Far Past the Frontier

by James A. Braden

Memory of the bitter tears he shed came freshly to the boy as he recalled it all—how, in but a few days, he was “bound out” to Henry Catesby with the promise that he should have a home and want for nothing.

Had he been in want? Oh, he had been supplied with food and clothing and a roof over his head. Could he ask more? Yes, a thousand times, yes! He wanted friends, companionship, love. He remembered no one who had cared for him in those early days, except—Mary Catesby, his hard master’s little daughter. And she was still but a child when she was told to have no association with the “bound boy;” learning of which, he had steeled his proud young heart and had spoken to her only when necessary.

So with work, day in and day out, save for a few winter weeks in school, the years had passed, until he made the acquaintance of John Jerome, the son of a distant neighbor. Too poverty-distressed to be proud, he had known little happiness except a sort of sad pleasure he found in visiting the church-yard, where in summer he placed great bunches of wild flowers on the mound to him most sacred.

For two years he and John had been intimate friends. The latter being sometimes employed by Mr. Catesby, gave the boys additional opportunities of being with one another. Late at night after a long, hard day in the harvest fields, they had gone swimming together. They had borrowed a gun, and John’s money bought the ammunition they used in learning to shoot, to practice which they had risen before sunrise; for at Old Sol’s first peep the day’s work must be begun. Many a time they had labored all day, then tramped the woods all night, hunting ’coons, coming home in time only to catch a wink of sleep before jumping into their clothes and away to work again.

Sometimes in winter when, by reason of John helping him with his work, Ree was able to secure a half-day off, the boys had sought other game, and shared the profits arising from their hunting and trapping. What with the knowledge they thus picked up themselves, and the instruction given them by Peter Piper and others, there were no two boys in Connecticut better versed in woodcraft.

Ree thought of all these things as he lay awake looking out through his window at the stars in the western sky. And as his thoughts ran on, he reflected on the death of Mr. Catesby a short eight months ago, and the great change it had brought into his life. From the moment Mrs. Catesby had called him to go for the doctor when her husband was taken ill, she had depended on him in nearly everything. It was he who took charge of all the farm work of the spring and summer, and the neighbors had said the Catesby place never produced better crops. With scarcely a pause except on Sundays, he had toiled early and late to accomplish this. Only within the past few weeks when the rush of the harvest was over, had he allowed himself any time for recreation. Yet it had been a happy summer, he thought. Mrs. Catesby, appreciative of his splendid services, had been all kindness; Mary Catesby had been agreeable as his own sister might have been. Both had forgotten, or at least no longer observed, the bar of social inequality which Mr. Catesby had set up against the “bound boy.”

Then in August had come Mrs. Catesby’s decision to remove to the city that her daughter might have educational advantages. It was with genuine regret that Ree had learned her plans. He would never have admitted even to himself that he had, in a certain boyish, vague way, dreamed of a dim, distant time when he and Mary might be more than friends; but maybe some such thought had been in his mind at some time. Strange it would be had nothing of the kind occurred to him.

Thus as he lay awake still pondering on the past, the present and the future, in the depths of Ree’s heart of hearts there may have been a wish that he should become a successful man, wealthy perhaps, well-to-do certainly; but in any event, looked up to and respected.

But, oh!—What obstacles confronted him! How could he ever be more than a rough, uneducated “bound boy” that he was! The subject was not a pleasant one, but he gave it most serious thought, and determined for the hundredth time, that, come what might, he would make the most of his opportunities and ever be able to hold up his head in any company.

So his reflections passed to the future. He was to receive $100 for his summer’s work. He also had some money which he had secured in odd sums from time to time, safely put away in the chest beneath his bed.