The Mail Carrier

by Harry Castlemon

“I’ll not stay here any longer, to be put upon and insulted by those who think they are better than I am; because they have more nice things to make them happy,” thought Bob, as he slammed the gate violently behind him. “I’ll end all my troubles at once, this very night.”

Bob had made up his mind to run away from home; and having determined upon his course, he never faltered nor paused for a moment to consider what might be the consequences of the act. He ate his supper in sullen silence (he was so irregular in his habits that no one thought it worth while to ask him where he had been during the day), and having satisfied his appetite, put on his hat, and went back to the log in the fence-corner where he had dreamed away the afternoon. He found the box where he left it, and after crowding it into his pocket, he returned to the house. He stopped at the shed on the opposite side of the road, and when he had made sure that there was no one to observe his movements, he took his saddle and bridle down from the peg on which they hung, and hid them in the tall weeds that grew in the lane, taking care to mark the spot so that he could readily find it again. This done, he stole cautiously along a cross-fence that led to the barn-yard, and there he found his horse running loose in company with others belonging to his father. The animal followed him into the little log building in which he was always fed, and Bob supplied him with a good supper of corn.

“You’ve got a long journey to make, Jack, before you see the sun rise again,” said he, “and you’d better eat while you have the chance. It will be the last time you will ever carry me. I hope the next horse I own will be rather better looking than you are. I hope, too, that you will carry me to Linwood in time to catch the first boat that goes up the river, for I don’t want to stay in Mississippi an hour longer than I can help!”

Bob closed and fastened the door to keep his horse in and prevent the others from disturbing him at his meal, and went into the house. Without saying a word to any member of the family he made his way into his own room, and set about making other preparations for his flight. His first care was to count the money; and having made sure that none of it had been spirited away, he took out sixty dollars, which he thought would be enough to bear his expenses, and put them into his pocket-book, after carefully wrapping them up in several pieces of newspaper. After that he produced from one of the bureau drawers an old buckskin money-belt that had somehow come into his possession. In one of the pockets he found a piece of oiled silk, and in this he wrapped the rest of the money.

“I’ve heard that that is the way travellers do when they cross the ocean,” said Bob, to himself. “Steamboats sometimes burn or sink, and if one has to take to the water, he wants his money well protected. There are such things as pickpockets, too, and I don’t intend that they shall get much out of me.”

As Bob said this he buckled the belt around his waist, under his clothing, and went into his closet after a valise. He brought it out and looked at it with undisguised contempt. It was in good order, but it was old-fashioned, and looked very unlike the neat travelling-bag Don Gordon carried when he went to visit his friends in Memphis. It was the only article of the kind that Bob owned, however, and after telling himself that he would throw it away as soon as he had an opportunity to buy another, he went into his closet again to bring out the clothing he intended to take with him. “Here’s something else I shall throw away,” said Bob, as he folded up his Sunday coat and pushed it into the valise. “I’ll throw away all these clothes when I reach the plains, for then I am going to dress in buckskin, the way the rest of the hunters do. But the plains are a long way off yet; it will take some time to reach them, and some time longer to capture and cure the skins I shall need to make me a complete suit; so I’ll take two suits with me, in order to have a change in case of emergency.”

Bob selected the best he had, and when he had crowded into the valise all that it would hold, he closed and locked it, putting the key into his pocket. The valise he hid under the bed, so that it would not be seen by any one who might chance to come into his room. By this time it was nine o’clock, and Bob thought he had better go to bed. He did not go out into the sitting-room again, for the family were all there and he did not want to see them. He wanted to be alone, so that he could think about the glorious life upon which he was so soon to enter. He did not care if he never saw any of his relatives again. That was what he thought then, but before many days had passed over his head he would have given the whole world, had it been his to give, if he could have exchanged just a word with one of them.

Bob settled himself snugly in his comfortable bed, but he did not go to sleep. He was afraid that if he did he might sleep too long, and he had so much to think about that it was no trouble for him to keep awake. He heard the clock in an adjoining room strike every hour until midnight, and then he arose and prepared for action. It was the work of but a few minutes for him to put on his clothes and lower himself and his valise out of the window to the ground, and he did it without disturbing any of the family. In half an hour more he had saddled his horse, which he led out into the lane through a gap in the fence he made for the purpose (he was afraid to lead the horse through the gate, for it was close to the house, and the sound of the animal’s hoofs might have aroused somebody), and had put nearly a mile between himself and his home. He left it and the settlement without a single feeling of regret, but still he could not help taking note of the familiar objects on which his eyes rested as he galloped along, and which he never expected to see again. Here was the tall pecan tree which he and Don Gordon and Joe Packard, in the days when they were better friends than they were now, had visited regularly every autumn to gather the nuts that so plentifully covered the ground, and from whose topmost branches Bob had brought down the only fox squirrel he had ever seen. There were the ruins of the bee-tree that he and the same boys had cut down, and from which they had secured a tubful of the finest honey. Off to the right was the little maple grove where he and the Gordon and Packard boys had once camped for more than a week and played at making maple sugar. Farther on was the landing; and there was the post-office with the old, weather-beaten boxes on which he had so often sat on mail days and awaited the arrival of the carrier, ranged in a row in front of it. Other boys would sit there in the days to come, as he had done in the days gone by, and Dave Evans would come dashing down the main street at the top of his speed, just as the old carrier had done, and throw off the mail-bag with a shout, and Silas Jones would pick it up and hurry into the store with it, and not one of them would ever give a thought to himself or ask where Bob Owens was now.

“No, sir,” said Bob, bitterly, “there’s no one here who cares whether I live or die. If I had been rich I would have had more friends than I wanted.”

The main street was deserted, and the landing looked gloomy enough when seen by the light of the moon, which just now began to emerge from behind the thick clouds that had hitherto obscured it. Bob had time to take only one glance at it as he flew along, and in a moment more it was hidden from his sight by the little grove in which were held the shooting-matches that came off nearly every week in Rochdale at this season of the year. Bob could not forget the many happy hours he had spent in that same grove, and he turned more than once in his saddle to look at it. It was the last familiar object he would see along the road, and in leaving it behind he seemed to be severing the last link that bound him to his home. He kept it in sight as long as he could, but a bend in the road presently hid it from his view. Then Bob faced about in his saddle, dismissed all thoughts of the pleasures and comforts he was leaving behind, and speedily became absorbed in dreaming of the new scenes and new adventures that awaited him in the wild country toward which he was hastening.