“It is an expensive habit.
“The only real advantage arising from the use of tobacco that I ever heard of happened to one of a party of sailors who were wrecked upon the Feejee islands. The savages killed and cooked them all, anticipating a delightful feast; but one of the tars tasted so strongly of tobacco, that they couldn’t eat him, and so he escaped a burial in their stomachs. As I intend to keep clear of cannibals, I don’t think this solitary fact offers me any inducement to steep and pickle myself in tobacco; therefore I intend to remain an
Anti-Puffer-and-Chewer.”
“I’m afraid it didn’t do much good,” resumed Marcus, somewhat sadly. “I smelt tobacco in his breath again to-day.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Page, after a pause, “it will never do to let him go on in this way. I think it will be necessary to tell him very plainly and decidedly, that if he will not restrain himself, we must do it for him. One or the other he must submit to, or go back to the Reform School, and the sooner he understands this, the better it will be for us all.”
The entrance of the other children put a stop to the conversation; but Mrs. Page’s last remark confirmed the conclusion to which Marcus had already reluctantly arrived, and left him no longer in doubt as to the proper course to pursue.
The lamps had been lit nearly an hour when Oscar came in, that evening. Nothing was said to him about his absence at the time; but the next day, taking him alone, Marcus talked long and earnestly to him about the course he was pursuing, and told him very decidedly that he could go on in this way no longer. “If we will not put ourselves under restraint,” he said, “others must do it for us. It is so in society, in the school, in the family, and everywhere else. The best form of government is self-government, and there is little need of any other, where that is; but if a man wont practise that, then the strong arm of the law must take him in hand, and compel him to do what he could have done much more pleasantly of his own free will.”
Oscar attempted no justification of himself, neither did he acknowledge that he had done wrong. He listened in silence to Marcus, with an expression upon his countenance that at once puzzled and disappointed the latter. It were difficult to say whether shame, sadness or sullenness mingled most largely in the feelings mirrored in his face.
There was a marked change in Oscar’s demeanor for several days after this event, though not precisely such a change as Marcus desired to see. He was silent, and carried a moody and sullen look upon his face, which did not escape the notice even of the children, although they knew nothing of its cause. Marcus treated him as kindly as ever; but how he longed to look into that troubled heart, and read the thoughts and feelings that were stirring its depths!
About this time a new wonder suddenly appeared in town. The children came home from school with glowing accounts of a mammoth poster or show-bill exhibited outside of the post office, and covering a good portion of one side of the building. It was printed in all kinds of gay colors, and besprinkled from top to bottom with pictures, representing men, women and horses performing all manner of wonderful feats. They also brought home some small bills that had been scattered among the children. It was very seldom that a circus found its way into the small and secluded village of Highburg, but it was pretty evident that one was coming now, “for one day only,” and that the children were well-nigh bewitched with the highly-colored descriptions of the entertainment given by the great poster.