This was not far from true. Tom certainly did inherit his mother’s mean and disagreeable qualities, and there were very few points in which he resembled his father, who was really a worthy man, and deserved a better wife than had been allotted to him.
It might have been supposed that Harry’s misfortune in losing his father would have led to a suspension of ill feeling on the part of James and his sycophant. But I have already said that James was a mean boy, and Tom was in this respect a very fitting companion for him. Indeed, Tom, besides espousing James’s quarrel, had a personal grievance of his own. At the time that Alfred Harper entered the village store, Mr. Porter had an application for the place from Tom, which he had seen fit to decline without assigning any reasons for so doing. In fact, Tom had the reputation of being lazy and self-sufficient, and the store-keeper rightly concluded that he would not be likely to prove a very valuable assistant. When Tom heard that the coveted place had been given to Harry, he felt highly indignant, not only with Mr. Porter, but with Harry himself, and was anxious for an opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon our hero. Now, the manliest way would have been to make a direct assault upon him; but this he did not care to do. He knew that Harry had a pair of good, strong arms, and was ready on all occasions to defend himself. If he should venture upon an attack, it was pretty clear to him that he would get the worst of it, and this would be very far from suiting him. He preferred to wait for some secret way of injuring him.
That opportunity came about a week after Harry had entered upon his duties in Mr. Porter’s store.
It has already been said that one of his duties was to drive the store-wagon, and deliver groceries in different parts of the village. One afternoon he was driving at about half a mile distance from the store. Among other articles in the wagon was a basket containing three dozen eggs, which, by the way, were to be delivered to Squire Turner’s house-keeper.
Just about this part of the road there was a cliff on one side, about twenty feet in height, with a steep, almost perpendicular, descent. The field terminating thus abruptly belonged to Squire Turner. It so happened that James Turner and Tom Barton were walking leisurely along the cliff just as Harry came driving by.
“There’s Harry Raymond,” said Tom, spitefully. “Old Barton must have been hard up for a clerk when he took him.”
“I suppose he took pity on him,” said James, “and gave him the situation to keep him out of the poor-house.”
“That isn’t the way he looks at it,” said Tom. “He puts on as many airs as if he owned the store himself.”
“Didn’t you try for the place once, Tom?”