“Youngster’s all right, after all,” muttered the clerk to himself, “but that villainous looking Major Montague was here for him again this morning. Anyhow, he’s in good hands now. Wonder who his father is?”
That was just the puzzle that was troubling the mind of our hero, and the doctor, and even the busy old judge himself, all the rest of that long, hot August day, and the little black valise never said or hinted a single word to relieve them.
CHAPTER VII
HUNTING THE COWS
A very pretty village was Ogleport, stuck away off there in that fertile valley among the hills. Mountains these latter grew into within a few miles, with ravines and rocky gorges instead of valleys, and beyond them was the great, mysterious, rugged wilderness, with its tall peaks and its forests full of wild animals.
Excellent people were those of Ogleport, with no small opinion of their village and themselves, and their “Academy” was their especial pride.
There it stood, in the middle of the great, tree-bordered “village green,” while on either hand of it were the “meeting houses” of the half-dozen denominations among which the people of Ogleport and the surrounding country were divided.
A large, steeple-crowned structure of wood, painted white, with the staring windows of its two lofty stories unshaded by any such nonsensical things as blinds, the Academy had evidently been planned by the same architect who had designed the church building, and it was as sober and ugly-looking as any of them.
Back of the row of meeting houses and the Academy were long, shadowy rows of ample sheds, for the accommodation of the teams and wagons of the country people on Sundays, and back of that again was the badly kept and tangled-looking “graveyard.”