ORTRAIT m ^JBKS Y/jsm BBG B^l THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE PORTRAIT; A ROMANCE OF THE CUYAHOGA VALLEY, BY A. G. RIDDLE, AUTHOR OP " BART KIDGELET." CLEVELAND : COBB, ANDREWS & CO. BOSTON: NICHOLS & HALL. 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1873, by A. G. RIDDLE, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. Stereotyped by John C. Regan, 19 Spring Lane, Boston. P5- CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE PROPHECY 6 II. MORNING AND MOURNING 11 III. ALONE 15 TV. WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT 20 V. GREEN'S TAVERN AND ITS LANDLORD 24 VI. LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM 28 VII. SALLY'S VIEWS 37 VIII. SIR WALTER 43 IX. MR. GREEN EXPLAINS 53 X. A WOMAN AFTER ALL .69 XI. A NEW PENTECOST ITS APOSTLE THE NEW EVANGEL AND PROPHET 61 XII. IT is A PITY 70 XIII. A PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH 75 XIV. THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. BRIGHAM YOUNG ... 81 XV. SET APART 88 XVI. THE PROPHET'S HAREM 92 XVII. THE VISION AND CALL 97 XVIII. THE LILY 99 XIX. THE ROSE 103 XX. THE CRISIS 107 XXI. THE CALL OF FRED 115 XXII. TWICE BOUND 123 XXIU. THE GREAT PREACHER 129 XXIV. AUNT MARY DOES HER CHRISTIAN DUTY .... 135 XXV. TWELVE YEARS. TIME'S CHANGES 145 XXVI. P.i.i.i.r. MORRIS 153 XXVII. THE PORTRAIT 159 XXVIII. FRED 104 XXIX. THE PORTRAIT STEPS FROM ITS FRAME .... 171 xxx. j> LT ON TIili DEFENSIVE 180 1554314 iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXXI. BELLE'S REVERT ......... 185 XXXII. A WEIRD HUNT 193 XXXin. THE EXCURSION AND RESCUE 199 XXXIV. FATHER HENRY QUOTES PAUL TO BELLE . . .207 XXXV. AN INTROSPECTION 211 XXXVI. BELLE'S LETTER 218 XXXVH. A MESSAGE TO FRED 224 XXXVTLL AN OLD TIME WEDDING 234 Xxxry. A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE. AN OLD TIME GATHER- ING 241 XL. THE GLORY FADES 248 XLI. BELLE 253 XLII. BELLE'S THEORY ... 261 XLIII. BELLE ARGUES HER CASE WITH M^.UD, AND is WORSTED 269 XLIV. MOSS-ROSES 275 XLV. AN OLD TIME MURDER TRIAL 282 XL VI. FRED'S ARGUMENT 301 XLVTL AUNT SALLY 310 XL VIII. AFTER . 323 XT.TX- THE PORTRAIT AGAIN 335 L. THE STORY 344 LI. THE CONFESSION 354 L1I. THE LOVERS 302 LIII. BELLE SENDS ANOTHER MESSAGE .... , 808 THE PORTRAIT. CHAPTER I. THE PROPHECY. ALL the short rainy autumn day, with his bare brown feet, and scant,worn and soiled roundabout and pants, had he been walking and runing through the muddy roads and by-waj's, down through Shalersville to Ravenna, and finally back to Freedom, and so across the woods home. His poor faded mother had been suddenly taken worse toward morning of that day, and he had hastily cut and carried in some wood, and, after a scant breakfast, had hurried off for the doctor. He had gone by yv&y of one of the neighbors, and asked that some one would go and stay until he returned, and was off. He would give the doctor his five mink-skins, that he had caught that fall, along the Cuyahoga, and would do without a new preceptor and spelling-book. Now, weary, famished and disheartened, as the early night deepened in the leafless trees, he hurried towards home, with an unusual depression and foreboding. He nad failed to meet the doctor, and had only left word (5) 6 THE PORTRAIT. for him at his residence, and the places where his patients lived. All the da}' he had carried over his long and lonely road a sad, undefined presentiment. It was already quite dark as he hastened on. He was familiar with all the forest paths, and could trav erse the woods anywhere without a trail, and with a sense of absolute security. As he approached the little clearing, he ran forward and climbed upon the decay- ins: brush-fence that marked its uncertain limits, and O paused a moment to look at the log hovel but a few rods distant the only home he could remember with its leaky roof, and decaying walls, slowly lapsing to ruiu. No window was on the side of his approach, and he could detect no smoke escaping from the blackened opening at one end of the low roof. As he passed around to the front, he stopped to listen at the low door of rough boards that hung on rude wooden hinges. No sound reached him ; and with a trembling hand he pulled the string and pushed the daor open, into the single, dark, silent room. " Ma," he called out in an eager, distressed voice, with the tears unconsciously escaping from his eyes. A moan answered him from one corner. " Oh, ma, I didn't find the doctor at Ilines's, and I went clear to Ravenna, and they told me he had gone up to see old Mis Roper at the centre of Nelson ; and I went there, and he had gone home by way of Randolph, and I missed him, I hurried fast as I could. Has pa been home ? " Another moan was his answer. "Oh, ma! are 3'ou worse?" An undistingui suable murmur was all he heard in reply. THE PROPHECY. 7 " Where's John ? Has nobody been here?" faintly. He went to the broken stone hearth of the jamblcss fireplace, and found the shortened wooden poker, and stirred open the ashes, which disclosed the glowing re mains of the charred back-log. Upon the coals he put some pieces of hickory bark, and soon a crackling flame leaped up and revealed the wretched room, with its two or three broken chairs and wooden stools, its ricketj*, rough table standing by the poor thin bed, upon which lay the weak and suffering woman. The boy again approached the bed, and Avas frightened by the change in the face, disclosed by the ruddy light of the fire. " Ma ! ma ! " said he, in hushed and awed voice. The heavy eyes opened, and the face was with an effort turned towards him. "Fred, is it you? I feared you wouldn't come I wanted to tell ye ye I I ain't ycr mother, Fred I " " Ma ! " with a low cry of anguish, and a look in his great innocent eyes like that with which a young fawn would receive a death-blow from its dam. " No matter," said the exhausted woman, " yer an angel to me." " May I love you, ma? May I love little Johnny?" in a low, plaintive voice. The poor woman moaned again, and tears ran over her faded face, and broken murmurs died on her drawn and shrivelled lips. At last she said : "Fred, put yer fingers on my eyes for a little so ," and he stood with his fingers lightly resting on the closed lids, and listening to the slow, low breathing. Slower it came, and then, it did not come again. 8 THE PORTRAIT. The child listened with a great awe, and a great pallor came into his face, and what next occurred he never knew. A plaintive cry from John, lying by the side of the silent, unbreathing form, aroused him, as a little soiled face, and head with tangled flaxen hair, started up. " Hush ! hush, John ! " said Fred, taking him from, the ragged bed-clothes. " Hush ! don't cry." Some thing in his manner seemed to awe the child, who stood half naked in the strong light, looking frightened at the elder, and then turning towards the bed, cried out : " Ma, rna ; Don wants micky Don wants micky." " Hush, hush, John ! she won't hear you." And going to a shelf he found a pewter basin, from which he poured some milk into a battered cup, and gave the hungry child ; to whom he also gave the remains of a johnnj'-cake. He then drew from under the bed a small truckle-bed, and placed the appeased and sleepy John carefully among its tattered coverings, where he subsided into quiet sleep. The boy, used to these offices for the younger, and doing the scanty chores about their wretched home, mechanically replenished the fire, and put two or three things in their places, all the time with a dumb, be numbed feeling, aroused by the words : " I'm not yer mother." He was too young to reason, or reflect, or think ; he could only feel that the world was torn from him ; that his mother was not his, that " little Johnn} r " did not belong to him, and that he must go away, but not to-night ; for they would want him. Then he went on his tip-toes towards the bed, and began to realize, in his childish way, the awful thing that had happened. THE PHOPIIECY. He was nol, afraid of the rigid form, that was dear and tender to him ; but it was the shadowy, unknown thing, Death, and it was there, and he shrunk away a little from it ; and going out, he brought in more wood and placed it about the fire to dry. Then with a gourd shell he brought fresh water from the spring ; and remembering that he was very hungry, drank the remainder of the rnilk, and thought he would bake a johnny-cake ; but when he found tliat there would not be more than meal enough for a cake for breakfast, he gathered up a few dry crumbs, and contented himself with them. He remembered that when his sister died, two 3*ears ago, they placq^l a clean wet cloth over her face ; and ransacking a small chest, from which the lid had been broken, he found a white rag, which having- mois tened, he carefully and reverently spread over the face of the dead. Then replenishing the fire, he removed his clothes, and tying down by little John, twice or thrice uttered, with folded hands, the little prayer his mother had taught him ; and with a hazy numbness of heart, he went to sleep ; while the strong fire-light, leaping up the open chimney-way, for a time lit up the wretched room, glinted the white covering on the face of the dead, and played lovingly upon the featui-es of the sleeping boys, one round and chubby, with the flaxen locks of infancy, and the other dark and beautiful, with long black eyelashes fringing his brown cheek, and his striking, but prematurely old, face framed in tangled masses of dark damp hair. The rain subsided into sprinkles, and the fitful wind was sinking to little gusts that played among the lew 10 THE PORTRAIT. belated leaves which still clung to the trees without, Within, the fire burned out and the brands fell apart, throwing, from time to time, a sudden llame which filled the room with ghostly shadows, and then subsided to a red glow, that gave color and warmth to everything, until that, too, faded out. An 03-0 that could look be yond the gross and material world, might have seen the sordid room luminous with a beautifying radiance, in the light of which soft and tender fingers were remov ing the harsh and bitter lines of earth and suffering from the face of the dead, and bestowing upon the mouth the sweet, indescribable smile of serene and beautiful death ; while loving forms were bending over and kissing the eyelids of the sleeping children, and leaving on the brow of the dark one a wreath of min gled light and shadow. Had this sight met the eyes of a seer, he would have prophesied of suffering and final triumph. Was it martyrdom in this world, and crowning in the next? The wreath was very like a garland, and its roses had the hue of earth. CHAPTER II. MORNING AND MOURNING. MORNING came, and its sunshine lay rich and warm through all the narrow but beautiful val ley of the Cuyahoga, whose scarcely tinged waters, escaping from the Welchfield marshes, plunged through the rocky barrier known as " the Rapids," and sweep ing southerly along the eastern border of Mantua, turned its vehement current, swollen with the autumn rains, south-westerly. Below the bend of the river, on its southerly bank, and a few rods distant, stood the sol itary cabin mentioned above. Silent and lonely under the gilding sun, with its rude door and patched and botched window, and all its wretchedness brought out from the night, in strong relief, as the level rays illuminated it. Two or three acres of cleared ground, with little signs of cultivation, and bearing a thrifty eclectic crop of thistles, mullen, dock and burdock, surrounded it, with a little imper fectly paled patch, in which were a few weed-choked vegetables, ripened and shrivelled by the late autumn, without a pig or hen, cow, or even a dog to relieve the squalid desolation of the place. A pathway led down to the river, where, attached to a little tree, with a bark painter, iloated Fred's half-lilled little dug- (11) 12 THE PORTRAIT. out. Another path led up from a cleaving a little below, along which, with an unsteady step, a slouched, rough-looking man, with bloated face, blood-shot eyes, half-covered with tatters, and the wreck of an old straw hat, broken down on one side of his matted hair, was straggling up. The face may have been good once, but no traces of youthful freshness or purity remained. An unsuccessful effort to troll the refrain of a low- drinking song, employed the small surplus of faculties not used in keeping his feet, as he came through the belt of woods into the field surrounding the hut, but was hopelessly abandoned, as, with a seemingly infirm purpose, he approached not his home but the place where he sometimes got sober. He was evidently re covering from a long and exhausting debauch, and his eye still had the dull, uncertain swimming of inebria tion. He reached and steadied himself on the rotting wooden step, in front of the door, at which for a mo ment he stared with an earnest intensity, as if to remove any lingering doubt of its identity ; then, with a muttered ejaculation, he dashed the door open, and partially stumbling, stepped and reeled over the de cayed door-sill. Recovering himself, and resting with one hand on the door, he sent his stupid stare about the now well-lighted hovel. His swimming eyes stop ped on the covered face at one end of the wretched bed. "What the hell! hullo, old woman! I say; ye sleep with yer yer night-cap over yer 03-68, eh?" Making a step forward, he snatched the cloth from the dead white face, which for a moment struck even his obscured and staggering faculties. The noisy en trance of the drunken man awakened the children ; MOKSING AND MOURNING. 13 when Fred, with his eyes staring wide, like those of a timid wild animal, into which in a moment came something of the instinctive courage of the brute, sprang between the man and the bed, and, with all his force, pushed him back. " You shall not touch her ! you shall not touch her ! " he cried ; " she said she was not my mother, and 3-011 shall not touch her ! " As if, somehow, this declaration released him from all respect for the person of the intruder. The man turned and gazed at the defiant boy with uncomprehending amaze ment, while John, who was aroused to the crying stage, put up a dolorous wail. Beginning to be sobered by the umvontedness around him, the still dazed man looked wonderingly about, even a drunken man could not fail to identify the place. Presently he again ap proached Fred, and in a low confidential tone, as if to assure him that he was somehow on his side, if he only knew where that was, "I sa}*, Fred, eh; old feller, yer know, what is't ? " The boy's only answer was a dumb gesture toward the bed. " Eh ! come now, tell a feller ; can't ye?" " She is dead ! " with his lip quivering and tears well ing into his eyes. "No; yer don't come that on me!" when his eye again fell on the ghastly, changeless face. Something in its immovable rigidity, its stark pallor, seemed to strike his returning senses, and he dashed his soiled hand over his bleared, rheumy eyes, and slowly, and with a doubting reverence, approached the bed, when the wasted and sharp outline of the features, with the unopcning eyes and still bosom, impressed upon the wretched man that he stood in the presence 14 THE PORTRAIT. of liis dead wife. When that idea had full}' mastered him, "*I say, Fred, when d' this yer 'appen?" in a low, hollow whisper. " Last night," said Fred, giving way, in sobs of boy ish agon}*, for the first time. John, who had tumbled out of his nest of reeking rags, came toddling to the bedside. " Ma ! ma ! ma ! " in his piping wail. So the three miserable beings the unknowing John, the just comprehending, sobering father, ready to fight or cry, as a feather might incline, and the utterly overcome older child, severed from the world by their poverty, squalor and wretchedness united in their abandoned and desolate cries over the finally extinguished spark that had shed a ray of warmth upon them, the broken band that had feebly united them to home and a bare existence. Their grief was interrupted by the entrance of the neighbor below, who, although poor, had occasionally looked upon them with a cheery face and a little help, and who remembered that he had seen none of them for two or three days. Surprised and shocked, he aroused the now nearly sobered man, and hurried him off to call the neighbors to his assistance, while he helped to huddle the scanty clothes upon the children, intending to take them to his house, a half mile below. Fred refused to leave his mother alone, and when in duced to go, he wet and replaced the cloth over her face ; and the wondering neighbor, acting upon the sug gestion, drew the soiled sheet over the woman's head, uiul hurried the children away. CHAPTER III. ALONE. ON the second day after her death, the remains of the poor woman were put away, with decent and tender respect. In that far-off time, of log-cabins, scattered along the rough highways, of small, rude, stumpy fields, of ox-sleds and heavy carts, of coarse fare, of flax breaks, hatchels, spinning-wheels, hand- looms, and fulling mills ; of tow cloth for summer, and butternut fulled cloth for winter ; of cow-hide boots and fox-skin caps, the " forehanded" were not much better off than the poor. A community of fortune and interest, a common struggle for subsistence with the rugged stubbornness of even a kindly nature in the wilderness, when the coming of a new settler was an event of public importance, and the raising of a log- house a sort of holiday, forbade much real suffering, and toil-roughened hands were read3^ to do the needed kindness to the unfortunate and afflicted. The actual condition of the Wardens, made known at the death of the poor woman, was a surprise, and created almost a horror. What could now be done, was done for them. A coffin was prepared, a preacher was procured, and a large concourse assembled from (15) 16 THE PORTRAIT. the nearest settlements ; a very respectable procession followed the remains, borne by the men, to their quiet resting-place. Warden, sobered and decent, Fred, with an extem porized suit and cow-hide shoes, and little Johnn}', with his clarified face and combed hair, led between his father and elder brother, as the sole mourners, were the objects of much comment and commiseration. Fred, who went about in a benumbed and dazed sort of a way, came in for the largest share of notice. Living in the woods with his mother, and seldom asso ciating with other boys, and tall for his age, his man ner was shy ; and, accustomed to the solitude of the forest, and loneliness of the river, he was growing up thoughtful and taciturn. As well as he was capable, he had turned over in his mind the words of the d^'ing woman, that she was not his mother. lie remembered to have heard it said that persons, when dying, were often out of their heads, and he thought that these disturbing words might have been spoken in that con dition ; so he went over and over with this subject, and then tried to think of what was going on around him. As a group of women stood a little apart, looking at the filling of the grave, "Did you ever hear o' such a thing ? Old Mis Pettibone said that he went mor'n twenty mile for the doctor, and got back jest 'afore his mother died, and he'n the baby's there all livin' alone at the time ; an' that he must a closed 'er e} T es, an' put a wet cloth on 'er face, and him not mor'n 'levin year old ! " "Not mor'n nine," was the answer. "His folks ALONE. 17 came here 'bout six A'ear ago ; and Mis Warden told Mis Jones that Fred was three year old, then." " Du tell ! " and the low- voiced women relapsed into admiring silence, as they intently watched the uncon scious bo}', now as impassive in his grief as a young Indian. " What a time she must a' had, all her life. Sam allers away, an' when to hum never sober, and never cloin' nothin', and Mis Blair said there warn't a blessed thing in the house, but a little must} 7 meal ; an' how on airth them children lived, mortal sakes only knows." The grave was filled, and the broken turf replaced, the simple ceremony ended, and the saddened neigh bors dispersed homeward. Af the entrance to the buiying-place, a kind woman, who had taken charge of little Johnn} r , resumed possession of him, and placing him in the box of a lumber wagon, drove away ; while Fred, who relinquished his hand, stood with his great, innocent, tender eyes, full of mute sad ness, staring after him, and thought, for the moment, that he must turn back in the twilight, and go alone to the deserted hut by the river ; then he turned again, as if undecided, to the fresh mound of broken earth that hid his mother. At this moment, a man who had attentively and kindly observed him approached, and holding out his hand, "You are going home with me to-night," he said, speaking in a voice so gentle and tender, that the poor child looked up in wonder. The face was a good, strong, homely, inanl}- face, now all aglow with a tender smile, and with moisture in the kindly gray eyes. Fred had never met such a look before, and at once 2 18 THE PORTRAIT. held out both his hands to his new friend. As they turned into the highway, another younger, slender, thin-faced, but kindty man, joined them, and took Fred's other hand, which he held with a grasp almost painful. Thus between them they led him eastward, to the Mary field Corners, and so north on the state road, along which they proceeded for a half mile, and then turned off to the east. "I understand," said the younger man, as they walked along, " that this young man is quite a trapper, and I don't know but a hunter also." "Indeed! Is this the boy that caught the otter? How was that? Is your name Jake?" asked the elder. " Fred," was the answer. " How was it about the otter ? " No answer. " Uncle Bill asks you about catching an otter," said the younger, kindly. " The otter? Oh ! " as if awakening, " he broke the trap and got away." It was evident that his thoughts were elsewhere. " Poor boj- ! " said Uncle Bill ; " he is overcome and worn out; sha'n't I carry you?" very kindly. "You are not so heavy as a buck." " Oh, I can walk ! " cried the boy, aroused partly by the unwonted kindness of their voices, and as much by a wish to appear manly. Not many rods east of the state road, they reached Uncle Bill's residence, one of the few framed houses that then indicated one of the better-to-do. The younger of the two men left them at the gate, and Fred was tenderly received by a kind, matronly woman, who, with a young man and a ALONE. 19 boy, about Fred's age, constituted the household. Fred seemed to have been expected, and he was soon seated with his kind host at a table covered by a clean white cloth, and with more and better dishes than he could remember ever to have seen. A tender, smoking venison steak was placed before him ; and when his supper was finished, with a bowl of milk, he was taken into the best room, more sumptuously furnished than he had dreamed of, and sank, wondering!}-, into the bed, and into a slumber deeper than dreams, and longer than the night. CHAPTER IV. WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT. T ATE in the evening, at the new yellow store at the JJ Corners, several men dropped in, Uncle Bill Skin ner and Fenton, just mentioned ; Sim Sheldon, from the Carman neighborhood, and others ; and naturally the talk turned upon the funeral and the Wardens. " Brother James had rather a tight fit to bring *er in, eh Uncle Bill ? " asked one. " Rather. He left it a leetle in doubt, whether the water had been efficaciously applied, so that if Elder Rider should happen to be there when she arrives, he will make a point against the poor thing. You see they don't hold just alike, on all the vital points." " I think," said Fenton, with the broad accent of his Irish origin, " that if brother James should put in Sam b} T way of mitigation of damages, as the lawyers call it, he'd carry his case." " Sam's not a bad fellow nat'rally," said another. " He was anything but a good husband," rejoined Fenton, with warmth, " to leave that poor woman to die alone with those starving children Free as grace is during a revival, none was ever wasted on him. Why, in that old hovel there warn't enough to draw a mouse, the flies had deserted it." (20) WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT. 21 "Where do ye s'pose Sam is to-night?" asked one. " Down at Green's, drinking that stuff, one drop of which will kill sixteen old rats," answered Fenton. " He loafed off that way, from his wife's grave." " There ought to be something done to break up that place," said Shelden. "What can be done?" asked Uncle Bill. "He's rich and cunnin', and sly and shrewd, and deep and still." " Yes, he 'stils and brews too, and has a devil of a gang about him, and will meet you all the time as smooth, and plausible, and polite, and soft as a basket of chips," said another. "Where did he come from?" asked Shelden, "and how did he make his money ? " " The devil only knows," answered Fenton. " He came from the South somewhere. He brought up a good team, looked coarse and rough, can't read or write, as you know, rented the old tavern stand over there, and then bought it, and bought other land ; brought a deed for a good deal with him, and has slipt and slid, and worried and wriggled along, nobody can tell how, till I heard Squire Foster say he was the richest man in Portage County." " Did Warden come with him? " " No, I think he came a few months later," said Un cle Bill. " There must be some sort of relation or con nection between them ; for Sam built that shanty over across the river on Green's land, and Green's sister used to go over there once in a while. I never knew much about 'em." " No wonder Green's wife died," remarked Fenton ; 22 THE PORTRAIT. " such a husband, or such a son as Jake, would either be too much for any woman, and no one could stand both." " I never heard anything specific against Green," said Shelden, " except that he has a gang about him." " No, nor I," said Uncle Bill ; " but the atmosphere is bad about him ; you don't feel easy in his presence ; and if he laughs, nobody laughs with him ; such men ain't healthy." "What will become of the children?" asked Shel den. " There's two or three, ain't there? " . " One died a year or two ago," said Fenton. " Mrs. Jones has taken the youngest, and the oldest is at Mr. Skinner's." "Do you know, Fenton," said the latter, "that as I sat lookin' at 'em this afternoon, Sam, with his florid, bloated face, and red eyes, and the freckled, round- faced, tow-headed little one, and remembered the pale, flaxen-haired mother, and then looked at Fred, tall and dark, with his splendid eyes and well-cut features, it 'peared to me that he belonged to another race ? " " Of course he does," said Fenton, decidedly ; " there's blood and race in that boy, you may depend upon that ; you can see it in his motions. Row Lewis said that he treed a wild cat, off in back of Sam's house, about a month ago, and got a ball stuck in his rifle, and that this boy came to him, and staid, and watched the cat till he went down to Giles's shop, and fixed the gun, and went back and shot it. He said the boy never thought of being afraid of it." " How old is he? " asked Shelden. WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT. 23 " I can't tell," said Uncle Bill ; " nine or ten or 'levcn maybe twelve." "What will become of him?" asked the practical Sheldon. u I don't know ; I was so taken with him this after noon, that I told Sam I would take him home with me, till he could see what he could do." " You'd better keep him," said Fenton, decidedly. "I would, willingly," said Uncle Bill, " if his father would let me have him. The notion has somehow got into my head," lowering his voice, "that Green is in some wa}* interested in this boy." The three men looked silently at each other for a moment, and Sheldon gave a low whistle. "The devil!" exclaimed Fenton; "the boy is no more like Green \han a }*oung eagle is like a thieving old owl." "There are other things besides blood. "We shall see," quietly replied Uncle Bill. CHAPTER V. GREEN'S TAVERN AND ITS LANDLORD. TUST below, on the south-east corner, fronting on *J the State Road, stood Green's Hotel, an extensive rambling collection of buildings, composed partly of hewed or squared logs, partly of round logs, and to which had been added, within three or four A'ears, a new, and, for the time, spacious two story framed building, neatly finished and painted. Near these were extensive sheds, and partly in the rear, roomy, well-built barns and stables. The whole place bore the appearance of being much frequented. The bar-room was in the block part, a large, low, and unattractive room ; and on the night after the funeral it was dimly lighted, and deserted by its usual frequenters. In an inner room, also dimly lighted, was the pro prietor, a tall, muscular, heavy built, heavy shouldered, heavy headed, heavy browed, rough featured man, his small, quick, deep set, hard, round blue eyes peering stealthily out from his overhanging eyebrows, with florid face, and scanty light hair. Although a heavy man, he was walking up and down the room with a light feline step, and occasionally dropping his head on one side, as if to listen for his own foot-fall, or to see if he could hear what his thoughts were. (24) GREEN'S TAVERN AND ITS LANDLORD. 25 He was not alone ; near a table at one end of the room sat Sam Warden, silent, dogged and defiant; sober now, the wretched man seemed to have been surveying the ab}-ss, at whose bottom he found him self, under conditions that enabled him to comprehend its depth and hopelessness. His eyes were on the floor, with the sullen look of a man broken, exhausted, and hunted down, who hoped nothing, looked for nothing, and feared nothing. The men had evidently conferred and disagreed. " Sam," said Green, gliding up to him like a serpent, and laying his hand upon him like a feather, and breath ing his name in a voice that he intended not to hear himself, while his quick C3'e stole stealthily about to detect any listening shadow, " Sam ! " " What ? " said Sam, in a rough, hoarse voice. " 'Ush-h-h-h !" with a deprecating wave of his hand, as if urging the shadows to withdraw, " they'll hear ye." " Who the devil cares ! " " Sam ! " with seduction in his breath ; " Sam, take a little sothin'," holding up to the light a bottle of spirits. " It's brand}- rale fourth-proof try a little ? " " Not a dam drop ! " sulkily. " Sam, what d'ye want? tell a feller." " Not a dam thing." " Remember, Sam " "I do remember." "What d'ye remember?" with a voice of thunder, and a stamp that shook the house ; " what d'ye re- membcr, ye mis'able whiskey-suckin' cuss ! ye poor bloated porpant ! " " Porpant ! who made me a porpant ? " springing up, 26 THE PORTRAIT. and confronting the enraged landlord with a stolid look of defiance. With a gasp, half a hoarse bark, lost in an angry growl, the furious Green, with livid face and eyes burn ing with murder, grasped the miserable and helpless Sam by the throat, with the strangling hands of speedy death, and literally lifting him from his feet, shook him as if he had been a figure of cork, and threw him help lessly several feet upon the floor. "Uncle Uncle Jarvis," feebly moaned the subdued wretch. With a single step Green stood over him, and hissed, " Say Uncle Jarvis again while ye live, an' I'll murder ye ! " And turned to confront the shadows. The cowering wretch lay dumb and trembling on the floor, when Green, bringing a glass of brandy from the table, lifted his head up. " 'Ere, drink this ! " The poor wretch swallowed a little, which his stomach immediately rejected. Again and again the dose was repeated, until the liquor was retained. u Get up," said Green, " and sit down like a reason- 'ble man." " Why're ye so 'ard on a feller ! " whined the some what recovered Sam. " What d 'ye want, anyway ? What '11 ye do with 'im ? " " What business 's that o' yourn ? as his father, ye s'll bind 'im to me. 'Es'll work in the stable, pick up chips, black boots, an' mebby drive stage. What's that to ye ? " " Ye know that she that's dead, poor Betsey, liked 'im, an' 'e put a wet cloth on 'er dead face, I seed 'im," and the poor creature broke down. GREEN'S TAVERN AND ITS LANDLORD^ 27 " Come, come, Sam ! " with his old gammoning way, and waving off' a shadow, " don't be a fool ; take another drink, an' be a man ; put a wet tow'l 'round that neck o' yers, so that yer licker '11 do ye good in the mornin'." "There's sothin' in that bo}* oncommon," said Sam, preparing to go. "The mornin' after Betsey died, he pushed me from the bed, an' thar was sothin' in 'is eyes, that that " " That what, you fool? " looking about, a little fearful of eavesdroppers. " That made me kind o' ." " Shet up, will ye ! " with a backward, deprecating motion of his hand ; and then, with the old wheedle, " Come, come, Sam, ye ain't yerself to-night ; ye '11 be better in the mornin'," looking around to see that the .way was clear. As Sam was about to go, "Say*!" said Green, and coming up with the old noisless tread, with the wave at the shadows, and putting his lips to Sam's ear, " D' ye s'pose she tole 'irn anythiu' ? " " Who tole what? With another look around, "Betsey Fred?" "'Ow could she?" "If she did, I'll " CHAPTER VI. LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM. E day after the funeral Fred went down by the grave of his mother, and out across to Jones's, to see Johnny, and then down across the river at Atwater's ; then, turning up the southern bank, went back to the little desolate hut, the only home he had any mem ory of. It was very lonely and silent in the Indian summer sunshine. The door stood open, and, as he entered, he was surprised to find it stripped and empty of the poor and scanty things it had once contained. The hearth was cold, with the extinguished brands and dead ashes lying upon it. A few tattered rags, a broken chair and stool, and a few fractured earthen vessels, amid straw and dust, were all that remained within. How coldly and dumbly it all smote upon the childish heart of the boy who had been so sorely tried, and was so incapable of understanding his own emo tions ! The air and silence oppressed, almost suffocated him. He turned out, and, as he went, he closed the door and latched it instinctively, as if to shut in the impressions that had so smitten him. How jstill and lonely everything lay in the warm sun outside ! Fred looked about him, and went with a saddened face to the side of the river where his little canoe still floated ; (28) LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM. 29 he thought of his two or three traps, set above, but somehow he did not care for them ; and carefully bal ing the water from his boat, he loosed its fastening, and with his little paddle pulled himself across to the other bank. Here he landed ; and pushing his boat out again into the rapid current, bow down stream, he abandoned it to its fate. As the mid-current took it, it shot around a turn, and Fred sprang up the bank just in time to catch a glimpse of it, through an open ing, as it was swept forever from his sight. He looked where it had disappeared, and turned for a moment to the deserted cabin ; then, with sobs of pain, he passed into the woods with an instinctive but incomprehensive feeling that he was entering upon a new phase of life. His new friends, in their kindness, were concerned at his da3''s absence, and greatly relieved upon his return. They found him a pleasant, cheerful boy ? apparently observing, and much interested in books, who modestly answei'cd all questions, though disin clined to talk much, and especially about his father and mother. The next morning his father called for him, and said that he was to go with him down to Green's. "Without reply or question, Fred took his hat to accompany him. With a word to his wife, Uncle Bill said to Sam that he would go with him. On their arrival at the hotel the}* found the proprietor in the bar-room, whom Uncle Bill approached at once. " Good morning, Mr. Green." *' Good mornin', good mornin', Misto Skinner," in soft voice, and with a very polite and not ungraceful 30 THE PORTRAIT. bow. " I hope yer well ; and how's yer lady an' the 3'oung gents, this mornin'?" " Very well," indifferently. " Mr. Green " At the business address, the landlord stepped quickly and stealthily forward, with a wave of his hand to a group in a remote part of the room, as well as the world gen erally, by way of warning not to interfere. "You wish to speak to me?" in a low voice. " A moment, if you please." Without further words he was conducted politely and obsequiously into the room where the interview with Sam Warden had oc curred. "Be seated ; take a cheer, I beg ye." " No matter about this bo}*, this Fred ? " "What about him?" with a glance and a warning sweep of the hand. He bent low, and his voice sunk to an anxious whisper, as he asked : " I feel an interest in him, and want to know what is to become of him," with a straightforward look into the keen and tremulous eyes of the landlord. A quick flash out to the right and left, with a slight twitch of the muscles at the corners of the eyes, and a backward wave. " Wery kind o* ye ; wery, wery kind o' ye ; the poor boy needs frins," with a tremor in his voice, and a movement of the eyelids, as if to suppress a sudden revolt of the feelings. " 'Ad I knowd, I'd a* talked with ye ; but Sam cum to me and wanted me to take Mm, an' though 'taint the best place for 'im. I con sented, an' he made this paper," drawing a folded writing from a capacious leather pocket-book, carried in au inside pocket, which he handed to his visitor. LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM. 31 " I thought best to 'ave it in black an' white." Mr. Skinner saw endorsed on the back of it the omi nous word "Indenture," and below it, "Recorded in the records of Mantua Township, this 10th day of November, 1829." Opening it, he found it pursued the prescribed formula of binding a minor. He ran his eye on down, "until he is of the age of twenty- one j'ears " ; " not less than three months' schooling each year until the age of eighteen " ; "to be taught so much of arithmetic as includes the Rule of Three," which requirement had been placed in the Ohio Statutes by the Yankees of the Reserve. The indenture also provided, that on his reaching said age of twenty-one 3'ears, "that Green should pay him, the said Frederick AVnrden, the full sum of one hundred dollars current money, and furnish him with one good freedom suit of fulled cloth." Signed, Samuel Warden (his x mark) , and acknowledged and witnessed as the law directs. Uncle Bill's eye ran back to the descriptive parts, " Frederick AVarden, aged about ten 3 7 ears, born near Danville, Ky., May loth, 1819." AA r hile Uncle Bill was carefully studying this paper, Green, at times, threw his whole force into a look and attitude of the most intense interest, with an occasional glance and gesture to imaginary spectators not to inter fere ; that it should be all right ; and occasionally he would incline an ear, as if t^-ing to hear what the silent reader and cogitator thought about it. " Three months' schooling each j-eaf," said Uncle Bill, with his full voice, "until the age of eighteen j-ears," and thus repeated several other provisions of the paper. 32 THE PORTRAIT. "Square Lyman Lawyer Lyman of Ravenna drawn it," remarked Green, by way of assurance of its correctness. "The paper's all right," said Uncle Bill, coldly, handing it back. " Does the boy know of it?" he demanded. " I s'pose Sam's told 'im ; no matter, 'e'll find it out as " " Soon's he'll want to know it," interrupted Uncle Bill, regardlesss of the deprecating gesture of the land lord. " Call 'im in," said Uncle Bill. With a deprecatory gesture to the imaginary specta tors, as if to say, " I'll do it, and save all hard feeling," the landlord stole out of the room, and a moment after stole in, followed by the wide-eyed, wondering l>oy. "Ef I may be so bold" with great suavity, that had a little ring of self-assertion in the tone said Green, " I'm the boy's master. You'll rec'lect, pleas'." "Master ain't a good word up here," said Uncle Bill, "and you'll recollect that I'm one of the 'Selectmen' of Mantua Township, and live about a mile from here," with a look that took nothing from the remark. " Freddy," he continued to the boy, " your father has placed you with Mr. Green to live. You'll be a good boy, do whatever he tells you, and he'll be kind to you. You'll let him come and see us occasionally," to Green. " Good-by, Freddj-. Good morning, Mr. Green." Turning hastily away, Uncle Bill walked rap idly out of the house, and, with a saddened face, away from it. " Freddy," said Green to the boy, who stood with his LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM. 33 eyes staring hard at the door, through which his friend had departed, with an expression like that with which he saw his canoe disappear ; "Freddy " and the voice was soft and winning "ye was alone with yer rna when she died ? " The boy looked wonderingly at his questioner, and moved a little from him. " Yer 's alone with 'er, yer farther says." "Yes sir, Johnny and I." "Did she say anythin' to yer? leave any word, anythin' about yerself, or Johnny, or yer pa ? " Fred still stared at him with wonder in his wide, innocent eyes, and without winking, until tears came into them, and ran over their lids. " Nothiu', nothiu', Freddy ? We'll go out now, and look about." An impatient ges ture might have notified the observant shadows that it was not altogether right. The place was not new to Fred. He had been there, but not often. Once or twice he had come to look for his father, and a few times to get a small wooden bot tle replenished. As he went out through the bar-room, he hurried nnd made a sweep around a group at the bar, behind which stood Jake, with his hard, freckled, repulsive face. "'Ere, Fred, take this pitcher, an' bring some fresh water; ye'll 'ave ter work 'ere. I'll put ye through. Do ye 'ear?" As the boy wonderingly took the pitcher, and went out, Jake added : " If the ole man means ter 'ave that little cuss lazin' round, fishin' an' trappin', he'll find himself damly mistaken. I'll make him 'ump." Just then Fred came in, and placed the heavy pitcher 3 34 THE PO11TRA.IT. on the bar. " There now," cried Jake, " go'n bring in some wood, an' I'll tell ye what ter do next." "You'd better take care," said Israel Patterson, just drunk enough to be independent, " he won't stand much." "What dam business 's that o' yourn? Drink yer licker, an shet up, or I'll " The landlord had stolen in, and his quick glance de tecting none but the ordinary tipplers, "Jake !," with a voice which made the decanters start on the shelves, and under which that youth sunk to sullen silence. When Fred came in with the wood he gave him a quarter, and told him to go over to the stoi'e and buy a paper of tobacco, and when he returned with the change, told him to keep it. The boy looked up wonderingly, but laid the money down on the bar, and walked away in silence. " Wai, if that don't beat the devil ! " exclaimed Jake, and all turned in surprise at him. As he walked away the landlord repeated his gesture of uncertainty and warning. " 'E'll larn better'n that," he said. From the solitary life of his childhood, in the woods by the river, to that of boy of all work in the stable and kitchen of a much frequented country tavern, was a great change ; and Fred made it, and adapted himself to his new situation, with the plastic readiness of the young backwoods boy. Whatever ulterior views Green may have had in seeking the control of the boy, he evidently, at first, sought to gain his confidence and good-will ; and although he did not spare him from the ceaseless round of chores, his manner was not unkind, and he often, in his stealthy, confidential way, seemed anxious LAUNCHED UPON THE STREAM. 35 to penetrate and mould the boy's inner thought and na ture. At such times Fred would turn upon him with his wide, open eyes, in seeming wonder, altogether puzzling to the wily nature of the man, who occasion ally made a beckoning motion, as if asking attention, till he finally saw, or fancied that he saw, in those eyes distrust, and something like defiance. When Green moved into Mantua seven or eight years before, from the south part of the State, as he said, he was understood to be a widower, and was accompanied by a middle-aged sister, a stout, coarse, dark woman, and his only child, the unpromising Jake ; the rest of his household consisted of hired men, and a young woman or two, as the exigencies of business required. Save these, few knew of the inside of his household and famiby, and they knew but little of it. His relations with outsiders were of a purcbj' business character, which he conducted with a marked politeness of man ner, and generally fairly. His ways were said to be Southern at any rate of a type different from the Yankee and the marked success that attended his operations, conducted with much cautious enterprise, gained him the reputation of being long-headed and deep ; which qualities, viewed together with his success, inspired men with a certain respect for him, while his sly, stealthy ways, and suavit} r , led his cool and calcu- latino" neighbors to regard him with a wholesome dis- O O O trust. His tools" were of a style and fashion unknown in Yankee land, immense hoes, and clumsy axes with straight handles, instead of helves ; and, harnesses sewed with leather thongs, he used to drive with one 36 THE PORTRAIT. line, mounted on a wheel-horse, and used words, and pronounced them, in a way unknown to down-country dialect. Men talked about him, yet nobody knew any thing positively discreditable to him, beyond the drink ing and tippling he permitted upon his premises. CHAPTER VII. . SALLY'S VIEWS. ON the morning after the advent of Fred, another interview took place, in the domain of Sally, be tween that personage and her brother John. "Goin' ter change 3'cr sign, I s'pose," said the lady, indifferently. " I see ye've taken a pardiier. It'll be Green an' " " Shi-shi ! " hissed John, in alarm, and turning to beat off intruders. " What's the good o' names, when ye don't know 'cm." "What's the good o' 'avin' this young catamount, to tear yer eyes out ? I know mor'n ye think I do," snappishly, like a woman. "Ye do, do yer ? What dye know come ? Didn't the feller die, an' warn't 'e buried with 'is father? An didn't 'is mother dig 'im up, an cany 'im off come ? " With a triumphant glance at the shadows. " Yah-h-h ; an' didn't Betsey break 'er 'art for 'im ; an' warn't the money drownded in the river? if I warn't thar." During the utterance of this sentence, the efforts of Green to prevent interlopers were quite frantic. "Sally! Avill ye never 'old yer tongue?" looking dangerous. (37) 38 THE PORTRAIT. "Will ye give me the deed? Warn't ye satisfied liein' 'bout me?" "That's long ago. Av course ye knowd }'e'd 'ave it. Wut sho'd I do with the boy ? " " Send 'im adrift wi' Sam, if yer afeard o' Mm ; its nothin' to me." " Yis, to float 'roun an' turn up nobod} 1 " knows when 'cr whar." "Better turn up an_y whar than yere. Can't ye see that 'e's goin' ter look like men o' blood ? " "Who's goin' to see 'im yere ? if they do, can't 'e be a come-b}'-chance o' 3~ers ? Think o' Bill Conyers." " More lies about yer sister," in a wearied, despair ing tone. " An' Jake sa3'S yer to edicate 'im ; an 'e reads a heap now. Yer 'd better chuck 'im inter a ' devil's 'ole ' sora'ers 'bout 3'ere." " Sail}- ! Salh r ! " with a ghastly look round at the shadows, " what der ye kno? That's only a nigger, anyway. An' then I 'as Sam on my 'an's." " Sam won't trouble nobody long ; only let 'im keep on." "An' if this chap sho'd take to ways, bein' 'bout the bar, who co'd 'elp it, 3*er know? " " Jest let 'im go ter school, and be made of by the sneakin' Yankees roun' yere, an' ye'll see. Besides, who kno's what Betsey may tole 'im." "Do yer s'pose? ' with a scared look around, " but Betsey knowd nothin' ." "She didn't, eh? No wonder yer 'feard ; ye'd be W T US cust if yer " "'Ush!" with the voice and manner with which he strangled Sam, aud silenced Jake. SALLY'S VIEWS. 39 " Wai," said the persistent but cowed woman, " ye allus 'ad yer way, an' what do I keer ? But ye'll see what'll come o' it." Food, shelter, a place to sleep, safety to life and limb, with air to breathe, and room to exercise and grow in, are conditions in which young life will thrive and phj-sical development progress. Nothing that breathes has such marvellous adaptability to all possible conditions as the human, and the young hu man. / Fred in his little loft, his hard pallet, coarse but abundant food, and scant clothes ; in the stable, water ing horses, riding them bareback with a halter, chop ping and splitting wood, building fires, feeding the young cattle at a stack, rising early, working hard, and going to bed late had the needed conditions of physical life, and his principal business, next after liv ing, is to grow. Thus with immense vitality and almost wonderful physical capabilities, inherited from a fine strain of men, or cropping out anew, as is sometimes the wont of seemingly capricious Nature, this isolated boy is to grow and thrive, be hardy and strong. And what of his heart, his soul, his affections, his moral nature ? Love is not so essential to the j'oung. The realm of affection, of morals and spirit, develop later. He is not precocious. He will regretfully and tenderly remember his poor faded and dj'ing mother, and once in a while start off and see little Johnny. Between him and his father the feeling was that which subsists between a .man and 3'oung boy, thrown much together, but not the liking of a son for a father on Fred's part. 40 THE PORTRAIT. The two nights and- the day at Mr. Skinner's had given him a new and strange glimpse of life, of a home full of warmth and love arid plenty ; and how his heart hungered, at times, for it ! But it was not for him, and he did not tliink of murmuring, even to himself; and finally, when he began to go to school, when he could snatch himself away, and saw the little troops of brothers and sisters come and go, glad and happy, he thought how verj r , very sweet it must be, and that some time, when he grew up, he would live in some pleasant place with little Johnny. But these things were not for him. Still he could not help looking hungrily into the faces of those happy children, going back alone to his round of chores, and his cold, dai'k, and solitary little room, with a feeling which he could not explain or com prehend. At first he stood around and looked on, wistfully, at the sports of the other boys ; bnt, when invited, readily and gladly joined with them. It is marvellous how soon children get acquainted. In ten minutes they are the oldest of acquaintances, and in an hour the fastest of friends. The children at first thought him shy and distant, and there was something in his high looks like pride and coldness ; so that they were astonished to find how ready and glad he was to mix in their sports, and what a bright, cheeiy, and joyous nature he had. His teacher found him very docile, and eager to learn, but rather slow, very attentive to his books, and obser vant of all the rules. In a week he became quite a favorite both with teacher and scholars. To Fred, his school and its associations were the opening up of a new life, whole new realms of activity and enjoyment, s ALLY'S VIEWS. 41 which lit up his hard, dreary surroundings, imparting to them new and van-ing interest, and developing the buoyant and impulsive hopefulness of his nature ; he was even heard to whistle and sing, and sometimes laugh, about the tavern. The fresh life of his face and manner were a new source of anxiety to John Green, who studied him with keener scrutiny than before. " There, what did I tell 3-0 ! " exclaimed the trium phant Sally to the discouraged landlord, as the boyish notes came to him; "j-e'll see!" and John thought that he was getting glimpses. Fred was active and attentive to his many calls, and there was no cause for complaint ; yet complaints there were. It cannot be said that Fred felt anything like attachment for any of the family, nor did he spend much time, save compul- sorily, in their presence. Sally he avoided on the general principles that had always, perhaps, governed most of his sex in reference to her. Jake he avoided on his own account, from a feeling of aversion. There was a difference of five or six years in their ages, and an irreconcilable difference in their natures. Jake disliked 'Fred from the begin ning, and in a month grew to hate- him, while Fred returned a hearty disfavor. It would be difficult to determine what were the feel ings of the elder Green towards the bo} T . He would have concealed them from himself had he known them, and that from the secretiveness of his nature. So accustomed was he to deceive and mislead others, to conceal his purposes and intentions, that he sometimes spoke in au undertone so profound that he was him- 42 THE PORTRAIT. self in doubt as to what he said, while his real inten tion was often a matter of uncertainty in his own mind. He seemed at times to be fascinated by Fred, and would furtively follow him about, taking all kinds of opportunities to steal upon and watch him. He usu ally addressed him in his soft and bland manner, and sometimes, without apparent cause, in a rough, coarse, almost brutal voice, in accordance with his nature ; and occasionally he seemed actually to fear him. He saw, or fancied he saw, in the bo}*'s eyes a singular and strange expression, as if he thought of something, or remembered something, or knew of something ; but sometimes it was fearless and defiant, and then it was arch and knowing again ; Green would look again, and the expression would be gone, nothing appearing in Fred's face but the frank, innocent, open outlook of young boyhood. That did not please him much better. CHAPTER VIII. ' SIR WALTER. E winter wore on, and was like a dawn_of sun- - shine streaked with black to Fred. He was often kept out of school, usually reached it late, and always had to hurry home, or to the place where he worked and ate and slept ; but lie did not much inind the hard ships. So the winter passed, and the spring came, and the snows melted, and the days grew long, and the roads muddy and deep, and travellers' horses had to be groomed. The last day of school came, and the noisy urchins and little maidens divided up into groups for the last time, and went home ; and Fred, looking regret fully at each as the}' passed off, went sadly to the tavern alone. It was not an attractive place, and few boys ever went there unless on errands, all being afraid of the landlord, and none of them liking Jake. Fred felt himself left to unrelieved work and endless chores, without pleasant companionship. Once in a while Uncle Bill called, or gave him a passing word, and a boy friendship had sprung up between him and young Bill. Sometimes Fred saw Fenton at the store, but his position at the tavern was almost complete isolation from the neighborhood. One friend and companion had come to him in the (43) 44 THE PORTRAIT. winter, between whom and himself had sprung up a tenderness and devotion beautiful in itself, and precious to the famished heart of the boy. A gentleman had put up at the hotel, attended b}* a beautiful Newfoundland dog, a magnificent fellow, with great intelligent human eyes, and knowing, sagacious ways. The toes of his forefeet were slightly marked with white, and a singular oblong white circle on the upper part of his head, surrounding a spot of black, and a delicate white ring about his neck, united on the back in a knot of white, like a white ribbon tied in a flat, graceful w r ay. He wore a collar, on which was engraved his name, Sir Walter. By accident, a day or two before reaching Green's, a carriage had been driven over one of his forefeet, and crushed it, so as to render him a cripple. His master took him into his carriage and brought him forward. At Green's, Fred had devoted himself unremittingly to Sir Walter, on whose account the gentleman remained over a day or two ; and when he felt obliged to go on, the foot seemed to be too bad to admit of Walter's attending him. So, after asking the permission of Green, the gentleman made a present of Sir Walter to Fred. Had he given him a princedom he could not have made him more proud and happy. Tears came into his eyes ; and kneeling down b}* Sir Walter, he put his boy arms about the dog's neck, and hugged him in mute joy, while the grateful and affectionate animal looked up dumbly into the boy's lifted face, as if he comprehended and returned his love, and with the half sad, pitying expression which is sometimes seen in the eyes of the nobler o/ that race. What a possession he SIR WALTER. 45 was ! "What a world of love and care and human interest came to him ! Save his little canoe, and two or three traps, this was the sole thing he had ever possessed, and this was alive, a dog, of all things that he had most longed for. With a moistened eye, the gentleman renewed his injunction to Green, accom panied with a five-dollar bill for the extra care and room which Sir Walter might need until well again, and a kindly squeeze of Fred's hand, and " good-by old fellow " to the dog, drove away. Walter, whose race and form had never before been seen in that region, was an object of great curiosity in the neighborhood, and under the care and nursing which he received, in the course of three or four weeks he fully recovered. At first he was much petted by Jake, who often asserted his ownership over him, but the sagacious Sir Walter took a very .hearty and natural dislike to him ; indeed, he exhibited no warmer attachment for the elder Green, whom, .however, he treated with the sort of deference which intelligent dogs usually bestow upon the master of a house. His devotion to Fred was something marvellous, and was manifested in a grave human way^ He so far recovered as to be permitted to go at large before the school closed, and always insisted on attending his young master to school. Taking the books in his mouth, he walked gravely by his side to the school-house, and turning back from the door where he usually presented himself when school was out, with a chip, or stick, or straw in his mouth, and his head curbed in, as Fred came out to attend him home again. After several 46 THE PORTRAIT. battles royal with Salty, Sir Walter was permitted to sleep in the room with his master. When school closed, Fred had this one priceless friend and possession to brighten his world, and bless his otherwise lonely and loveless life. The end of the school brought an increase of work to him, and placed him in a more constant contact with Jake, who seemed to regard him with growing malevolence, and began to find opportunities to do him acts of unkindness and spite. As the youngest about the premises, Fred was the servant and menial of all ; and it was in Jake's power not only to increase and multiply his chores, but to put various personal slights and indignities upon him, and the presence of Sir Walter seemed to present an incitement, as well as occasions for augmenting the poor boy's annoyances. It was not quite prudent to kick or strike Sir Walter, but it was easy to shut him up, drive him out of the house or stable, and subject him and his master to many annoj-ances and indignities. The position of a friend to Fred would have been very humiliating to a human being at- Green's : for a dog, it was quite intolerable. This state of things continued, and daily became more aggravated and sore. If Green saw or knew of it, as of course he did, he did not interfere, nor did Fred complain of it to him. Jake had never ventured upon any decided personal violence towards Fred, beyond rough, profane words, or an occasional push. That, too, would have been dangerous in the presence of Sir Walter. Some time in May, when the threshers had finished the oats in the upper barn, and the bo} - s were set to SIR WALTER. 47 clean them up, they were there alone, the younger turning the fanning-mill, and the elder with a scoop shovel feeding it. Jake, as usual, was growling and fretting and swearing at Fred and Walter, who was never far from his friend. The door being open from the barn floor into a granary, "Walter went in there, which Jake observing, closed the door. This made Walter uneasy, and he whined to come out. When Fred heard him he sprang to open the door, but found that Jake had locked it, and withdrawn the key. " There, dam ye ! " exclaimed Jake, approaching him, with burning e} T es and clenched hands. " I've owed ye a dam lickin' a long time, an' now I'm goin' to give it to ye." Though taken utterly by surprise, the bold and defiant attitude of his -young enemy caused Jake to pause an instant ; and when he finally made a rush for the boy, he was met half way in a desperate grapple. lie had underrated both the courage and strength of Fred, and found himself called upon to put forth all his force to overcome the suddenness and fury of the onset. The struggle was fierce, and superior weight and strength began to tell, when there was a crash of shattered wood and glass, which the combatants heard without heeding, a fierce growl, a black plunge, and a great muzzle fastened upon Jake's neck ; the bully was torn from the sinking Fred as if he had been a rag baby, and lay writhing in the strangling jaws of Sir Walter. " Walter ! Walter ! " exclaimed Fred, springing to his enemy's relief, and seizing the dog by his collar. At his voice, the docile animal released his hold, when 48 THE PORTRAIT. Jake sprang up and dashed out of the barn, not seriously injured. Unaccustomed to scenes of violence, the whole thing had come and passed so sudclenty, that Fred stood amazed and excited, not only not knowing what to think, but incapable of thinking at all. He finally remembered to have heard the crash of the window of the granary, through which Walter had leaped when he came to his rescue, and he stepped out to examine it, followed by Sir Walter. He had just turned the corner of the barn when a gun was discharged near him ; and springing back, he came upon the fallen dog, within two paces of whom stood his infuriated murderer, with a devilish exultation on his face. " There, God dam ye ! y '11 never 'elp 'im agin." Heedless of Jake, with a cry of anguish, as the earth darkened, the poor boy threw himself upon his wounded friend. Not outright was the noble Walter slain. Without a moan or whine, by a great effort he raised himself upon his forefeet, with his hinder parts, which had received the charge, lying helplessly on the ground, and looked with his great, tender, loving human eyes, full of mute compassion, upon the now unfriended bo}-, as if he was the only one to be mourned for, and tenderly licked his face, as if to show his undying attachment. " Oh, Walter ! Walter ! Walter ! Oh, Walter ! Walter ! Walter ! " in broken, sobbing gasps, was all the poor boy could say, as, with his arms around his dying friend's neck, he sank with him upon the ground, wish ing only to die with him. Anger and indignation throbbed back in the blood SIR WALTER. 49 of the passionate boy, and he sprang up to take ven geance on the slayer ; but it was silent and empty about him, with nothing but sunshine and the chippering cry of the returned swallows in the air. How hateful every thing was ! Turning to his dying friend, with a great exertion he lifted him tenderly in his arms, and partty carrying and partly drawing him, got him within the barn, and placed him on a bed of straw. The grateful fellow seemed to understand the kindness, and looking tenderly in his master's face, licked his hands. He made a low plaint, a sound such as that he used to make when he wanted to drink ; and springing for a bucket, Fred brought him fresh water from the pump, of which the poor animal drank eagerly. The weapon used was a shot-gun ; and so near was the miscreant, that the charge made a single ragged wound, which bled but little externally, but had shat tered the spine, and destroyed the possibility of more than two or three hours of life to the noble dog, who lay with his sad C3'es upon his young master, with a shadow deepening in them, as if conscious of approach ing death. The poor boy felt that he must die, and, in his desolation, he knew of no mortal to whom he could turn ; his only instinctive thought was to remain with his brave defender, who had sacrificed his life for him. Feeling a sort of shiver in poor Walter's frame, the boy brought a horse blanket from the stable, and lying down b} r his dying friend, drew the blanket over both ; and clasping him about the neck with both arms, and drawing his head up to him, the wretched boy, buiying his face in the long silky hair of Walter's neck, aban doned himself utterly to grief. Never before had the 4 50 THE PORTRAIT. complete isolation and desolation of his life so come to him, as he lay in this rude barn, clasping the murdered form of the only thing that loved him, with the darkness of night falling over the earth, that now held no heart, nor home, nor hope for him. Green had been away ; and when he returned at , a late hour, Fred was not there to take his horse. He had not milked the cows or fed the pigs, or brought in the wood, and Sally had not seen him at his supper ; nor was Walter about. Jake was hulking around the bar-room, more sulky than usual ; and, on inquiry, said that he had left Fred at the upper barn with Walter. Thither the now alarmed and misgiving elders repaired, Sally with a sick sensation at the heart, for she remembered to have seen Jake bringing his gun from that direction. A few rods brought them to the north door, which they found open ; and on pausing for a moment, they were startled by low, distressed sobs, that came from the dark mass which lay upon the floor near them. " Bring a lantern, Sally," said the alarmed brother, who stood at the entrance. A lighted candle was brought, the two entered the barn, and lifting the blanket, discovered the sobbing boy, with his arms clasped about the neck of the dying dog. "Fred! what is it?" cried the somewhat excited Green, while Sally shook with apprehension. " He shot him ! " cried the bo} r , starting up ; " Jake shot him. He sneaked up behind him, and shot him like a coward." The brother and sister exchanged glances. "Are you 'urt?" asked Sally, doubtingly. SIR WALTER. 51 " No. He didn't have time to hurt me, when Walter took 'im. Oh, Walter ! Walter ! Walter ! " with a voice so pathetic that it even reached the hearts of his auditors, and throwing himself again upon the dog's neck. The presence of thq, intruders seemed to dis turb the dying creature, and he made ineffective efforts to rise. " Better put 'im out o' misery," said Green, in a not ungentle voice, looking about the barn, as if for a bludgeon with which to despatch the dog. " You shall not touch him ! You shall not touch him ! " exclaimed the boy, starting up, with desperate defiance. " Don't 'urt 'im, John ; it '11 soon be over," said the softened woman ; and whispering something to him, John went out of the barn, when Fred again laid the mass of his shining hair down, and it mingled with the silky mane of Walter. With unwonted tenderness the cold and blighted woman approached and knelt by them, and laying a hard, wrinkled, toil-worn hand on the head of either, " Pore, pore Freddy ! pore Walter ! " and for a moment bowed her head to the great wave of womanly tender ness that smote upon and overwhelmed her. The voice reached the hearts of the boy and Walter ; the first gave a cry of relieving anguish, and the latter, turning his tender eyes upward to her, fcebty licked the hand that caressingly slid down over his muzzle. Green just then returned to the barn, bringing a lantern and a basin of milk, which he offered to Fred's lips. The boy took it, and attempted "to attract Walter's attention to it, placing it near his mouth ; the grateful brute looked at it, and turned his eyes back to the face 52 THE PORTRAIT. of the boy near his own. A slight rigor passed through his frame, and the love and light died in his eyes. A few minutes later, the womanized Sally unclasped the relaxed hands of Fred from his defender's neck, and lifting him in her strong arms, bore him nearly insensible to the house ; while her brother, wondering at his own weakness, spread the blanket carefully over the lifeless form of Sir Walter, and closing up the barn, followed her. CHAPTER IX. MB. GEEEN EXPLAINS. happened to be no guests at Green's that night, and an unwonted quiet reigned over the premises. The next morning there were low words and whispers exchanged between the hired men and the young women. They had observed that Walter was missing, and the girl had heard a gun, and late in the night, she knew that Fred had been brought in from the barn. A rumor made its way to Delano's store, and spread through the neighborhood, that Jake had the night be fore shot Walter, and wounded Fred ; and at a pretty early hour Fenton, Uncle Bill Skinner, Chapman, De lano, and others, with a constable, proceeded to the hotel together. Green received them with more than wonted suav ity and deference, and seemed quite anxious about their several healths. He was interrupted by Uncle Bill, who inquired where Jake was, and also what had happened the night before. At that moment Jake came in, when the constable approached and arrested him. "'Ow! What, gentleman? what is't? asked Green, in alarm. (53) 54 THE PORTRAIT. " That's what we came to find out," said Fenton, de cidedly. " Jake'll not be hurt." said Uncle Bill, " if he has hurt nobody. Where's Fred and his dog ? " " Fred ? Somebody call Freddy," with his assuring wave that it was all right. "You see I's away, an' the boys had a little trouble, an' Jake shot the dog ; that's all." "That's all, is it?" said Fenton, quite excitedly. " How was it, Jake? " "Ye see," said that 3'oung gentleman, sulkily, "3*6 see, I'n Fred 'ad a little scuffle, an' Fred told Walter to take me, an' he kitched me by the throat ; ye can see the marks now ; " pulling awa} r a neckcloth, when quite decided marks were apparent. "Look at 'em! took at 'em! gen'lem'," said the de lighted Green ; " look at 'em, all round, gen'lem' ! " " I shook 'im off," continued Jake, " an' shot 'im." " It's a lie ! It's a lie ! " cried Fred, springing into the room in his shirt and trousers, and confronting Jake. " It's all a lie ! We were at work in the upper barn, and he locked Walter into the granarj r , and then he said he owed me a dam lickin, an' came at me, an' I went at him, an' he hit me here," showing a mark near the shoulder, " an' we clinched, an' he was getting me down, when Walter jumped through the window, an' just as I was falling under, he jumped an' took Jake by the throat, an' dashed him down like nothin'. an' would a' killed him in a moment ; an' I sprang an' took 'im by the collar, an' called 'im out, an' Jake ran out the barn ; an' then I remembered I heard the win dow smash, an' soon, as I thought, I started out to MR. GREEN EXPLAINS. 55 see what 'twas, an' just as I got round the corner, I heard the gun, an' I turned back, an' there lay Walter." A moment's pause, in which Fred drew nearer to the sulky and cowed youth, and raising his hand, " You came up behind him without a word, and shot him, like a sneaking coward as you are." Had a sculptor wanted a model of boyish indignation, denunciation, con tempt and defiance, it stood before him, with his splen did form drawn up and quivering, his fine head thrown proudly back, and the whole figure posed with all the muscles and veins starting in his bared neck, his sharply cut nostril dilating, and his great black eyes flash ing. The last words came hissing, and were closed with a superb blow downward, with his right hand. There could be no question of his blood, however he came by it. A look of amazed admiration greeted this rapid narra tion, and splendid burst. "What do you say to that?" demanded Fenton of the silent youth. " What does he say? " exclaimed Fred. " Bill said that he had asked him to help him skin him ! " His lips trembled and quivered now ; and laying his finger on the arm of Jake, "You touch him ! } r ou touch him ! " " Freddy, Freddy," exclaimed Green, interposing be tween the boys, "he sha'n't touch 'im ! he s'll be buried like a human bein'." Uncle Bill proposed to examine the barn, to which Green at once led the wa} T , followed now by the some what numerous party, Jake attended by the constable. The granary was found locked, and Jake reluctantly produced the key from his pocket, when it was found 56 THE PORTRAIT. that the window, some six feet from the floor, had been carried out, as if by a flying leap, and there, near the corner, was the blood, where Walter had fallen. The eager and compassionate men gathered around poor Walter, from whom the blanket was removed, and wondered over and admired his splendid proportions, and again and again went over with the astonishing sagacity of the imprisoned dog, which led him to divine the dan ger of his master, and the agilit3 T , strength, and courage with which he came to his rescue. " It's a pity that Fred called him off," said Fenton, in a decided voice. "What if Walter had not been here?" asked Uncle Bill. " And he won't be here any more," remarked Chapman. These comments were made in the presence of the Greens. On their return to the house, " I know what ye think, gen'lem'," said the elder, " it's nat'ral, but you needn't be afeard ;