After a short time spent with the family in music and conversation, the boys all went up stairs together, and Don and Bert stopped for a few minutes in their cousins’ room. Clarence thought this a good opportunity to find out some things he wanted to know, so he began questioning Don at once.
“Whom do you visit with here?” said he. “Who is your nearest neighbor?”
“O, we have a large circle of friends,” replied Don. “I don’t wonder you think it very lonely now; but wait until you have had a chance to make acquaintances, and then tell me what you think about it. Our nearest neighbor, as you go up the river, is Colonel Packard. He has two lively boys whom I think you will like. In fact I don’t see how you could help it, for everybody likes them. Our nearest neighbor, as you go down the river, is Godfrey Evans.”
“He’s a good one,” said Bert.
“We don’t have much to do with him or his family,” continued Don, “and you will know the reason why when you see them. We give David our dogs to break, because he is a first-rate hand, and we want to help him along. He’s got something in him, David has, but his father and his older brother, Dan, don’t amount to much.”
“Dan!” thought Clarence, becoming highly excited at once, “I believe I am on the right track already. The man who was digging in the field called the boy that was with him ‘Dannie.’” Then believing that it might be well for him to know something about Godfrey before he sought an interview with him, he said aloud:
“How far does this man Evans live from here, and what is his business?”
“He lives about a mile down the river, and has no occupation at all,” answered Don. “He used to be in good circumstances, but having lost everything he possessed, except his land, he is too disheartened to go to work and put himself on his feet again. He spends a little of his time in hunting, and a good deal more in grumbling at his hard luck. He might make a good living for his family with his rifle, if he felt so disposed, for game is abundant, and he is a good hunter and a capital shot; but he is too lazy to follow even that, the laziest of all occupations.”
After a few more questions Clarence learned so much of Godfrey’s history, and of his disposition and habits, that he began to think that he was already well acquainted with him; and besides Don described him so accurately that he could not fail to recognise him if he once met him. This much had been gained, and now Clarence would have given something if he could have learned more about the property belonging to the family that was buried during the war; but, after thinking a moment, he decided that it would be better for him to say nothing at all on this point. He did not want to arouse anybody’s suspicions, and besides, Godfrey Evans, when he found him, could tell all he desired to know. He wanted to go to bed now to think over the good fortune that seemed almost within his grasp, so he began to yawn as if he were very sleepy (if his country cousins had been guilty of such an act he would have pronounced them boors at once), and Don and Bert, taking the hint, said good-night and left the room.
The night was as long and dreary to Clarence as the day had been, but for a different reason. He was impatient to be up and doing, and it seemed to him that the morning would never come. He heard the little clock on the mantel strike every hour from ten to five, and then he jumped up because he could stay in bed no longer. He was not called to breakfast at six o’clock, as Marshall had predicted, but the meal was ready at seven, and after they had sat down to it Clarence, to his great disgust, found that Don and Bert had been laying out some very elaborate plans for the entertainment of himself and brother. In the first place it was their intention to spend two or three days in riding about the country, in order to give their city relatives some idea of the manner in which the people in the South lived, and also to make them acquainted with all the young people in the neighborhood who were worth knowing. Then, of course the boys would call on them, and by the time their visits had been returned, they might begin to look for brant. When they began to come down from the North, the shooting season was close at hand; and if Clarence and Marshall liked to hunt, they would get a party of good fellows together, and go down to the shooting-box and spend a week there. When they were tired of that, they would go ’coon-hunting; and when they had seen all the sport they cared to see in that way, they would trap and shoot some turkeys, or drive the ridges for deer.