CHAP. VIII.[ToC]
THANKSGIVING AND TEMPTATION.
Well, in process of time, that long looked for festival arrived. No boy in Meadville had to sleep with an eye open that morning, for fear he would not hear the first accent of the tongue of the factory bell. The bell slept; and the boys slept, too, until they were called to breakfast.
Samuel had not become very intimate with many of the factory boys. Indeed, among them all, there was only one that he cared a great deal about associating with; and this one he loved as a brother. The name of this boy—or rather, the name by which I prefer to call him in this narrative—was Frederick Noble. Frederick and Samuel, when they were not in the factory, were half their time together. I hardly know what made them so much attached to each other; though probably one reason was that the circumstances of the two were somewhat similar. Frederick's father, as well as Samuel's, had once been a man of property, but, like Mr. Bissell, had become comparatively poor. There's no accounting for likes and dislikes, though. Samuel and Frederick were fond of each other, and I presume it would have puzzled either of them to tell the reason for this fondness.
These two boys, according to an arrangement which had been made a long time beforehand, were companions on thanksgiving day. If I remember aright, the governor's proclamation for thanksgiving, at the time when Frederick and Samuel were boys together, used to have these words tacked to the last end of it: "All servile labor and vain recreation on said day are by law forbidden." Still, parents and guardians allowed considerable latitude to the children in their amusements, if the governor did not. It was pretty generally understood that the young folks were to have a good time of it, on thanksgiving day.
It very often happens, that when we enjoy ourselves most—when we come nearest to being perfectly happy—we encounter the strongest temptations, or, what amounts to the same thing, we are induced to yield to temptation.
Several times during the day, these two boys came very near doing something which they would have been ashamed of and heartily sorry for afterwards. They met some boys playing cards for small sums of money, and were urged to "try their luck." At first, they thought they would, "just for fun." But they finally concluded that fun of that sort was rather too dangerous—that it would cost more than it would come to—and so they passed on.