Their father, while still on the farm in Lewis County, had declared, "I will educate my children, if I don't leave them a cent when I die." That is why he sold his farm to invest the proceeds in town property at May's Lick; and that is why Owen and Oliver are presenting themselves at the door of May's Lick Academy. The family that had just moved to town, consisted of William Carr and his wife, and their four sons and three daughters. Of the children, the only one essential to this narrative is he who gave his name to the teacher as Oliver A. Carr—better known in his family and among his young companions as "Ollie."
The year was 1857. Of all the proud towns of Kentucky—proud of blood and wealth—no city was prouder than May's Lick. Not even Lexington, five counties to the southwest, thought more of her high birth, her fine horses, her opulence, than did this little May's Lick of Mason County. The schoolmates of the Carrs were the children of the wealthy. The boys came to school in red-topped boots, riding prancing ponies, and were waited upon by their black bodyguards. The girls were, petted, and spoiled, clad in dainty apparel, born to refinement and a nicety of taste, intolerant of whatever appeared to their sensitive minds as "common." Nor was this superiority of manner merely superficial. Beneath the gleam of showy beauty, there was the gold of culture.
Naturally enough, these children of the rich, whether on the play-ground, or in the school-room, stood aloof from Owen and Oliver,—or as they were called "Bud and Ollie." In the first place, they were newcomers; again, they were awkward and their clothes were made from the same piece of their mother's weaving; and their father had purchased one of the two hotels in town. "He works, himself!" it was said, with pity, or contempt. And the sentiment against William Carr because his work was not done by slaves, was reflected against his seven children.
But William Carr, rugged and unyielding, firm in his belief that education would place his boys and girls on a footing with the best, conducted the hotel, while his wife, patient and tireless, sewed long after the hours of the day's inevitable work were ended. To clothe and educate seven children while all the time one's cashier is stealing systematically—that is the problem!
It is a problem that little concerns the lads of the red-topped boots and prancing ponies, or the girls of fine laces,—still less the fathers of these; for all their spare time is spent in reminiscences of Henry Clay, and in defining differences between the North and South—for this is 1857, as we have said, and in a few years something may happen.
But it is not given to every boy to wear red-tops, nor to every girl, real lace. Of course there were other families falling under the supercilious classification of "those who do their own work." At such times as the Carrs were not studying, or reciting to L. P. Streater, or helping at home, companions were to be found, to bear a hand at a game of marbles. Oliver had the genius of making friends; and, when no artificial barriers interposed, his gentle nature thawed the ice in natures most reserved.
Sometimes it happened that, as Oliver and his friends were engaged in sports along the roadside, they would see a venerable man drawing near, smooth faced, broad browed, stately in bearing, kindly in expression. If it chanced to be a time of heated altercation, the warning would go round—
"Hush! hush! There comes Brother Walter Scott."
The old man would pause with, "Well, dears, how do you do, this nice morning? Are you on your way to school?"