The starting of a boy in the right direction, and the imparting of that bent he will retain through life, is a work the importance of which cannot be overrated. That our readers may appreciate the force of these influences about to be invoked to shape the future,—to fling a ray of hope upon the briar-planted path of this pauper boy, and quicken to life a spirit in which the germs of hope and the very aroma of youth seem to have withered beneath the benumbing pressure of despair,—we desire to acquaint them with the character of Bradford Whitman, to whose guiding influence so shrewd a judge of character as Robert Wilson wished to surrender his charge (and moreover resolved to leave no method untried to effect it), and in no other way can this object be so effectually accomplished as by our relating to them a conversation held by Whitman and his wife in relation to the building of a new dwelling-house on the homestead.
Several of Whitman’s neighbors had pulled down the log-houses their forefathers built and replaced them with stone, brick, or frame buildings, but Bradford Whitman still lived in the log-house in which he was born; it was, however, one of the best of the kind, built of chestnut logs, with the tops and bottoms hewn to match, and the ends squared and locked.
Whitman was abundantly able to build a nice house, and only two days before the event we are about to narrate occurred, mentioned the subject to his wife, saying that several of the neighbors had either built or were about to build new houses, and perhaps she felt as though they ought to build one, but she replied,—
“Bradford, you cannot build a better house than the old one, a warmer or one more convenient for the work, nor could you find a lovelier spot to set it on than this. It is close to the spring from which your father drank when he first came here a strong lusty man, stronger, I have heard you say, than any child he ever had. There’s many a bullet in these old logs that were meant for him or some of his household.”
“True enough, Alice, for Peter dug a bullet out last fall that came from an Indian rifle, and made a plummet of it to rule his writing-book; but the same may be said of many other houses in this neighborhood that have been taken away to make room for others, for there are but few on which the savage did not leave his mark.”
“But I fear it would give the good old man a heartache to miss the house in which his children were born, his wife died, all his hardships and dangers were met and overcome, and his happiest days were spent.
“A little jar will throw down a dish that is near the edge of the shelf; the least breath will blow out a candle that’s just flickering in the socket, and though I know he would not say a word, I am sure it would make his heart bleed, and I fear hurry him out of the world. Besides, husband, while your father lives your brothers and sisters will come home at New Years, and I have not a doubt they would miss the old house and feel that something heartsome and that could never be replaced, had dropped out of their lives. I hardly think you care to do it yourself, only you think that as we are now well to do, I have got ashamed of the log-house, and want a two-story frame, or brick, or stone one, like some of the neighbors.”
“It would be very strange if you didn’t, wife.”
“No, husband; I am not of that way of thinking at all. We have worked too long and too hard for what we have got together to spend it on a fine house. Here are some of our neighbors whom I could name who were living easy, had a few hundred dollars laid by that were very convenient when they had a sudden call for money, or wanted to buy stock, or hold a crop of wheat over for a better market, but their wives put them up to build a fine house. It cost more than they expected, as it always does, and when they got the house, the old furniture that looked well enough in the old house, didn’t compare at all with the new one, they had to be at a great expense to go to the old settlements to buy fine things; it took all the money they had saved up, and now those same people, when they want to buy cattle or hire help, have to come to you to borrow the money.”
“That is true; for only yesterday a man who lives not three miles from here, and who lives in a fine house, came to me on that same errand.”