The Mail Carrier

by Harry Castlemon

“I DECLARE I never thought of that before,” repeated Bob, after he had spent a quarter of an hour in thinking the matter over. As was generally the case when he found himself in trouble, he fell to abusing his luck, which had not served him a better turn. “I can’t enjoy this money, now that I have got it,” said he. “My breech-loader and fishing-rod are just as far out of my reach as they were a week ago. If I got them, father would ask a thousand and one questions: ‘Bob, how came you by that new gun?’ ‘I bought it.’ ‘Where did you get the money?’ He would be sure to ask me that, and what could I say?”

If Bob, while he was tossing restlessly about on his bed, laying his plans for securing possession of the hundred and sixty dollars, had only taken time for a little serious consideration, he would have discovered that he could not help getting himself into just such a dilemma as this; but the truth of the matter was, he was so eager to get his hands upon the money that he could think of nothing else. He had succeeded in his efforts, but the money was of no more use to him than it would have been to Dan Evans. True, there was one thing he might do with it, and that was, restore it to its lawful owner. This thought did occur to Bob, but he dismissed it at once.

“I’ll never do that in the world,” said he, almost fiercely. “If it hadn’t been for Dave and his friends I might have had money of my own by this time, and I would have got it, too, in such a way that I should not be afraid to let everybody know that I had it. But Dave cheated me out of the chance, and, sooner than give this money up to him, I’ll tie a stone to it and sink it in the middle of the lake. Now is there any way that I can get the benefit of it? That’s the question.”

And it was one that Bob could not answer for a long time, for he was fairly at his wit’s end. If he had acted out his feelings, he would have jumped up and whooped, and yelled, and pulled his hair, just as Godfrey did when he told how Dan had cut his pocket open and stolen the tin box. He felt just like it; but, knowing that he could not mend matters in that way, he controlled himself as well as he was able, and sat on his log, and thought about it. He went without his dinner, and stayed there until it began to grow dark. By that time he had almost made up his mind to something.

“If I can’t enjoy my money here, I can enjoy it somewhere else,” said Bob to himself, as he arose and walked slowly toward the house, after having concealed the box under the log on which he had been sitting.

“Rochdale isn’t the only place in the world. I have always wanted to go out on the plains, and I don’t know that I shall ever have a better chance than I have now. I’ll take time to think about it, at any rate.”

This soliloquy will serve to indicate the train of thought that Bob had been following out all the afternoon. Like many foolish boys, he had often imagined that he would be much happier than he was if he were only free from the restraints of home. He longed to be his own master. He had made more than one attempt to induce his father to permit him to go out into the world to seek his fortune, but Mr. Owens had always refused; and Bob, in one of his angry moods, had told himself that he would go some day, no matter whether his father was willing or not. He had read wonderful stories of life on the plains; of boy-hunters, and trappers, and Indian-fighters, who had made themselves famous by their deeds of valor, and Bob, believing every word of it, longed to be with them, and join in their exciting adventures. For a year it had been a cherished hope of his that he might some day see that wild country, and the brave young bordermen who were supposed to live there; and when he fell to dreaming about it, as he often did, he was so completely carried away by his imagination, that he fancied himself already there and taking part in the thrilling scenes so graphically described in his favorite yellow-covered books. When he came to himself again, his home would seem more distasteful than ever, and the life he led there would become almost unbearable. And yet it is hard to tell why Bob was so dissatisfied with his lot in life. He had almost everything that any reasonable boy could ask for; his father and mother could not have been kinder, and Bob was obliged to attend school only six months every year, and was permitted to do nearly as he pleased during the rest of the time. Perhaps, if he not been allowed so many idle hours it would have been better for him, for then he would have had less opportunity to indulge in day-dreaming.

Bob, as we have said, was full of glorious ideas, and this was one of his pet ones. He never allowed himself to dwell upon it without becoming highly excited. He was excited now—as much so as he was when he first felt David Evans’s money in his grasp. He had suddenly conceived a violent passion for the wild, free life of a hunter, and a corresponding distaste for the quiet comforts and pleasures of his home. What was there about home, he asked himself, that should make him desirous of remaining there? There was no one with whom he could associate, now that he and Lester were at swords’ points, and the only way in which he could pass the time was to loiter about the house with nothing in the world to do. If he went down to the landing he would be certain to meet some one there who knew all about that bear fight and the burning of the shooting-box. More than that, he would probably see Don and Bert Gordon, who, dressed in their natty riding-suits and mounted on their stylish ponies, would canter by, paying no more attention to him than if he were a crooked stick lying by the roadside. Bob’s own mount was not a very elegant affair, but it was as good as the most of the boys in the neighborhood owned. He rode a large, rawboned horse, which, although a fine traveller, was by no means a handsome animal, and his saddle and bridle had been patched so often that there was very little of the original material left in them.

“Even if everything was all right, I should be ashamed to go down to the landing any more,” said Bob to himself. “I look like a beggar beside Don and Bert Gordon. If I go hunting I must use an old muzzle-loading gun and a game-bag that Godfrey Evans would turn up his nose at, and it would be just my luck to meet those Gordon fellows with their breech-loaders and hunting-suits, looking as though they had just come out of a band-box. They are almost always sure to turn up just when I don’t want to see them. They act as if they tried to meet me when they are fixed up in their best, to let me see how rich they are and how poor I am. They make it a point, too, to pass me without saying a word to me.”

This was very far from being the truth. Bob’s lively imagination, which led him to believe that he would be happier anywhere else in the world than he was at home, had cheated him into believing that Don and Bert purposely slighted him. But they meant to do nothing of the kind. They always bowed politely and spoke to him every time they met him, and would have been glad to live on friendly terms with him, if Bob had only been willing to let them. But Bob had long had an idea that not only they, but everybody else in the settlement, abused him, and when he fell to thinking about it, he always became angry. He was angry now and desperate, too.