This was probably true, so far as his wife and daughter were concerned, for they were dependent upon him; but George wasn’t, and when Uncle Ruben came to deal with that young gentleman, he found that he had undertaken more than he could accomplish.
CHAPTER III.
A SURPRISE.
“No doubt, I ought to feel very grateful toward Uncle Ruben for the offer he has just made me, but I can’t say that I do,” soliloquized George Edwards, as he trudged along the dusty road, with his heavy bundle slung over his shoulder. “I am almost seventeen years old now, and I am getting too big to work for my board and clothes. I am not obliged to do it, for I can clear a dollar a day up here in the woods, and, as my living will not cost me anything to speak of, I can save enough money by next spring to take me so far away from this miserable place that I shall never hear of it again. I know I shall be very lonely, but I shall have peace and comfort, and be well out of the reach of Aunt Polly Ann’s sharp tongue.”
Here George turned off the main road, and letting down a pair of bars that gave entrance into an extensive sheep pasture, once more shouldered his bundle and directed his course along a blind path which ran through a thick grove of evergreens. Fortunately he did not know what the future had in store for him.
The peace and comfort he hoped to find in his forest home were to be denied him. Already skillful plots, that were intended to work his ruin, were being laid against him, and George was destined to see the day when he almost wished that he had accepted his uncle’s offer; but then it was too late.
“It seems to me that things might be made to work smoother and easier for some of us,” said George, to himself, as he took off his hat and stopped for a moment under the wide-spreading branches of the evergreens to enjoy the grateful shade. “Dame Fortune has nothing but smiles for some folks, and, as she hasn’t got enough to go round, the rest of us have to take frowns. Now, look at those fellows! If I had as much money as their guns cost, I could get an education that would enable me to be of some use in the world. Never mind; I’ll have it yet.”
George settled his hat on his head with a vigorous slap, and, running down the path, presently emerged from the evergreens, and found himself on the outskirts of a little field, which had been cultivated in the years gone by, but was now given over to briers and huckleberry bushes.
On the opposite side of this field, which was entirely surrounded by woods, was a huge rock, at whose base a spring of pure, cold water bubbled up.
Stretched at their ease on the grass near this spring were the “fellows,” the sight of whom, as he caught a momentary glimpse of them through the trees, had started George on the train of thought with which he closed his soliloquy.
Their dress and accoutrements seemed to indicate that they had come out for a hunt; although it is hard to tell what they intended to shoot, it being too late in the season for ruffed grouse and quails, and too early for young squirrels. They were all the sons of rich men—almost inseparable companions—and were rapidly acquiring the reputation of being a “hard crowd.”