STAGE I.—IN WHICH CRICKET COMES TO A QUEER STOPPING-PLACE ON THE ROAD
TO MANHOOD
R. PEARL had opened a little shop in Heartsdale. It was up an alley next to a large mill, where he could connect his shaft with river-power. A smooth board, lettered with his own brush and nailed above his door, contained the words:
PEARL & COMPANY
One bright, still morning in the early summer I walked to Heartsdale to begin my career anew. My mother wished me to be near home, and I was on my way to the shop of B. Crocket & Son, marble-cutters, who were making a monument for my father. They were going to teach me their trade. Heartsdale had always made me believe it very large and myself very little. Its buildings and its people had seemed to look down upon me from a great height. Now that I had been to Buffalo, that old feeling of awe and littleness had gone out of me and must be now, I believed, in the breast of Heartsdale itself, and I carried my head high.