“Now, Jack, let me ask you one question,” she said; “would you like to go to Canada?”
With tremendous energy Jack answered, “Wouldn’t I!”
“Then,” said the old lady, “to Canada you shall go.”
Story 3 -- Chapter 3.
The Double Rescue.
And Jack Matterby went! But before he went he had to go through a preliminary training, for his regular schooling had ceased when his father died, and he had learned no trade.
In those days there were no splendid institutions for waifs and strays such as now exist, but it must not be supposed that there was no such thing as “hasting to the rescue.” Thin little old Mrs Seaford had struck out the idea for herself, and had acted on it for some years in her own vigorous way. She took Jack home, and lodged him in her own house with two or three other boys of the same stamp—waifs. Jack elected to learn the trade of a carpenter, and Mrs Seaford, finding that he had been pretty well grounded in English, taught him French, as that language, she told him, was much spoken in Canada. Above all, she taught him those principles of God’s law without which a human being is but poorly furnished even for the life that now is, to say nothing of that which is to come.
In a few months Jack was ready for exportation! A few months more, and he found himself apprenticed to a farmer, not far from the shores of that mighty fresh-water sea, Ontario. Time passed, and Jack Matterby became a trusted servant and a thorough farmer. He also became a big, dashing, and earnest boy. More time passed, and Jack became a handsome young man, the bosom friend of his employer. Yet a little more time winged its silent way, and Jack became John Matterby, Esquire, of Fair Creek Farm, heir to his former master’s property, and one of the wealthiest men of the province—not a common experience of poor emigrant waifs, doubtless, but, on the other hand, by no means unprecedented.