Our hero was unlucky. The saw-mill failed—its master being a drunkard. When that went down he entered the lumber trade, where he made the acquaintance of a young Scotchman, of congenial mind and temperament, who suggested the setting up of a store in a promising locality and proposed entering into partnership. “Murray and Robinson” was forthwith painted by the latter, (who was a bit of an artist), over the door of a small log-house, and the store soon became well known and much frequented by the sparse population as well as by those engaged in the timber trade.
But “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” There must have been a screw loose somewhere, for bad debts accumulated and losses were incurred which finally brought the firm to the ground, and left its dissevered partners to begin the world over again!
After this poor Jack Robinson fell into low spirits for a time, but he soon recovered, and bought a small piece of land at a nominal price in a region so wild that he had to cut his own road to it, fell the trees with his own hand, and, in short, reclaim it from the wilderness on the margin of which it lay. This was hard work, but Jack liked hard work, and whatever work he undertook he always did it well. Strange that such a man could not get on! yet so it was, that, in a couple of years, he found himself little better off than he had been when he entered on his new property. The region, too, was not a tempting one. No adventurous spirits had located themselves beside him, and only a few had come within several miles of his habitation.
This did not suit our hero’s sociable temperament, and he began to despond very much. Still his sanguine spirit led him to persevere, and there is no saying how long he might have continued to spend his days and his energies in felling trees and sowing among the stumps and hoping for better days, had not his views been changed and his thoughts turned into another channel by a letter.
Chapter Two.
The Letter, and its Consequences.
One fine spring morning Jack was sitting, smoking his pipe after breakfast, at the door of his log cabin, looking pensively out upon the tree-stump-encumbered field which constituted his farm. He had facetiously named his residence the Mountain House, in consequence of there being neither mountain nor hill larger than an inverted wash-hand basin, within ten miles of him! He was wont to defend the misnomer on the ground that it served to keep him in remembrance of the fact that hills really existed in other parts of the world.
Jack was in a desponding mood. His pipe would not “draw” that morning; and his mind had been more active than usual for a few days past, revolving the past, the present, and the future. In short, Jack was cross. There could be no doubt whatever about it; for he suddenly, and without warning, dashed his pipe to pieces against a log, went into the house for another, which he calmly filled, as he resumed his former seat, lit, and continued to smoke for some time in sulky silence. We record this fact because it was quite contrary to Jack’s amiable and patient character, and showed that some deep emotions were stirring within him.