Sword and Pen / Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier

by John Algernon Owens

Working upon what he rightly conjectured to be the boy's newly awakened sense of the kindness of his father, he spoke of that good man's pecuniary reverses, and professed his faith in Willard as the future regenerator of the fallen fortunes of Ward Glazier's family.

The boy's generous enthusiasm was awakened at once. His ordinary school tasks and home duties no longer looked commonplace, and were no longer distasteful to him. They were but incidents in a general plan of usefulness, and he performed them with an air of cheerfulness that pleased his teacher and delighted his parents. He volunteered to help his father in the fields, and while but a boy in years, he yet performed the work of a man. In fact, he had discovered that every duty of life has its heroic side, and needs only the impulse of high and noble motives to be invested with dignity and interest.

Meanwhile, he did not neglect his studies. The idea of intellectual culture was no longer a mere abstraction. Books were not only what they always had been—reservoirs of knowledge, alluring to his imagination, and fascinating to his mind—but they were now looked upon as levers, with which he was to move the world. Knowledge now meant the means whereby, in the days to come, he was to acquire the power to make his father and mother comfortable for the balance of their lives; and to surround his sisters with those luxuries which go far towards making existence a thing of grace and refinement. When, therefore, he worked during the warm days of summer, aiding his father in the care of the farm, the summer evenings found him poring earnestly over his books—practical and useful ones now—and the harvest once gathered, he was back again in his old place at school, where he studied steadily and hard. His teacher, Allen Wight, looked on and was satisfied. And yet Willard was a wild boy—as wild as any in the school. His relish for fun and frolic was as keen as ever, but it was now subordinated to his judgment. His practical jokes were fewer, and the peculiarities of his father no longer furnished him with a subject for their perpetration. Now and then, however, the old exuberance of mischief would break out, and upon one occasion his grandfather became its victim.

As that mosaic styled "character" is nothing more than an aggregate of just such trivial things, we trust our readers will pardon us if we relate the incident in point.

When Willard was over nine years of age, his father moved from the Old Homestead and purchased a place named the Goodrich Farm, where he opened a country store. The venture proved to be an unfortunate one, and, after a series of pecuniary vicissitudes, he left it, and, at the period to which we refer, was the occupant of a farm known in that section as the Davis Place.

This farm and the Glazier Homestead occupied positions upon opposite sides of the same public road—the former being one mile nearer the town of Fullersville.

Meantime, the Homestead was occupied and cultivated by Jabez Glazier, the grandfather of Willard, and upon certain occasions the boy was sent over to stay for a few days at that place, to help the old gentleman in many little ways connected with its cultivation.

At that time and in that locality it was customary during the haying season to deal out to the men employed stated rations of whiskey every day. A bottle was filled for each one, and, being placed by the recipient in a swathe of the newly-cut grass, frequent visits were made to the spot and frequent libations indulged in. Ward Glazier and his wife being determinedly opposed to the use of ardent spirits under any circumstances whatever, the custom was dispensed with at the Davis Place; but at the Old Homestead, under the rule of Jabez Glazier, the time-honored usage was staunchly maintained. Young Willard had been so deeply inoculated with his parents' opinions on this subject, that he had delivered an address before the society of "Sons of Temperance" at Fullerville even at that early age, and his disgust may be imagined when he found himself selected by his grandfather to go to the village tavern for the necessary quantity of "Old Rye." He asked that some other messenger might be sent, but the old gentleman was inflexible. Nobody but Willard would satisfy his whim—perhaps because he felt that, in the custody of his grandson, the "fire-water" would not be tampered with on its return to the farm. Willard did not openly rebel against his grandfather's commands—since it was the fashion in those days for children to be obedient—but turned his attention to gaining his object by means of a little stratagem. Not far from the house on the road leading to the store stood an old pump, concealed from view by an intervening building and a rising hill. Here this youthful disciple of Father Matthew made it a practice regularly to stop, and pouring out half the contents of the jug he carried, refilled it with the crystal liquid from the pump.

At first this improvement in their potations seemed hardly to attract the attention of the individuals interested; but, as each day the proportion of water increased, the dilution at last forced itself upon their attention, and every one agreed that the tavern-keeper was cheating Jabez in the "Rye" business. The result of it all was the withdrawal of Jabez Glazier's custom from the establishment in question, and the future purchase of "spiritual" goods by Mr. Jabez himself in person.

Thus Willard's object was attained, and the cold-water people were no longer vexed by the inconsistent spectacle of a son of temperance playing Ganymede to a set of drinking, though by no means drunken, hay-makers.