| [BOOK I. LANTERN MARSH.] | ||
| I. | A Father’s Love | [11] |
| II. | Teachers and Preachers | [29] |
| III. | Mauney Meets Mrs. Day | [52] |
| IV. | The Harvest Moon | [66] |
| V. | A Visit to Lockwood | [84] |
| VI. | The Iron Will | [96] |
| [BOOK II. REBELS.] | ||
| I. | Mauney Reaches Merlton | [109] |
| II. | Mauney Prepares for College | [132] |
| III. | The Other Half of the Class | [147] |
| IV. | The Professor | [160] |
| V. | Dinner at the De Freville’s | [173] |
| VI. | In Which Stalton Sees the Doctor | [185] |
| [BOOK III. THE LAMP OF KNOWLEDGE.] | ||
| I. | Adjustments | [201] |
| II. | Mauney Finds a Friend | [217] |
| III. | The Great Happiness | [233] |
| IV. | Mauney and Freda Have a Talk | [249] |
| V. | In Which Mauney Calls on the Professor | [260] |
| VI. | The Fool | [273] |
| VII. | The Last Days at Franklin Street | [278] |
| [BOOK IV. THIN SOIL.] | ||
| I. | Convocation | [289] |
| II. | Lockwood | [291] |
| III. | Freda Comes Home | [298] |
| IV. | The Optimist | [305] |
| V. | Mauney Meets Mrs. MacDowell | [308] |
| VI. | A Summer at Home | [316] |
| VII. | The First Day | [321] |
| VIII. | An Old Friend | [332] |
| IX. | Seen at the Market | [339] |
| X. | The Reliable Man | [347] |
| XI. | The Music of Silence and of Drum | [353] |
| XII. | The St. Lawrence Hears a Dialogue | [358] |
| XIII. | Distress | [365] |
| XIV. | What Yellow Eyes Saw | [374] |
| XV. | What was Inevitable | [387] |
| XVI. | Gypsies’ Fire | [392] |
BOOK I
LANTERN MARSH
CHAPTER I.
A Father’s Love
Mauney Bard did not enjoy mending fences. They were quite essential in the general economy of farming. Without them the cows would wander where they had no business, trampling precious crops or perhaps getting mired in these infernal boglands. In principle, therefore, his present occupation was logical, but in practice it was tedious.
During the long afternoon he occasionally paused for diversion to gaze across the wide tract of verdant wilderness before him. Like a lake, choked by vegetation from beneath and strangled by determined vegetation on all sides, the Lantern Marsh surrendered its aquatic ambition. There was very little water to be seen. Only a distant glare of reflected sky remained here and there, espied between banks of thick sedges. A cruel conspiracy of nature! Acres of rice-grass and blue flags with their bayonet-like leaves stabbed up through the all-but-hidden surface, while a flat pavement of rank lilies hastened to conceal any water that dared show itself. For two gloomy miles the defeated thing extended, while outraged evergreens, ill-nourished and frantic, crowded close, like friends, to shield its perennial disgrace.