story." 
 
 Nevis did tell his own story, which was, that, stimu 
 lated by Harry Davis s example, he had absolutely 
 refused to make the false representations which Hol 
 son insisted on as the common course of business 
 
190 A CLERK S TRIALS. 
 
 That common course was, to say to a lady, "You 
 had better buy this dress now. ma am ; it s the last we 
 have of it;" when, perhaps, there were half a dozen 
 pieces of the same on the shelf; or, "I sold this 
 muslin yesterday for five shillings, which I now offei 
 to you for four." "You will not find another velvet so 
 cheap as this in New York," &c., &c. ; and uniformly 
 to assure the buyers that every article was offered 
 below cost. A lady was one day looking at an ex 
 pensive muslin, and said to Harry, "I doubt thb 
 color. Do you know if it washes ? " 
 
 "No, it does not, ma am." 
 
 She looked surprised at his unexpected frankness, 
 and smiled. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, and left the shop. Hoi- 
 son was engaged with a customer, but Harry perceived 
 that he overheard and oversaw the transaction. He 
 took the first opportunity of abusing Harry outrageously. 
 He would have struck him, if he had dared. Soon 
 after, another customer came, to whom Holson him 
 self showed the same muslin. She asked the same 
 troublesome question. " O, I ll warrant it," said Hoi- 
 
A CLERK S TRIALS. 191 
 
 son. Thereupon the lady took it, and, on the faith 
 of Mr. Holson s warranty, brought it back the next 
 day. Holson said, "Of course he would take it back; 
 but the lady must take something else out of his 
 shop. She had no occasion for any thing else. She 
 wanted nothing but a muslin gown. There was no 
 redress without more trouble than it was worth, and 
 she retained tfie fading warranted muslin. 
 
192 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 "Deep malice makes too deep incision." 
 
 THE spring business had begun, and Harry was 
 more than ever confined to the shop. He be 
 came pale, and every day paler and thinner. He 
 dreamed of country breezes, swelling buds, early 
 flowers, and the full spring chorus of birds ; but, 
 instead of all this, he . was waked by the harsh 
 sound of the first wheel rolling over the pavement 
 He hurried to the shop, not to leave it, at night, 
 till he could scarcely drag his weary limbs home. 
 His kind hostesses became anxious about him. Miss 
 Peace advised a blue pill taken twice a week, as 
 "rulable in the spring;" and Plenty, when Harry- 
 shook his head at this, suggested that camomile tea, 
 three times a day, would strengthen him. But Harry 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 193 
 
 insisted that nothing would do this, if not the good 
 bread and meat of their table. How and when he 
 should pay for this bread and meat, now wore upon 
 him more than his work and confinement. When 
 his quarter s salary became due, Holson had put him 
 off; and, when Harry repeated his request for his 
 dues, and urged the necessity of paying his board, 
 Holson told him that if he did not wait till it was 
 convenient to pay him, he might whistle for his 
 money ; that he could get clerks enough without 
 wages. Unfortunately, Harry had no written -contract ; 
 and Mrs. Dawson, the only person whose testimony 
 could aid him, had suddenly gone to the West Indies 
 for health. No word or sign from the good sisters 
 intimated that Harry was behindhand ; but he was 
 too honest, too manly, to continue to be a charge to 
 them, and he resolved, if Holson did not pay him at 
 the end of the six months, which would now be in two 
 days, he would leave his employment, and get another, 
 even if it were domestic service, that would enable 
 him to pay his debt. His painful impatience was 
 
 increased by hearing old Mrs. Bland say to ]\fary 
 17 
 
194 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 Hale, "I never saw your aunts wear their old bo A 
 nets out on Easter Sunday before. What is the 
 reason?" "Why," said Mary, "I am sure, Mrs. 
 Bland, aunts bonnets look very decent." " Yes, 
 decent; but, in twenty years, I have never known 
 them go to church, on Easter Sunday, with their old 
 bonnets." "The reason is, grandmother," said blind 
 
 Nannie Bland " Hush, Nannie ! " said Mary ; but 
 
 the little girl either did not hear or did not heed. 
 "Aunty Peace says that they have not any money 
 till Harry pays them." " O Nannie ! " said Mary, 
 deprecatingly. Her eyes met Harry s. He smiled 
 but it was a smile of the deepest mortification. 
 Mary understood it, and felt tears of sympathy 
 coming, and she left the room. Harry followed her, 
 and explained his embarrassment ; and Mary begged 
 him not to be troubled, and said, in their kind spirit, 
 that her aunts would rather never have new bonnets 
 than he should leave them. This was quite true, 
 and this might have been the consequence to them, 
 for they had scarcely an unappropriated shilling. 
 Their income was one thousand dollars. With thia 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 195 
 
 they maintained in independence their comfortable 
 little establishment. They boarded their old friend, 
 widow Bland, for just enough to cover the expense, 
 " throwing in," as they termed it, " blind Nannie ; she 
 being such an interesting child, it was only a pleas 
 ure ; and she ate like a Canary." They supported 
 their three orphan nieces ; many an old friend was 
 welcomed to their hospitable table. They rented a 
 pew in the church their parents attended before them, 
 took a weekly paper, a religious magazine, and sub 
 scribed to two charitable societies. Had they not 
 more enjoyment from money Avith their one thousand 
 dollars, than some rich men with their millions ? 
 
 Truly, contentment with godliness is great gain. 
 
 Harry s affairs were approaching a crisis. Till 
 this should be past, he had resolved to make no 
 mention of his anxieties to his mother. 
 
 There was one person in Holson s shop, a far 
 greater sufferer than Harry. This was Carey, the 
 book-keeper. He was an amiable man, rather ineffi 
 cient from protracted ill health, and timid from con 
 tinued nisfortun^s. His wife was a feeble woman, 
 
196 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 and his children sickly. His whole life had been 
 under a dreary, leaden sky. He had ceased to hope, 
 but always looked for something worse. 
 
 At a period of uncommon pressure to poor Carey, 
 and of elated prosperity to Holson, he had lent his 
 book-keeper a few hundred dollars ; and, from that 
 time, he had kept him under the harrow. When 
 ever he had any purpose to gain, he would threaten 
 to withhold his salary, or to seize his furniture to 
 satisfy the debt For two or three weeks, Harry 
 had observed that Carey was unusually dejected ; that 
 he was every evening behindhand with his books ; 
 and, one evening, after watching him going over and 
 over the same column of figures, and then leaning 
 dejectedly on his elbow, he said, modestly, to Carey, 
 "You do not seem quite well, sir. I am a pretty 
 good accountant; perhaps I can assist you." 
 
 " You are very kind," replied Carey ; " perhaps 
 you can. I have made some mistake here. I can 
 not detect it. I believe I am losing my head." 
 
 "O, no," said Harry, cheerfully; "go and sit on 
 that old sofa at the end of the shop, and rest your 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 197 
 
 head. Rest is all it wants, and that it wants enough." 
 Pcor Carey went, stiff and languid, and with but 
 half a man s life in him. Harry soon detected the 
 error, and rectified the figures. 
 
 "It is all right, Mr. Carey," he said. "Can I 
 do any thing else?" 
 
 "O, thank you, yes. If you will look at the two 
 last pages of last week s accounts, you will see they 
 are not footed. But it will keep you too late ; you 
 too are tired." 
 
 "Not sick-tired, as you are ; not at all too tired 
 to do this. You take a little doze, and I will wake 
 you when it s done." 
 
 So Harry went to work with a clear head and 
 willing heart ; and, in an hour s time, the accounts, 
 that were the despair of the poor old book-keeper, 
 were adjusted, and he went behind the screen to 
 wake Carey. He was not sleeping ; he was too care 
 worn and anxious to sleep. The tears came in his 
 eyes when he thanked Harry. "I do not know your 
 match," he said ; " you are one by yourself, Harry 
 Dans." But there seemed no sense of relief; the 
 
198 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 spring 1 of his mind was broken. After a minute, ho 
 rose, walked slowly to the desk, locked it, and left 
 the shop in complete absence of mind, without even 
 bidding Harry good night. 
 
 The next day, Harry s salary fell due, and he took 
 an opportunity of reminding Holson of it Holson 
 slid it was not convenient to pay it, and he must 
 wait. Harry said, manfully, he could not wait. Hol 
 son replied, he should " wait and do nothing else." 
 
 Harry then said, calmly, "I shall leave your ser 
 vice this evening, Mr. Holson." Holson stared. 
 
 " And a pretty box you ll be in," he said. 
 "There s no other such fool as I, to engage to give 
 a raw boy wages. I ll give you no character." 
 
 Harry, though a modest young man, was not to be 
 bullied out of his rights, or his self-possession. 
 
 " No character that you could give would be of 
 service to me, Mr. Holson," he said, calmly ; " but I 
 have friends." 
 
 " Who, who, who ? " cried Holson, angrily mter- 
 ruDtinjr him. 
 
 "The good, honest people I live with." 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 109 
 
 " He I he ! he ! the old maids ! " 
 
 " And," resumed Harry, " Mr. Nevis, Eugene 
 Ne vis s father." 
 
 "What, Mr. Russel Nevis?" 
 
 "The same father of the clerk who left you 
 after I came. Perhaps you have forgotten him." 
 
 Holson bit his lips with vexation. " You know 
 Mr. Russel Nevis ! I don t believe a word of it" 
 
 " I have dined with him every Sunday for the last 
 month, and he has invited me to continue to do so, 
 till he goes to the country." 
 
 " A pretty figure you must cut at Mr. Ne vis s 
 table," said Holson, his eyes reconnoitring Harry s 
 dress insultingly. Harry stood his ground unflinch 
 ingly. Holson s temper was boiling ; but, with all 
 his blustering, his passion, and his love of tyranny, 
 he was wary and cautious. He was conscious that 
 Mr. Nevis was a powerful friend, and that he had no 
 good opinion of him. He was certain Harry spoke 
 pure truth, for he had never been able, by menace 
 or persuasion, to induce him to deviate from it ; 
 and, more than all, he was aware that Harry was the 
 
200 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 best clerk in his shop, the most solicitous to perform 
 his duty to him, and most acceptable to his customers ; 
 and tlierefore, when Harry said again, decidedly, "If 
 you do not pay me my salary to-day, you have vio 
 lated your contract, and I am released from mine, 
 and shall leave you." Holson, without saying another 
 word, gave him a draft for the fifty dollars. A knave 
 is no match for an honest man, if he be capable. 
 
 " Mr. Holson," said Harry, in the same firm voice 
 he had sustained through the interview, " I consider 
 myself released from my engagement with you, by 
 your failure to perform your part of the contract. 
 You have subjected me to mortification, and my 
 friends to inconvenience, by failing to pay me when 
 my money was due. I shall consult my friend, Mr. 
 Nevis, and shall be governed by his advice, either to 
 remain with you the remaining six months, or to leave 
 you on Monday." 
 
 Holson stared at Harry as if he were something ho 
 did not comprehend. His anger rose, but he felt that, 
 if he gave way to it, it would be like the wave beating 
 against a rock, and, muttering a curse, he turned away 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER, 201 
 
 What gave such power to a poor count: y boy? 
 High and right aims. Not an aim at riches or ex 
 ternal distinctions of any sort, but an aim to be true 
 in ail the relations of life ; to act up to the con 
 victions of his due ; to resist temptations, small and 
 great; and to develop his faculties by all the means 
 allotted to him. Thus fortified with the true spirit 
 of a man, a knave could not oppress, nor a flashy 
 clerk look him out of countenance. 
 
 It was Saturday, bad weather, and a dull day in 
 the shop. Holson was more irritable than usual, 
 abusing some of the clerks, and fretting at all. 
 Harry observed him repeatedly speaking earnestly 
 to Carey, and that Carey made no reply, and looked 
 even more wretched, more ill, more dejected, than 
 ever before. 
 
 " Poor deacon ! " said one of the clerks, jogging 
 Harry s elbow ; " do look at him, rubbing his forehead, 
 and his eye wandering about as if he saw nothing; 
 I should not wonder if he werf to cut his throat" 
 
 " Nor should I," said Harry, with a sigh of deep 
 compassion. He turned, and saw Holson at his elbow, 
 
202 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 and was sure, from a certain conscious look, that ne 
 had heard him. 
 
 Saturday evening was busier than any other even 
 ing of the week. Harry had got every thing in 
 order, and waited an hour for Carey to be done. 
 He then asked him if he could assist him. " No," 
 said Carey, "nobody can help me. My poor wife ! 
 My poor children ! " He laid his head down on his 
 desk, and gave way to a flood of tears. 
 
 "O Mr. Carey," said Harry, "you are tired out 
 you are used up." 
 
 Carey shook his head. " It is not that," he said. 
 
 " Tell me what it is, then," said Harry ; " or tell 
 some other friend. My mother always says tnere is 
 no burden that can t be lightened by a friend s help 
 ing you bear it." 
 
 " Vou are kind." Carey raised his head, and wiped 
 away his tears. "I have got to be a mere child. 
 There s no use in struggling any longer." 
 
 "Do go home now, Mr. Carey, and let me come 
 and see you to-morrow.* 
 
 " No, I cannot go home yet ; but you must go. 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 203 
 
 Leave the key, and come to-morrow to my he use and 
 get it It always does poor Johnny good to see you. 
 It is too late to do me good." Harry saw he was 
 not to be persuaded, and he took his hat and bade 
 him good night. 
 
 Soon after, there was a knock at the door. Carey 
 opened it, and Holson came in ; and, as soon as 
 Carey resumed his seat, he said, as if continuing a 
 previous conversation, " It s all before you now 
 choose ! Break with me, and see who will employ 
 you Go round and ask for a place with your bent 
 body, and blue lips, and hands shaking like the 
 palsy." 
 
 "It s serving you, and serving you faithfully, Mr. 
 Holson, that s bent my body and made my hands 
 shake." 
 
 " Have not I paid you for it ? lent you money 
 too ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied Carey, speaking with a little more 
 spirit ;""" and that s been the chain that bound me 
 down to this desk, and you knew it It may be as 
 well broken now as ever." 
 
204 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 "And you, and your wife, and your children, starv 
 ing in a bunch hey, Carey ? " Holson spoke in a 
 softer and more persuasive tone, as he added, "Don t 
 be a fool. I say again, do what I want of you ; 
 there is no risk to you, no risk, and great gain. 
 I will give you up your note to me, and a check 
 for two hundred dollars ! " There was no answer from 
 Carey but a deep-drawn sigh ; and Holson went on 
 to particularize exactly what he wanted done, which 
 was an alteration of certain entries in the accounts, 
 in order to cover a fraudulent transaction of his, which 
 was on the eve of detection. The change could only 
 be made by the hand that had kept the accounts. 
 <l Let it be well done, and soon done, Carey," he 
 concluded. " Promise me, only promise me, that you 
 will come here to-morrow and do it. I will trust to 
 your word, and give you up, on the spot, your note 
 and the check. Yes, I ll make the check three 
 hundred, and trust entirely to your truth, if you give 
 me the promise." 
 
 " To my truth, Mr. Holson ! Then there s some- 
 Jiing left, thank God ! I have not worked and suf- 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 205 
 
 fercd like a dog for nothing ! " He laughed /oud 
 and unnaturally, and then, recovering himself, he /stood 
 up, and speaking courageously, and with fresh life, he 
 said, " I ll not do it never ! If all else is gone, 
 truth and honesty are left. We may starve. God s 
 will be done. I have decided, Mr. Holson." 
 
 "Holson walked up and down the shop hurriedly. 
 He then returned to the desk, and said, in a deter 
 mined voice, "I have decided, too. I did not come 
 here, to-night, till I had fully revolved this subject, 
 and made up my mind what to do. I knew you 
 were a fool, and I thought you might be obstinate. 
 I prepared two strings to my bow. One was put into 
 my head by overhearing something that passed between 
 John Bell and that cursed fellow Davis. They both 
 thought your mind shaken, and that you were on the 
 point of committing suicide. If you are found dead 
 at this desk to-morrow morning, I shall summon these 
 boys before the inquest, and the verdict will surely be, 
 * Throat cut by his own hand ! Here is a knife, and 
 I swear I ll finish you, unless you promise me instantly 
 not one breath s delay yes, or no ? " 
 
206 THE BOOK-KEEPER. 
 
 Holson was a desperate man. Ruin utter dis 
 grace stared him in the face, and disappointment, 
 rage, and vengeance, hurried him on. Carey s knees 
 knocked together. " Yes, or no ? " reiterated Holson. 
 
 Carey s tongue was parched with fear and horror. 
 He tried to utter " no ; " he could not move his 
 lips. 
 
 " Speak ! " cried Holson, holding up the knife. 
 
 God gave his servant strength ; he said, audibly 
 and clearly, "No!" 
 
 Holson seized Carey by the throat. He gasped ; 
 he could not make a sound. At that moment, 
 Harry Davis sprang on Holson, grasped him by the 
 collar, and released Carey, who sank, fainting, to the 
 floor. Holson staggered back to the wall, stunned 
 with the horror of detection, powerless and silent 
 There was a glass of water on the desk ; Harry 
 dashed it in Carey s face, and reanimated him with a 
 voice of encouragement. " Fear nothing," he said ; 
 "the danger is past. Come with me; lean on me. I 
 will see you safe home." After somo effort, Carey 
 rallied and left the shop with Harry. 
 
THE BOOK-KEEPER. 207 
 
 It was probable that Holson had expected to in 
 timidate Carey into compliance, and had not deliber 
 ately planned his murder ; but to what extremity 
 he might have been urged by his savage and roused 
 passion, if Harry had not interposed, it is impossible 
 to say. 
 
 It may be remembered that Harry, after offering 
 his assistance to Carey in settling his accounts, bade 
 him good night. He was so struck with the expres 
 sion of despair on the poor man s countenance, that, 
 instead of going away, he turned, unperceived, and 
 stole back to a sofa, screened from observation by a 
 curtain, so arranged that Holson might take his lunch 
 there when detained at the shop by a pressure of 
 business. There Trovidence stationed Harry as a 
 guardian angel to poor Carey. 
 
208 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 
 
 " My son, thou art yet to be tried upon the earth, and to be exercised 
 in many things." 
 
 WE left Clapham reposing with the peace of good 
 resolutions. They gained force from the steady 
 ing effect of sleep. The next morning Hunt and 
 Slocum renewed their solicitations. They did not care 
 for him, or his companionship ; but they coveted tne two 
 or three dollars which he had earned in the ring trade, 
 and they believed he was already in their toils. Clap- 
 ham returned a civil but firm refusal to their soft 
 words, and they desisted, Slocum saying to Hunt, 
 "Never mind now; a week or two more will limber 
 him. Nothing like jail life to take vartu starch out 
 of folks." 
 
 It was just after this last resistance, and Clapham 
 
LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 209 
 
 Eccretly felt that it was a reward for it, that he espied, 
 among tho rubbish swept into a corner of the room, 
 the fragments of a pamphlet giving an account of the 
 disasters and wreck of the ship Commerce, on her re 
 turn from New Spain to the port of New York. 
 Clapham had had one winter s schooling, during one 
 of his father s long absences from home, and he had 
 then learned to read and spell words of two syllables. 
 By an hour s effort, he made out the title. It struck 
 on his memory, and recalled many adventures he had 
 heard his father relate of a certain ship Commerce in 
 which he had been wrecked when a child. Here, 
 Clapham thought, was a chance of learning to read, if 
 he would work hard; and, stimulated by his curiosity 
 to ascertain if the pamphlet really contained the stories 
 recounted by his father, he set to the task. The print 
 was small and blurred, and, in many places, rendered 
 quite illegible by dirt-stains. The first two pages were 
 merely prefatory, and filled with commercial and nau- 
 ti;al terms, which greatly increased Clapham s difficulty. 
 lie persevered, however, and in one week he read 
 
 these two pages. And, though many a time his head 
 18 
 
210 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 
 
 ached, and his eyes were misty, it was b} far the 
 shortest and pleasantest week he had passed since 
 Deleau left the jail. The next week, he went on 
 better ; and now he came to the incidents, in a different 
 form, of which his father had retained and related his 
 indistinct impressions. The name of Felix Hale, 
 second mate, frequently recurred. His daring in va 
 rious exploits was noted ; his fair dealing and generosi 
 ty to the crew were dwelt on ; and the particulars of 
 his death, which occurred during a contest with a 
 privateersman, in defending a woman, the only passen 
 ger in the ship, were minutely given. The account of 
 him concluded as follows : " Thus, by a fatal stab in 
 the back, we lost the best man in the ship honest 
 to his last farthing ; true to his last word : brave as 
 Julius Csesar ; and tender-hearted as a woman. He had 
 married in New Spain, and his wife died there, leaving 
 a son, whom he was bringing to New York. When 
 the Commerce was wrecked, and we escaped by night, 
 in the long-boat, this Jittle chap was asleep below with 
 old Norman Dunn, who had adopted him, and given 
 him his name. The boat was already overloaded, and, 
 
LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 211 
 
 as the man was old, and always drunk when ashore, 
 and the boy would be better off in Abraham s bosom, 
 all hands agreed not to wake them. The Commerce 
 was never heard of after." 
 
 Clapham spelt through these last sentences, his 
 heart throbbing as if it would leap from his bosom. 
 He recalled distinctly Norman s graphic description of 
 awaking one morning, and finding himself alone on the 
 wreck of the vessel with his father, (the old sailor who 
 adopted him,) and his saying that, after a few days heav 
 ing about, they were taken off and carried to England. 
 He seemed to have forgotten his real father, with whom 
 he had had brief intercourse. The rough old sailor took 
 him from port to port, and finally, dying at sea, the 
 boy was sent to a small seaport on Long Island Sound, 
 in Connecticut. There, at the age of eleven years, a 
 solitary and dropped link from the clrain of humanity, 
 he was found by the overseers of t T ie poor, and sent 
 school. He could not bear its restraints, and ran 
 away into the interior; and from that time he led a 
 roving and lawless life. 
 
 To return to Clapham. He was assured that this 
 
212 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 
 
 Felix Hale was his grandfather; that there was good 
 blood in his veins ; that his grandfather was a true 
 and honest man, honored and loved. It was a proud 
 and happy day for the poor boy, and many and many 
 a time he said over to himself, " Felix Male s blood 
 is in my veins. I know it is. I always did hate to 
 lie and steal, like poison." 
 
 Again and again he read over the fragmentary 
 leaves. He had them every word by heart. After 
 that, the reading naturally became tiresome. Again he 
 besieged Plum to give him something to do, and again 
 was surlily repulsed. Again he besought a book of 
 the jailer, and was again denied. Two weeks more of 
 idleness passed away. His health suffered. The room, 
 never ventilated, was noisome. His head continually 
 ached, or had a heavy, confused feeling, worse than 
 pain. 
 
 Slocum and Hunt never forgot Clapham s money. 
 Their appetite for rum and tobacco reminded them of 
 it ; and one unhappy day for Clapham, when he was 
 looking paler and more haggard fc ian usual, his eyes 
 half closed, and his neglected leaves lying beside him. 
 
LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 213 
 
 Slocum cal ed to him, " Come, Clap, draw up, and look 
 on; there s no harm in that, my man. We ll be 
 frindly, the same as if you d never snubbed us." 
 
 " I may as well ! " thought Clapham ; " I shall die 
 lying here, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, nothing to 
 do. I have tried my best." He had tried manfully; 
 but no one should ever cease trying. He drew near 
 to them. It was this first movement that led to the 
 evil that followed. "Resist the devil and he will flee 
 from you." But resist to the end. Clapham looked 
 over that game, and another, and another. He began, 
 unconsciously, to feel an interest, and, as soon as he 
 perfectly comprehended the game, to hope that Hunt, 
 whom he disliked less than Slocum, would win. There 
 was usually a small bet pending. The pies, nuts, 
 tobacco, and cakes, received from their outside friends, 
 supplied the means of making them. 
 
 The second day, he answered to their invitation 
 more promptly. "I got no harm yesterday," he thought, 
 "and why should I to-day? It does make the time 
 
 pass." 
 
 "Y<u are a smart lad, Clap," said Slocum, after 
 
214 LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 
 
 Clapham had been looking on an hour or two. "I ll 
 bet you, Hunt he could play a game now, without a miss." 
 
 "He play! Your granny, as well," replied Hunt, 
 with an air of great contempt. 
 
 "Well, I ll bet on him. Try, just once, Clap." 
 
 Clapham, provoked by Hunt doubting his capacity, 
 took the cards. 
 
 "What s the use of betting with me?" said Hunt; 
 "I ve got nothing, and less. What do you say, Clap, 
 for our side. Will you venture six cents against Slo s 
 six apples ? You ve the chink, you know. Come, don t 
 hold back, don t be tight. We are all, but you, as 
 poor &* church mice. Well, if you are so close, twelve 
 apples ,o your six cents." 
 
 "1 don t care for the six cents," said Clapham. 
 He hesitated from a foolish dread of their ridicule, 
 if he told them he did not like to bet. He had sense 
 enough to fear that betting would draw him in to plajr 
 more with them. " But never mind ; it is but once, 
 he thought ; just to see if I can play without a miss ; 
 and I don t want them to think me mean." He took 
 the cards. 
 
LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 215 
 
 Ah, Clapham, if you had but thought then, "The 
 tiling is to do right, and then it matters not what oth 
 ers say or think." They had caught him. Clapham 
 took the cards; they exchanged winks, and he pro 
 ceeded to give his whole mind to the game. He 
 played it right, and won it, and won the apples into 
 the bargain. He felt the pleasure of excitement. It 
 was a new world to him. No more consciousness of 
 headache; no more drowsiness, nor dulness. He con 
 tinued playing till it was so dark he could not see a 
 spot on the cards. Slocum and Hunt were good- 
 natured all day. After they had instructed Clapham 
 in "All Fours," they taught him "Loo;" and Clapham 
 dreamed all night of "Flusher," and " Blaser," of 
 " Great Loo " and " Little Loo ; " and when he arose in 
 the morning, he was as eager to go to the cards as 
 they were to have him. 
 
 Betting was now a regular thing with every game. 
 Clapham had resolved not to stake more than six cei 
 at a time. That, he thought, was a small risk; and, 
 as they won his money, they staked cash against cash. 
 Clapham lost oflener than he won; but he was not 
 
216 LIFE IN JAIL A SLRPRISE. 
 
 aware ho-n much the luck run against him, till towards 
 the close ~jf the week, when, on counting over his 
 money, he found but fifty cents remaining. 
 
 He had scarcely won a ga.me that day. A sus 
 picion of foul play dawned upon him. He began to 
 realize that gaming was a bad business for him, and, 
 like many older gamblers, he resolved that, as soon as 
 he had won back his money, or detected the fraud he 
 suspected, he would give up playing. " I must, at any 
 rate," he said to himself, "hold on till I find out if 
 they cheat me." They had gone on cheating so suc 
 cessfully that they were not on their guard. Game 
 followed game, and on each Clapham lost his six 
 pence. He became almost sure that he perceived 
 where the fraud was. His heart beat so that he was 
 afraid they would perceive it; but he kept himself 
 apparently cool till he was certain, and then, striking 
 Slocum s cards out of his hands, he exclaimed, " It s no 
 play You ve cheated in the deal. I saw you!" 
 
 " You lie ! " cried Slocum. 
 
 " Let him lie ! " said Hunt. " Here is his last six 
 pence. We ve wound him up." 
 
LIFE IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 217 
 
 "You ve cheatad me out of my money, and I ll 
 get it again," said Clapham, irritated by his losses, 
 by their cheating, and still more by their triumph. 
 
 "Take that," said Slocum, spitting on him; "that s 
 all you ll get again." Clapham sprang to his feet, 
 and struck Slocum a blow in the face that made the 
 blood spout from his nose. Enraged, he flew at 
 Clapham. Clapham did not give an inch, and, striking 
 blow after blow, they came to the floor together. 
 There was a general uproar in the room. The card- 
 table was overthrown ; a jug of rum was overturned 
 and spilled; the cards were scattered; pennies and 
 apples rolled over the filthy floor. One man cried 
 out that it was not fair play. Man against boy 
 Hunt declared no one should interfere ; and such was 
 the hubbub that no one was conscious that the door 
 was opened, and that the jailer entered, followed by a 
 young man, till the visitor said, in a thrilling voice, 
 " Clapham Dunn ! " and Clapham sprang from Slocum 
 to his feet. His flushed face turned deadly pale, and, 
 staggering to the wall, he groaned out, " O Harry 
 Davis!" 
 
218 LIF.K IN JAIL A SURPRISE. 
 
 His eye met Harry s. He turned away his face, 
 and leaned against the iron bars of the window. 
 Harry did not see the hot tears that streamed over his 
 cheeks. He saw nothing but the signs of his degra 
 dation and ruin. His long, dark, curling hair was a 
 snarled mass, gray with lint and dust; his begrimed 
 skin had that sallow, dingy, parchment hue infallibly 
 contracted in a neglected prison. His clothes, none 
 of the best when he left his wretched home, had 
 not been since changed, and were now black, greasy, 
 stiff, and ragged at all points. The mountain friend, 
 the boy of Rhigi s lovely woods, with his shining curls 
 and ruddy cheeks, and voice ringing out clear as the 
 birds that sang around him, the favorite of "little 
 Lucy," passed, for one moment, in vision before Harry. 
 His eye ran over the disgusting apartment; his head 
 turned, and he became sick and faint It was partly 
 the fetid air of the room, but more the shock of 
 his disappointment. He turned back into the passage, 
 and the iailer relocked the door. The sound struck 
 like a sentence of final judgment on Clapham s ear, 
 and he fell senseless on the floor. 
 
DYING CONFESSION. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 A DYING CONFESSION. 
 
 "Justice, alas! has given him o er, 
 And mercy s day is gone." 
 
 WE are compelled to recede three weeks in our 
 story, to the moment of Harry s exit, with the 
 noor book-keeper, from Holson s shop. Harry half 
 supoorted, half dragged him to his melancholy home 
 an upper story of a small house in Mulberry Street 
 His wife, sick in body and feeble in mind, was inca 
 pable of assisting him ; his children, excepting the 
 lame boy, too young, and he too weak to help him 
 self. So Harry was compelled to remain till late the 
 next morning. Carey was in a state of stupor which 
 the physician said threatened paralysis. That only 
 could be averted by care ; and care he had, unsparing 
 care, from Harry. He brightened about twelve, and 
 Harry hastened home to render an account of himself. 
 
220 A DYING CONFESSION. 
 
 The door was opened by Mary Hale, who was evi 
 dently on the watch. 
 
 " O Harry ! " she exclaimtd, " where have you 
 been? Aunts will be so glad!" 
 
 "And you did not care at all, Mary, what became 
 of me?" 
 
 " Harry Davis ! " she exclaimed, reproachfully ; and 
 she ran, blushing, away to proclaim his return to 
 aunts Peace and Plenty. 
 
 Such was their anxiety at Harry s unaccountable 
 absence, that neither of the good ladies had gone to 
 church "a thing," as they said, " that had not hap 
 pened before in their lifetime." 
 
 Harry s next movement was to call on Mr. Nevis, 
 and confide to him the scene in Holson s shop. Mr 
 Nevis immediately proceeded to Holson s, accompanied 
 by a police officer, but Holson was gone. He had 
 absconded during the night, (having first burned his 
 books,) with such of his effects as he could take with 
 him. The next day, his gay shop windows were 
 closed, the door barred, and the ominous words, "To 
 let," advertised the public that the incessant impor- 
 
A DYING CONFESSION. 221 
 
 tnmties, the false showings, and petty frauds of John 
 Holson were at an end; that the most laborious in 
 dustry, without integrity, will not prosper; that, in 
 short, dishonesty is the worst policy. 
 
 We give another extract from a letter of Harry s. 
 
 "It seems to me, dear mother, that I have lived a 
 year in the last fortnight. On the very Monday that 
 I sent you an account of the upshot at Holson s, Mr. 
 Nevis obtained the promise of an excellent situation 
 for me with Messrs. James Bent & Co., where his 
 son, my friend, already is. Mr. Bent is respected as 
 a man of strict integrity, and every part of his estab 
 lishment is well conducted ; and I am to have a salary 
 of $150. Only imagine how rich I shall be! It 
 never rains, but it pours ! Coming out of Mr. Bent s, 
 who should I meet but Mr. Lyman! He has more 
 work on hand than he can do, making plans and 
 drawings for the first architect in the city, and he 
 wanted me to help him. Ne ~cr was any thing more 
 opportune. The place I am to have at Mr. Bent s 
 will not be vacant till next month, and now I can be 
 
222 A DYING CONFESSION. 
 
 earning something ; and, to tell the truth, moti er, I do 
 need a little fitting up for summer." 
 
 "Dear mother, I am really enjoying myself now, 
 as much as I think one can ever enjoy in a city. I 
 am afraid I shall never feel at home here, but I really 
 am happy now. I am drawing all day, and all the 
 evening. I get a book from the Mercantile Library, 
 tnd Mary Hale reads aloud. We are reading noAv 
 Irving s Columbus, one of the most charming books 
 ever written, and Mary s reading is like setting it 
 to music. Mother, her voice is the sweetest you ever 
 heard. It reminds me of little Lucy s. And when 
 she sits under the lamp, the light shining on her 
 beautiful brown hair and white forehead, I I can 
 hardly keep my eyes on my drawing. Mary has re 
 ceived her education at one of the public schools, and 
 you would be astonished to know how much she has 
 acquired, and how well. Her good aunts are not fond 
 of reading; they stay in the little front parlor, where 
 their tongues go at both ends; but, bless them! they 
 never speak an evil or an unkind word. O d Mrs, 
 
A DYING CONFESSION. 223 
 
 Bland, who loves a book above every thing, sits in the 
 back parlor with us and listens, and teaches her poor 
 little blind grandchild to sew and knit. Would you 
 not like to look in upon us, dear mother? I shcu d 
 be perfectly happy if I were out of a city. If I 
 were, dear mother, where I could see Mount Rhigi, 
 and hear the sound of a brook ; and if O, what 
 an if ! if Clapham was what he seemed to us when 
 little Lucy died, and was out of that old jail." 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM HARRY S MOTHER. 
 
 "Your present, my dear son, was very acceptable, 
 as a proof of your abiding and ever-thoughtful love ; 
 but do not send me any thing more at present. 
 Keep your earnings for your summer s outfit. We 
 want for nothing. Thanks to a kind Providence, my 
 health is good, and Annie s. There is never lack 
 of work for willing nands ; and our wants, except 
 for your afflicted father, are small. His cough is 
 severe, and he declines daily, so that the doctor says 
 he should not be surprised if he dropped away at 
 any minute. His appetite continues remarkably. I 
 
2*24 A DYING CONFESSION. 
 
 might find it difficult to satisfy it, but our kind 
 neighbors send in daily of their best. We have 
 plenty of fresh. To-day, dear old Mrs. Allen sent a 
 quarter of a roaster, and your father ate nearly tlio 
 whole of it You know he was always remarkably 
 fond of pig. Our neighbors never let him be out of 
 custards, pies, and preserves. You know, Harry, I 
 
 never liked to call on my neighbors for watchers in 
 
 
 
 sickness, and think that, in most cases, it s much 
 better doing without them ; but father feels different. 
 He likes company, he says, when he is awake, and I 
 am no talker. He is able yet to engage his own 
 watchers. He borrows the sheriff s old horse, and 
 jogs round after them. I don t oppose, though I 
 sometimes fear he will die on the road ; but it serves 
 to divert him. 
 
 " O Harry, you will have feelings when you read 
 what I have now to write to you ! Last evening, 
 about nine, Norman Dunn was found lying on the 
 ground, at the tavern steps. At first, they supposed 
 hs was drunk ; but it proved that he was sick, worn 
 
A DYING CONFESSION: 225 
 
 out with travelling afoot, and, indeed, nigh unto death. 
 They got him on to a bed, and, as soon as he re 
 vived he asked to have me sent for. O Harry, he 
 was an awful sight to behold, with his long, black 
 beard, and livid face, and swollen eyes. I supposed 
 he wanted to hear about Massy s death ; so I told 
 him she did not suffer for any thing, and how the 
 selectmen had her brought down to the village, and 
 she had good watchers every night, and I was <vith 
 her at the last, for the sake of Clapham. He did 
 not give me the least attention, but kept moving 
 and worrying till I mentioned Clapham ; then he rose 
 right up, and said, Stop there ; don t talk about 
 
 Massy ; she s dead, and gone to the d 1, for what 
 
 I care. (Only think, Harry, what a hardened sinner !) 
 But Clapham! it s for his sake I have dragged here 
 more dead than alive ; and, while breath lasts, let me 
 tell you how I wronged him. Your own boy, Harry, 
 wo3 not better than my boy ; nor so good ; for Clapham 
 had the devil always at his elbow, and was good in spite 
 of it I was the devil to him I, his father ! " 
 
 Mrs. Davis then went on to write the particulars 
 
226 A DYING CONFESSION. 
 
 Norman gave of his having forced poor Clapham, in 
 his childhood, to accompany him on his marauding 
 expeditions among hen-roosts and clothes-lines. He 
 then told the whole story of the robbery, every 
 particular, every word, with which our readers are 
 already acquainted, and, in conclusion, said, " And 
 I let him be accused my own child, and such a 
 boy and be taken off to jail, just because I could not 
 bear shutting up out of the fresh air. But I have 
 tried to right him at last I have. I ve walked forty 
 miles since I thought every step would be my last. 
 Now let them send for Squire Avery, and you tell 
 the story, and I ll swear to it, and then I m done." 
 
 The magistrate was immediately sent for, a dep 
 osition made, and the oath administered to Norman. 
 After that, he sank away, and died before morning, 
 without sign of repentance towards God. Unhappy 
 man! 
 
 Mrs. Davis s letter thus concluded : " Only think, 
 my dear son, how we, his best friends, and his true 
 friends, have wronged this poor boy. I always had 
 feelings for hiui. He was somehow bound up in my 
 
A DYING CONFESSION. 227 
 
 heart with little Lucy ; and I have daily remembered 
 him in my prayers Annie is the happiest girl you 
 ever saw. She cried for joy. But we must do some 
 thing more than feel, or pray, or cry, Harry. Every 
 one says that steps should be taken for Clapham; 
 but ho one takes them. What is every body s busi 
 ness is nobody s. Now, my son, as you have a week 
 before you enter on your new clerkship, had you not 
 oest come home and see about getting up a petition 
 to the governor for Clapham s pardon ? I know it 
 will be an expense, and neither you nor I have spare 
 shillings. But sometimes we must not count the cost 
 Annie and I have laid by a few dollars against a 
 caii for mourning, that must soon come; that is at 
 your service ; and you, my son, can wear your old 
 hat till you can earn a new one ; and so, among 
 us, we can make it out, and neither borrow nor beg. 
 But I leave you to decide. 7 
 
 Harry did decide, without hesitation ; and the very 
 next day found him at the door of the prison in L <. 
 
THE REUNION 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE REUNION. 
 
 * Sorrow endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." 
 
 WHEN Harry, after his sudden retreat from C! 
 ham s presence, recovered his self-possession, 
 "How long," he asked the jailer, "has Clapham Dunn 
 been in this way ? " 
 
 "What way?" 
 
 "Why, playing cards, and drinking, and quar 
 relling?" 
 
 "I don t know, I m sure. They mostly fall to it 
 as soon as they have a chance. I never noticed the 
 lad in partic lar, but they are all birds of a feather; 
 and I can tell you there s no partic lar credit in 
 keeping up an acquaintance with them, in partic lar, 
 for young folks that haven t any settled character in 
 partic lar" The jailer accompanied his advice with 
 
THE REUNION. 229 
 
 a knowing wink, which did not make it the more 
 pleasing to Harry. 
 
 "I have no fears," he said, "about my character 
 suffering." 
 
 " O, I dare say not. Young folks are never afeard 
 of nothing ; but see, if you lay dirty clothes and clean 
 together, the dirty clothes don t get any the cleaner 
 that ever I heard of, and the clean ones get rather 
 frouzy. You can t teach me nothing about these kind 
 of cattle ; after they once get under my lock and key, 
 there s an end on em." 
 
 " Most likely," thought Harry, " and that is a reason 
 why they should be got from under your lock and 
 key as soon as possible. I still wish to see this 
 Clapham Dunn," he said. 
 
 "Well, you must take it out in wishing. I can t 
 no how attend to you this afternoon. Saturdays is 
 busy days. I must be going." 
 
 " I will come again, then, to-morrow morning, early." 
 
 "You need not trouble yourself to come so very 
 early," said the jailer, rudely. Sunday is a day of 
 rest, and I don * turn out with the sun." 
 
230 THE REUNION. 
 
 "is (his the man," thought Harry, as he left the 
 prison, "selected to take charge of the sick the 
 sick and in prison, the worst sickness sickness of 
 the soul?" 
 
 On the whole, the delay was no disadvantage, 
 except that it left poor Clapham pining and despair 
 ing, and believing that the last ray of hope had 
 vanished from him. Harry went to look after a cer 
 tain Mr. Norton, a very flourishing carpenter in L , 
 
 a distant relative of his mother. Mr. Norton received 
 him most kindly, and insisted on his staying at his 
 house ; and, during the evening, they had much con 
 versation that had an important influence on Harry s 
 destiny. Mr. Norton fully sympathized with Harry s 
 hopes, and encouraged them. "Such a boy as you 
 describe this Clapham," he said, " who so early re 
 sisted bad influences, cannot have been ruined by a 
 few months in jail, though he may have lost ground. 
 It is a sad place, I believe." 
 
 " "lave you never been in it, sir?" asked Harry 
 with some surprise. 
 
 "No, I never have." He was silent for a mo- 
 
THE REUNION. 231 
 
 ment, and then added, "To my shame I confess it, 
 I never have." 
 
 At eight o clock, the next morning, Harry could 
 restrain his impatience no longer. He was again at 
 the jail. After he had waited a long while, the jailer 
 came, gaping and grumbling. " It was trouble enough," 
 he said, " to take care of the rascals, without wait 
 ing on their comrades." 
 
 Harry, without noticing his ill-humor, asked if he 
 could speak with Clapham alone. 
 
 "I guess," he answered, "it will be a job to get 
 him to speak at all. One of the fellows told me 
 he had not spoke nor ate since you was here. Them 
 that drinks and fights always have their sulky turns." 
 
 Harry again asked if he could see Clapham alone, 
 and the jailer said, "yes, there were lock-up places 
 enough empty, but he should not trust him with his old 
 mate without turning the key." At this moment, Mr. 
 Norton, who had followed Harry, entered. 
 
 "You are quite mistaken in this young man, 
 Patten," he said; "h- is a relation of mine. Give 
 him a decent room to see his acquaintance in, and 
 
232 THE REUNION. 
 
 while he is talking with him, let me go in to see 
 your prisoners." 
 
 The jailer s manner changed instantly. He went 
 eagerly for Clapham, and, shaking him, he said, " Come, 
 wake up, uncover your face." 
 
 " Do let me be," replied Clapham, drawing the 
 coverlet again over his face. 
 
 " You do look ghastly ! " said the jailer. He did. 
 His face was pale, his lips were blue, and the blood 
 had mingled with the tears and run over his face, 
 neck, and hands. "You are a scarecrow," continued 
 the jailer; "but come; they re wanting you out here." 
 
 "Who? who wants me?" cried the poor boy, now 
 throwing off the cover and starting up. 
 
 "That youngster that was here last night." 
 
 " Has he come ? Does he want to speak with me ? " 
 exclaimed Clapham, springing to his feet, and towards 
 the door; and when it was opened, he said not a 
 word, but he looked Harry steadily in the face, and 
 his soul was in his eye. Harry grasped his hand, 
 and Mr. Norton said, almost aloud, "There s good 
 in the Rhig : boy!" 
 
THE REUNION. 
 
 Two hours passed before Clapham and Harry again 
 separated; and in that time Clapham related all that 
 he had suffered, thought, and felt, since they parted 
 on the mournful day of little Lucy s burial. He did 
 not try to palliate his fault in the jail. It was Harry 
 that thought of the palliation. When Harry spoke 
 of the death of Clapliam s parents, a deep gloom over 
 shadowed him, and he was silent and downcast for 
 a few moments ; then a sudden gleam lit up his face, 
 and he said, "But, Harry, I have some honest blood 
 in my veins, and my poor father, perhaps perhaps 
 if he had been cared for as I have if he had had 
 a Harry Davis for a friend, he might have turned out 
 very different." Clapham then related how he had 
 discovered his progenitor. "So you see, Harry," he 
 concluded, "I have a fair name to begin upon 
 Hale. Hale is a good name, isn t it?" 
 
 " Hale ! " exclaimed Harry, his face lighting up 
 with an expression Clapham did not quite understand; 
 Hale is the pleasantest sounding name in the world." 
 Mary Hale, if he had spoken the whole truth, he should 
 
 have said. 
 
 20 
 
934 THE REUNION. 
 
 When the boys parted, Clapham said, " O Harry, 
 if all the land on Rhigi had been given to me, and 
 leave to fish and hunt with you for life, I should 
 not be so happy as I now am." 
 
 "Almost as happy as I was, Clapham," replied 
 Harry, "when I received my mother s letter contain 
 ing the account, from your father s lips, of the rob 
 bery. I always felt that you had no heart in it; 
 but to know that I could prove my faith by your 
 works was joy beyofid telling." 
 
 At this moment, the cup of both boys was brim 
 ming with well-earned happiness. 
 
 Before Harry left L , it was settled between 
 
 him and Mr. Norton that Deleau should be written 
 to for a testimonial of Clapham s good conduct while 
 Deleau was in the jail. Very favorable testimony Mr. 
 Norton had already obtained from a sharp questioning 
 of Hunt, Slocum, and Plum. Prepared with all this 
 evidence in Clapham s favor, and with the document 
 made from Norman Dunn s dying confession, Mr. Nor 
 ton did not doubt he should obtain an immediate 
 pardon from the governor. Ten days after, he wrote 
 
THE REUNION. 285 
 
 to Harry, "My dear young friend, the thing is done. 
 The governoi cheerfully granted the pardon, and 
 Clapham Hale is now my indented apprentice, and a 
 member of my family. You might, but few others 
 would, know the Rhigi boy in his new Sunday, or 
 even his working-day, suit. He shows blood, as they 
 say, the blood of his grandfather, the high-minded 
 Felix Hale. We must confess it was somewhat cor 
 rupted in the veins of Norman Dunn. How much 
 of the sin of such corruption lies at the door of those 
 who neglect their duty to orphan and outcast chil 
 dren, is a fearful question. 
 
 "My dear cousin, I am proud to call you so, 
 Harry Davis, your visit to me has done me, as I 
 humbly hope, great good. I had lived here ten years, 
 within a stone s throw of this jail, and never seen 
 the inside of it. I call myself a Christian. I am 
 a professor. I pray daily in my family for those 
 who are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniqui- 
 t) 7 , and yet I have never, till you came here, lifted 
 one of my fingers to loosen these bonds. I pray that 
 missionaiies, preaching the good news of salvation, 
 
236 THE REUNION. 
 
 may be sent to the whole human family. I subscribe 
 to charitable societies, and so I should, as God has 
 prospered me, and yet I have not done the duty 
 nearest to me. If I had, or if my Christian neighbors 
 had, the scenes of filth, idleness, and iniquity in that 
 jail would never have existed to witness against us. 
 I have taken measures to have that rascally jailer 
 removed. They talk of a disinfecting fluid. There 
 should be a moral disinfection in the character of the 
 man who has the care of the tenants of a jail morally 
 diseased creatures. 
 
 " Clapham sends a world of love to you and yours. 
 He has already begun with his evening school, and 
 so earnestly that I am sure he will soon be able 
 to write for himself. 
 
 " How much I wish that, instead of the uncertain 
 life of a city merchant, you had chosen to come and 
 learn with me my good trade, which will thrive as 
 long as men live in houses. But wherever you are, 
 God bless you, as He ever does His faithful servants. 
 " Truly, your obliged friend, 
 
 " BENJAMIN NORTON.* 
 
A DECISION. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 A DECISION. 
 
 " My good angel held the scales. Ambition and Wealth were ?n 
 one scale, Moderation and Contentment in the other. Ambition and 
 Wealth kicked the beam." 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM HARRY DAVIS S LETTERS. 
 
 C( ~|~-Y EAR MOTHER : It is now three months since 
 JL-S I have been with Mr. Bent ; and, excepting 
 my poor father s death, life has been all smooth sail 
 ing with me. You have, been getting on so nicely ! 
 Clapham Hale giving such complete satisfaction to 
 Mr. Norton, and you and Annie as appears by 
 your last letter surprised with his improved appear 
 ance and manly bearing. Does he not seem like one 
 of us ? 
 
 <; I have reason every day to feel grateful to Mr. 
 Nevis for my situation at Mr. Bent s. He is a model 
 in his department of mercantile life. He requires 
 
238 A DECISION. 
 
 of his clerks a strict performance c* 1 their duty. 
 They must be up to the mark ; and there is the 
 strictest supervision of them. They sign a contract 
 not to go to the theatre, nor to any public places 
 of amusement, excepting during their holidays, when, 
 he says, their parents or guardians take the respon 
 sibility from him. They all have salaries in propor 
 tion to their capacities for business. Mr. Bent is 
 quite as exact in his duties to them as in his ic- 
 quirements from them. He watches over them like 
 a parent. If a lad is drooping, he gives him a 
 holiday. If he detects a fault, he gives a secret and 
 kind admonition, as if it were his own child he was 
 dealing with. He sees himself to the young men 
 having eligible boarding places ; he permits no extra 
 hours, or over-work, unless it is inevitable ; he pays 
 all the salaries on the first of each month ; he sub 
 scribes himself, for the clerks who themselves are 
 rcit able to subscribe, to the Mercantile Library; he 
 gives a kind word of approbation where it is due, 
 and I think never blames undeservedly ; he permits 
 no puffing of the goods, us false shows of any sort; 
 
A DECISION. 239 
 
 we must be assiduous to his customers, civil and 
 devoted, but never importunate ; there is but one 
 price in his shop. In short, dear mother, he spares 
 no pains to give us upright characters, and gentle 
 manly deportments, and thus prepares us for an hon 
 orable career. He does well the duty nearest to him." 
 
 " My evenings are passed so pleasantly, mother ! 
 Mr. Lyman has been ill in bed for the last month, 
 and I have had the pleasure of making some return 
 to him for all his kindness to me, by finishing, gra 
 tuitously, the drawing of plans he had begun. I am 
 always delighted when I have drawing, for then 
 Mary Hale reads to me. You cannot imagine how 
 curious she is to see Clapham, ever since she dis 
 covered that he was a distant relation of hers. Not 
 BO very distant either, as that Mr. Felix Hale was 
 a brother of her grandfather ; so they are second 
 cousins. Blood is thicker than water, say the good 
 aunts ; and Clapham shall be just as near to us aa 
 any of our nephews. 
 
 "The poor little blind child has been frightfully 
 
A DECISION. 
 
 ill, and Mary Hale was her nurse. I wish, mother, 
 you could have seen the care she took of her, and 
 heard her, when she was getting a little better, and 
 was rather fretful, singing long ballads to her in the 
 dead of the night, and telling her story after story. 
 I think, dear mother, you would have loved her as 
 
 well no, not so well as I do ; no one ever can 
 
 love as I love Mary Hale ! 
 
 " There it is ! a secret that has been for months 
 burning in my heart, and I could not tell it, even 
 to my mother ! Don t laugh at me ! don t ; don t 
 reason with me. I know very well that I am not 
 quite seventeen, and Mary Hale not quite sixteen ; 
 and I do not know whether Mary feels at all as I 
 do. I sometimes guess and hope ; but, dear mother, 
 one thing I am sure of, I shall never be worthy of 
 her." 
 
 
 
 In another letter, of three months later date, Harry 
 says, "Dear mother, this letter will both surprise and 
 grieve you. Mr. Bent has failed. After fifteen years 
 of untiring and successful industry, after the most 
 
A DECISION. 241 
 
 intelligent conduct of his affairs, after having amassed 
 a fortune on which he intended to retire next year, 
 he is ruined by no fault, no misjudgment of his 
 own, but by having heavy responsibilities for other 
 houses, which, in the common course of trade, he 
 could not have avoided. He announced the event to 
 us yesterday, calmly, but with much feeling ; and we 
 all felt as if a great misfortune had happened to 
 ourselves. Some of the younger boys actually cried, 
 and the stoutest among us were obliged to wipe our 
 eyes. It is not merely, mother, the loss of money, 
 but the loss of so much power so well used." 
 
 "Our salaries have all been paid. Mr. Bent, with 
 an expression of approbation that did not make it 
 easier to part with him, mother, told me he had 
 secured me a place with a friend of his, and an 
 advance of a hundred dollars upon my present salary. 
 YDU will stare, as did Mr. Bent, when I tell you 
 that I have taken the offer into consideration till 
 to-morrow." 
 
 21 
 
242 A DECISION. 
 
 "I have declined the clerkship, and renounced 
 city life and mercantile life forever. Your reasons, 
 Hal ? You shall have them, my dear mother. From 
 the beginning, city life has been utterly distasteful to 
 me. While I was living here, I could not be so 
 unmanly as to make you uncomfortable with my dis 
 contents, and therefore I said nothing about them ; 
 and, in truth, my discontents were rather prospective, 
 rather from the belief that my destiny was cast in 
 a city than from my present experience. No country 
 home could have more social virtue than this to 
 which a kind Providence guided me ; to say nothing 
 of the rose in my path in perpetual bloom, sweetness, 
 and freshness. But the everlasting noise and turmoil, 
 to one who was bred under the shadow of Rhigi, 
 with no sounds but sweet musical ones from dawn to 
 dawn; walls of brick and mortar, instead of a bound 
 less horizon of beauty; narrow streets, for our planted 
 fields, our lovely Salisbury lakes, mother, our hill sides, 
 and our brook ; noisome smells, for the pure, sweet 
 air ; and little, wretched yards, for ample space, 
 and all their country blessings are common bounties, 
 
A DECISION. 243 
 
 not restricted to the rich man s hoards, but they are 
 the poor man s wealth. Reason No. 1, mother. 
 
 "From my first experience of retail life in New 
 York, I took a dislike to it perhaps from the dose 
 I took at Holson s. I presume it will not be denied 
 that men are physically superior to women, and there 
 fore they should have employments to develop and 
 exercise their mortal frames, and leave the retailing 
 of silks and laces, &c., to women and girls, who are 
 really more competent to this business than we are. 
 And what can be more demoralizing, mother, than 
 life in such a shop as Holson s ? There are very 
 few, I trust, with such rascals for their proprietors ; 
 but there are too many debased by unremitting labor, 
 by eager, selfish competition, by petty frauds and false 
 showings. Reason No. 2. 
 
 " But there is a commercial life that affords a 
 field for high intelligence, extensive information, and 
 munificent action. Yes, but exposed to unforeseen, 
 inevitable, and cruel reverses. Perhaps my opinions 
 are affected by the shock of my kind friend Mi. 
 Bent s misfortunes. Be it so. The uncertainty of 
 
244 A DECISION. 
 
 mercantile, the most uncertain of all uncertain 
 affairs, makes my reason JVb. 3. 
 
 "I might, perhaps, attain a large fortune in New 
 York, but I am not ambitious. I do not think I 
 have an average share of the go-ahead furor of my 
 countrymen. I never dreamed of being president of 
 the United States, governor, judge, or even a member 
 of Congress, the prize in most men s lotteries. I 
 never desired to rise above the condition in which 
 I was born. That may be your fault, dear mother ; 
 you have been so contented with your lot, and have 
 made it so respectable and happy. I do not mean 
 any disrespect to my poor father, but I had early 
 some teaching on foregoing actual competence for 
 possible wealth. 
 
 " / take after you, dear mother. I am content with 
 the station in which I was born. My purpose and 
 hope is to give to it, by moderate labor, the com 
 petence, dignity, and happiness, cf which it is sus 
 ceptible. 
 
 "Mary Hale and I were building castles in the 
 air some weeks since. She said that, build how she 
 
A DECISION. 245 
 
 would, hers settled down in some pleasant, country 
 neighborhood. Reason No. 4, and final" 
 
 "Dear mother, I have received an answer to a 
 letter which I wrote to Mr. Norton on Monday. He 
 accepts, most cordially, my proposition to become his 
 apprentice : and offers me, besides, the place of book 
 keeper, which, in his concern, is a light business, but 
 will give me a support, and the means of adding 
 something to my dear mother s comforts. With Mr 
 Norton s letter came one from Clapham. The fellow 
 is half wild with joy." 
 
 11 Dear mother, do not blame me. I could not 
 help it We went down to Greenwood old Mrs. 
 Bland, Nannie, and Mary and I ; and somehow 
 Mary and I strayed away by ourselves ; and we were 
 by Sylvan Lake, and the words leaped from my heart 
 to my lips, and I told her I loved her ; and she 
 confessed she loved me, and was not ashamed of it" 
 
 " Don t think this is child s play, or youthful 
 
240 A DECISION. 
 
 romance. You know I am no novel reader, neither 
 s Mary Hale. We have loved one another because 
 we could not help it ; and when our* hearts were 
 melted, they ran together and blended in one, like 
 metal. We shall always be the happier for having one 
 life from this time forth the same purpose, the same 
 hope, the same memory. Mary cannot be better than 
 she is ; but I shall be the better for having this 
 affection to steady me to check every wild inclina 
 tion, to make me hate every impure thought. Mother, 
 send us your blessing, and we shall be perfectly 
 happy." 
 
 The b, essing came, by return of mail, and tney 
 wrere hap v. 
 
CONCLUSION. 247 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " Nor prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say, 
 God shortened Harry s happy life one day." 
 
 Six years have passed since Harry Davis went to 
 L to learn the carpenter s trade of Mr. Nor 
 ton. The relation between them proved most happy 
 justice and liberality on the one side, industry and 
 fidelity on the other. The friendship between Harry 
 and Clapham, nurtured in clouds and storms, throve 
 in sunshine. The six years have passed prosperously 
 in Harry s outer and inner world ; and now, at the 
 age of three-and-twenty, and ripened in experience 
 and virtue, we must present him in a new scene. 
 
 Imagine, my dear readers, a village called " Bay- 
 side " (there is some talk of changing its name to 
 Maryshome) situated on one of the small bays of 
 Lake Erie. The village is on a gentle declivity, 
 eloping down to the bay, and flanked by a wood, 
 
248 CONCLUSION. 
 
 cut into, here and there, by rich fields of wheat, 
 where, as the pure breezes pass, you may see the 
 stalks waving around the stumps of recently levelled 
 trees. At on 3 extremity of the village is a little 
 church of rare beauty of proportion and form, and 
 attached to it a cemetery, in which clumps of the 
 original trees of the forest are left standing, their 
 majestic growth giving to it a fitting and beautiful 
 solemnity. At the other extremity of the village is a 
 rustic school-house? with all the modern improvements 
 for ventilating and warming, and surrounded by a 
 play-ground, as it is modestly called, but which, with 
 its ten acres, its walks, and noble trees, and thrifty 
 plantings, better deserves the name of "Park" than 
 many a piece of ground that bears that ostentatious 
 designation. In the centre of the village is a large, 
 convenient establishment for carpentry, bearing on its 
 front the well-known names of " Davis Sf Hale" 
 From the busy going to and fro to the work-shop, 
 and from the many hands to be seen through its 
 open windows busily employed, it is evidently a most 
 thriving establishment, and the source of supply to 
 
CONCLUSION. 249 
 
 die rising towns in the neighborhood A little re 
 tired from the busy village street, and separated by 
 a wide garden, are two very small, neat houses ; so 
 sma.1 that it is evident the proprietors, who have 
 laid out around them grounds that have the promise 
 of much future beauty, .indulge the expectation of 
 enlarging them. But even these humble beginnings 
 are not without the charm of proportion and fitness; 
 and they, as well as the church and school-house, 
 show that Bayside has the advantage of a resident 
 draughtsman, who has both experience and taste in 
 architectural plans. The cemetery and play-ground 
 are indications, too, that a thoughtful and cultivated 
 mind has been employed there. What an enchant 
 ing world would the up-springing villages of the rich 
 West present, if an intelligent sense of the beautiful 
 made the " improvements " in harmony with the love 
 liness of nature! 
 
 It is twilight of a fine June evening, and there 
 is a cheerful stir about the village of Bayside. 
 Young fathers and young mothers, young men and 
 maidens, and a few elderly people, (very few there 
 
250 CONCLUSION. 
 
 are in these new settlements,) all dressed in their 
 best, are making their way towards one of the twin 
 cottages. They are gathered there. Let us look in. 
 The suite of apartments a kitchen, bed-room, and 
 parlor, all neatly though sparingly furnished are 
 hung with festoons of wild flowers, wreaths around 
 the windows, wreaths around the doors, and wreaths 
 around the glass ; under it stands a table with the 
 honored patrimonial Bible on which the Salisbury 
 family was nurtured. The prettiest wreath of all is 
 made of mosses and white immortals, and it encircles 
 a bridal present from Mr. Lyman a sweet picture 
 of "little Lucy." 
 
 A white rose in full bloom, and a honeysuckle, 
 both brought "from the east," are trained around the 
 window, and send in sweet odors, breathing memories 
 of the Salisbury home. 
 
 On one side the parlor, and opposite " little 
 LucyV portrait, stands an elderly matron, whose face 
 tells the story of trials patiently and serenely borne, 
 of a qubt conscience, of satisfied expectations, and 
 a heart overflowing with gratitude to Providence. 
 
CONCLUSION. 251 
 
 Next her stands her son, the crowning blessing 
 of her life a pattern of filial devotion, of fraternal 
 affection, and of conjugal happiness. On his other 
 side, and leaning on his arm, is a lovely young 
 woman, who wears over her bright brown hair a 
 cap half matronly, half girlish a sort of token that a 
 piece of furniture belongs to her which may be seen 
 through the open door of the bed-room, where a 
 cradle is jogged by a girl whose face is bright with 
 happiness, in spite of the green ribbon over the eyes 
 which " blind Nannie " always wears. 
 
 Standing in the door-way is a man somewhat 
 past middle age, a perfect impersonation of hilarity. 
 He must be a Frenchman. There is a sort of "J 
 told you so " look upon his face. His arms are 
 folded, and his fingers are playing a Uine on nis 
 arms which he can hardly await the finishing of a 
 ceremony then going on to enact with lips and feet. 
 
 It is a bridal ceremony. Thrilling memories, 
 blending with joy, gratitude, and hope, have lit up 
 the bridegroom s cheek with a color so brilliant, and 
 given to his rich, dark eye such a glow, that the 
 
252 CONCLUSION: 
 
 carpenter of Bayside might be mistaken for a hero 
 of romance. But the pretty, blooming bride beside 
 him, clad in white muslin, and decked with white 
 roses, is no heroine 
 
 "Not too bright or good 
 For human nature s daily food," 
 
 but fitted for life, holidays, working-days, and all, 
 and an image of its dearest contentments. She ex 
 tends her hand to receive the wedding ring. It is 
 of hair set into a gold hoop ; and interwoven in 
 the hair is the name of " Jlnnie" 
 
 As the bridegroom slides it on to her finger, he 
 
 recalls the dark day in the prison of L when he 
 
 made it, and breathes a fervent thanksgiving for the 
 manifold mercies that have since been showered on 
 * The, Boy of Mount Khigi." 
 
RETURN TO 
 
 LOAN DEPA?TFM r N 
 
 WHICH BORROWED 
 
 p ,or 
 
 Renewed books^i* subje>k< 
 
 recall. 
 
 JAN28989 
 
 LD 21-40W-2/6L 
 (J6057slO)476 A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES