Mrs. Page’s farm is situated in one of the pleasant mountain towns in Vermont, which, if it does not bear the name of Highburg on the map, will not, we trust, resent the act, if we venture to give it that designation, in this volume. It is located at the foot and on the sides of the Green Mountains, and within sight of one of their highest peaks, the Camel’s Hump. Mr. Page was a sea captain, who, thinking it more pleasant to plough the land than the wave, purchased this farm in his native State, intending to make it his residence. When the new house and barns were completed, and the farm stocked with herds and flocks, and everything ready for occupancy, Capt. Page found that his money was all spent. Not having confidence enough in his agricultural skill to enter upon his new sphere of life without something in hand for an emergency, he determined to make one more voyage before he abandoned the sea. So he engaged a man to manage the farm during his absence, and, removing Mrs. Page and Marcus to their new home, he sailed on a whaling cruise, expecting to be gone about three years. It proved his last voyage in a sadder sense than he intended, for he never returned from it. Three, five, ten years passed away, but the missing ship was never heard from, and the owner of the farm never came back to enjoy the pleasant home he had prepared for himself. Mr. Burr, whom Capt. Page employed to oversee the farm, had managed its out-door affairs during all this period, although Marcus, within a few years, had taken a good share of the burden upon himself. During the winter months, indeed, Marcus now undertook the whole management of the farm. At this time the stock consisted of two horses, six or eight head of cattle, about seventy-five sheep, and a quantity of poultry.
When Oscar returned to the house, he found a boy and girl seated at the supper table, who were introduced to them as Katharine and Otis Sedgwick. They were brother and sister, and were pupils of the village academy, a mile or more distant. Katharine was about fourteen years old, and Otis some two years younger. They boarded at Mrs. Page’s, and, with the persons already named, constituted the entire family.
Ronald, who called Mrs. Page mother, was a boy about twelve years old, whom she had undertaken to bring up. His parents were French Canadians, who had emigrated to the vicinity of Highburg, where they both died within a short time, leaving the poor child without friends or money. He was then about eight years old. Some of the kind people of the town wished to prevent his becoming a pauper, and tried to find a home for him; but, although he was a bright and interesting child, he could not speak English very plain, and was, moreover, very strange and wild in his manners and appearance, so that no one was willing to take him. Pitying his friendless lot, Mrs. Page at length offered to keep him a few weeks, till other arrangements could be made in his behalf. A month sped by, and no door opened for the little orphan but that of the poor-house. Wild, ignorant, unused to restraints, full of mischief, incapable of speaking or understanding the language of the family, and, in fact, almost as uncivilized as an Indian child, Mrs. Page found the new care a burden too great, and concluded that she must give up her charge to the town authorities.
When Marcus heard of this decision, he felt very badly. There was something about the little stranger, and his pitiable condition, that won upon his heart. So he put in a plea with his mother and Aunt Fanny in his behalf, and by way of further inducement, volunteered his own assistance in educating and training the child! Such an offer, from a boy who had but just passed his fourteenth birth-day, might provoke a smile from some people, and very properly, too. But neither Mrs. Page nor her sister thought of laughing at the suggestion. Marcus was not only a good scholar and a good boy, but he was more manly and mature, both in mind and body, than many youth of his age. As Ronald was more than six years his junior, it seemed plausible that Marcus might assist very much in making a man of him, and thus relieve his mother of a portion of the care. It was decided to try the experiment, and the result was so successful, that Mr. Upton, the principal of the academy, gave Marcus the title of “The Boy-Tamer.” The boys soon became greatly attached to each other, and Marcus, by his example, influence and teachings, assisted very much in reclaiming the little savage. After a year or two, he was able to take upon himself almost the entire management of Ronald, directing his studies, imposing upon him his daily tasks about the farm, and generally exercising over him the authority and discipline of a father. Ronald, indeed, used sometimes to speak of him sportively as his “adopted father,” and no doubt he seemed somewhat like a parent to the fatherless boy. His name, originally, was Ronald Doucette; but his new friends had given him their own name of Page, retaining Doucette as a middle name.
“How do you think Oscar appears, mother?” inquired Marcus, as soon as the withdrawal of the young folks to their bed-rooms left him alone with his mother and aunt.
“Very well,” replied Mrs. Page. “He is a boy that can make a good appearance, if he chooses to. How does he seem pleased with his new home?”
“He doesn’t say much about it,” replied Marcus. “But he said, before we left Boston, that he was determined to be contented, whether or no. He is glad enough to come here, and I think he means to behave well. I told him this was probably his last chance, and that if he did not do well here, he would have to go back to the Reform School, and serve his full sentence out. But I don’t think we shall have much trouble with him. He has behaved well in the institution, and he says he is determined to reform.”
“And yet I am afraid he will find more difficulties in the way than he imagines,” interposed Mrs. Page.
“But the difficulties here are nothing to what they would be in the city,” added Marcus. “Nobody need know anything about his past life, here, and besides, he will be out of the way of his old associates and temptations.”
“I think we ought to be very careful,” said Aunt Fanny, “never to say anything about his past bad conduct, even to him. Nothing would discourage him so much as to have it known here that he had been a bad boy.”