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The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Mr. Whitman Helped James to Get down from the Wagon. Page [10].

THE UNSEEN HAND
OR
JAMES RENFEW AND HIS BOY HELPERS

BY

ELIJAH KELLOGG

AUTHOR OF “ELM ISLAND STORIES” “PLEASANT COVE STORIES” “FOREST GLEN STORIES” “A STRONG ARM AND A MOTHER’S BLESSING” “GOOD OLD TIMES” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON

LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM

1882

Copyright, 1881,

By Lee and Shepard.

All Rights Reserved.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

A vast majority of the noblest intellects of the race have ever held to the idea that,—

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough hew them how we will.”

By its influence they have been both consoled and strengthened under the pressures and in the exigencies of life. This principle, to a singular degree, assumes both form and development in the story of James Renfew, the Redemptioner.

He comes to us as an orphan and the inmate of a workhouse, flung upon the world, like a dry leaf on the crest of a breaker; his mind a blank devoid of knowledge, save the idea of the Almighty and the commands of the Decalogue, whose force, in virtue of prior possession, held the ground and kept at bay the evil influences by which he was surrounded. And in consequence of thus holding aloof from all partnership in vice, he was brow-beaten, trampled upon, and made a butt of by his companions in misfortune.

His only inheritance was the kiss of a dying mother, the dim recollection of her death, and a Bible which he could not read,—her sole bequest.

The buoyancy, the frolic of the blood, the premonition of growing power, which render childhood and youth so pregnant of happiness, and so pleasant in the retrospect, were to him unrevealed. At nineteen the life seemed crushed out of him by the pressure, or, rather puncture, of a miserable present and a hopeless future. In the judgment of the most charitable, he was but one remove from fatuity.

From such material to develop the varied qualities of a pioneer, a man of firm purpose, quick resolve, and resolute to meet exigencies, might well seem to require supernatural power; and yet, by no other alchemy than sympathy, encouragement wisely timed, and knowledge seasonably imparted, was this seeming miracle accomplished.

The pity of Alice Whitman, the broad benevolence of her husband, the warm sympathy of Bertie and his young associates, the ripe counsels of the glorious old grandfather,—sage Christian hero,—and the efforts of Mr. Holmes, who honored his calling, while sowing good seed in the virgin soil of a young heart, were but visible instruments in the grasp of the Hand Unseen.

THE UNSEEN HAND;

OR,

JAMES RENFEW AND HIS BOY-HELPERS.

CHAPTER I.
“THE MOTHER’S BREATH IS WARM.”

It was the autumn of 1792. The beams of the declining sun were resting peacefully upon the time-worn walls of a log house of large dimensions, evidently built to serve the purposes both of a dwelling and a fortress, and situated upon the banks of the Swatara Creek, in the State of Pennsylvania.

A magnificent chestnut-tree, whose trunk and lower branches were all aglow with the long level rays of the retiring light, shadowed a large portion of the spacious door-yard.

This was the homestead of Bradford Whitman, a well-to-do farmer, and whose family consisted of himself and wife, his aged father, and three children, Peter, Albert and Maria, aged respectively sixteen, fourteen and eleven.

Upon one of the highest branches of this great tree was seated Bertie Whitman. The eyes of the lad were eagerly fastened upon the road that, skirting the rising ground upon which the dwelling stood, led to a distant village.

At once his features lighted up with a jubilant expression; he rapidly descended from his perch, and ran to the door of the house, shouting, “Mother! Maria! Grandfather! They’ve got him; they are coming down Liscomb’s hill this minute, and there’s three in the wagon. Oh!”

He would have run to meet the approaching team, and had taken a few steps when he was met by his elder brother.

“Bertie, we’ve got the redemptioner, and I jumped out of the wagon while the horses were walking up our hill to tell you and Maria not to laugh if you can help it, ‘cause it would make him feel bad; but you can’t think how funny he does look; he’s lame besides, and his name’s James Renfew.”

This conversation was interrupted by the rumbling of wheels as their father drove up, where his whole family were grouped around the door. Mrs. Whitman stood on the door-stone, the old grandfather beside her, leaning on his staff, the children in front, while Fowler, the house-dog, with his fore-legs on the shoulders of old Frank, the near horse, his particular friend, was trying to lick his nose and Frank was arching his neck to accommodate him.

Mr. Whitman helped James to get down from the wagon. The boy made no return to the salutations of the family save by a stony stare, not even taking the hand extended to him by Mrs. Whitman. He, however, manifested some token of sensibility by offering to help in unharnessing, and would have limped after the horses to the barn, but his master told him to go into the house and keep still till his leg was better; nevertheless there he stood staring after the horses, and evidently would much rather have followed them to the barn.

The dog then came and smelt of him. Mrs. Whitman told Peter to take him by the hand and lead him into the house. She placed an arm-chair for him, and a smaller one to put his lame leg on, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep.

Judging by appearances Bradford Whitman had drawn a blank at this his first venture in the redemptioner lottery. The children got together (with the dog) under the great chestnut-tree to free their minds and compare notes.

“Isn’t he queer?” said Bertie.

“Did ever anybody see such funny clothes? I guess they were made for him when he was small and so he’s grown out of them, but he’d be real handsome if he had good clothes and his hair combed, and didn’t have such a pitiful look out of his eyes,” said Maria.

“I tell you what he puts me in mind of,” said Bertie, “Mr. William Anderson’s oxen that are so poor, their necks so long and thin; and they look so discouraged, and as though they wanted to fall down and die.”

Peter now related all he had heard Wilson tell their father, and dwelt with great emphasis upon Mr. Wilson’s statement that the lad had not a friend in the world and no home.

“He’s got one friend,” said Bertie, “Fowler likes him, ‘cause he smelt of him and wagged his tail; if he hadn’t liked him he would have growled. Mother’s a friend to him, and father and grandpa and all of us.”

“We will be good to him because he never had any chestnut-tree to play under and swing on, nor any garden of his own,” said Maria.

“How can we be good to him if he won’t say anything, Maria!” said Bertie.

“Can’t we be good to the cattle, and I’m sure they don’t talk?”

“If they don’t they say something; the cat she purrs, the hens prate, Fowler wags his tail and barks and whines; and the horses neigh, and snort, and put down their heads for me to pat them; but how could you be good to a stone? and he’s just like a stone, when mother put out her hand to shake hands he did not take it, nor look pleased nor anything.”

“Perhaps ‘twas ‘cause he was afraid. When we first got our kitten she hid away up garret, and we didn’t see her for three days, but she got tame, and so perhaps he will.”

They finally made up their minds that James was entitled to all the sympathy and kindness they could manifest towards him, when they were called to supper.

It now became a question between Mr. Whitman and his wife, where to stow James that night.

“Put him in the barn and give him some blankets to-night, and to-morrow we will clean him up.”

“I can’t bear to put him in the barn, husband, I’ll make him a bed of some old ‘duds’ on the floor in the porch. Send him right off to bed; I’ll wash his clothes and dry ‘em before morning. I can fix up some old clothes of yours for him to work in, for I don’t want any of the neighbors to see him in those he has on.”

Mr. Whitman now ushered James to bed, waited till he undressed, and brought in his clothes that were soon in scalding suds. Had Mr. Whitman gone back he would have seen this poor ignorant lad rise from his bed, kneel down and repeat the Lord’s prayer, and though repeated with a very feeble sense of its import may we not believe it was accepted by Him who “requireth according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not,” and whose hand that through the ocean storm guides the sea-bird to its nest amid the breakers, has directed this wayfarer to the spot where there are hearts to pity and hands to aid him.

A blazing fire in the great kitchen fireplace so nearly accomplished (by bedtime) the drying of the clothes, that in the morning they were perfectly dry, the hot bricks and mouldering log giving out heat all night long. In the morning Mr. Whitman carried to the porch water in a tub, soap and his clean clothes, and told James to wash himself, put them on and then come out to his breakfast.

When James had eaten his breakfast (Mr. Whitman and Peter having eaten and gone to the field), the good wife cut his hair which was of great length, gave his head a thorough scrubbing with warm soapsuds, and completed the process with a fine-toothed comb. Removing carefully the bandages she next examined his leg.

“It was a deep cut, but it’s doing nicely,” she said, “there’s not a bit of proud flesh in it; you must sit in the house till it heals up.” When having bound up the wound she was about to leave him, he murmured,—

“You’re good to me.”

This was not a very fervent manifestation of gratitude, but it betokened that the spirit within was not wholly petrified; as Alice Whitman looked into that vacant face she perceived by the moisture of the eyes, that there was a lack not so much of feeling as of the power to express it.

“God bless you, I’ll act a mother’s part towards you; it shall be your own fault if you are not happy now. I know God sent you here, for I cannot believe that anything short of Divine Power would have ever brought my husband to take a redemptioner.”

Bertie and Maria, who had been looking on in silence, now ran into the field to tell their father and Peter all their mother had said and done, and that the redemptioner had spoken to her.

“Father,” said Maria, “if mother is his mother, will he be our brother?”

“Not exactly; your mother meant that she would treat him just as she does you, and so you must treat him as you do each other, because your mother has said so, and that’s sufficient.”

“Then we mustn’t call him a redemptioner?”

“No; forget all about that and call him James.”

“When we have anything good, and when we find a bumblebee’s nest, shall we give him part, just like we do each other?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Whitman sent for Sally Wood, one of her neighbor’s daughters, to take care of the milk and do the housework; and then set herself to altering over a suit of her husband’s clothes to fit James, who, clean from head to foot, sat with his leg in a chair watching Mrs. Whitman at her work, but the greater portion of the time asleep.

“Let him sleep,” she said; “‘twill do him good to sleep a week; he’ll come to his feeling after that and be another boy. It’s the full meals and the finding out what disposition is to be made of him, and that he’s not to be hurt, makes him sleep. I doubt if he had any too much to eat on the passage over.”

By night the good woman, with the aid of Sally (who, besides doing the work, found some time to sew), had prepared a strong, well-fitting suit of working-clothes and a linsey-woolsey shirt, and, after supper, James put them on. He made no remark in relation to his clothes, but Maria reported that she knew he was as pleased as he could be, because she peeped into the door of the bedroom and saw him looking at himself in the glass and counting the buttons on his waistcoat and jacket.

James improved rapidly, and began in a few days to walk around the door-yard and to the barn, and sit by the hour in the sun on the wood-pile (with Fowler at his feet, for the dog had taken a great liking to him), insomuch that Mrs. Whitman asked her husband if it would not make him better contented to have some light work that he could do sitting down.

“Not yet, wife. I want to see if, when he finds us all at work, he won’t start of his own accord. He has no more idea of earning anything, or of labor in our sense of that word, than my speckled ox has. When I hold up the end of the yoke and tell old Buck to come under, he comes; and so this boy has been put out to hard masters who stood over and got all out of him they could. He has never had reason to suppose that there are any people in this world that care anything about others, except to get all they can out of them.”

“If, as you say, he has always had a task-master, perhaps he thinks because we don’t tell him what to do, that we don’t want him to do anything.”

“We’ll let the thing work; I want to see what he’ll do of his own accord before I interfere. It is my belief that, benumbed as he now appears, there’s enterprise in him, and that the right kind of treatment will bring it out; but I want it to come naturally just as things grow out of the ground. He’s had a surfeit of the other kind of treatment.”

Affairs went on in this way for a week longer, till the boy’s leg had completely healed, during which time it became evident that this apparently unimpressible being was not, after all, insensible to the influence of kindness, for, whenever he perceived that wood or water were wanted, he would anticipate the needs of Mrs. Whitman nor ever permit her to bring either.

Mr. Whitman still manifested no disposition to put the boy to work, and even shelled corn himself, till his wife became somewhat impatient; and though even the grandfather thought the boy might, at least, do that much. Whitman, however, paid no attention to the remonstrances of either, and matters went on as before.

CHAPTER II.
THE REDEMPTIONER.

The reader of the opening chapter will, doubtless, be disposed to inquire, “What is a redemptioner? By what fortunate chance has this singular being been flung into the path, and at once domesticated in the family of Bradford Whitman, and admitted without scruple to the inner sanctuary of a mother’s heart.”

Not by any chance as we believe, and will, therefore, endeavor to satisfy these demands by introducing to our young readers Mr. Robert Wilson, a soul-driver, as the occupation in which he was engaged was then termed (and one of the best of them) and permit him to tell his own story.

The great abundance of food and coarse clothing in America, and the anxiety of the farmers to obtain cheap labor, led to this singular arrangement.

They contracted with the masters of vessels to bring over able-bodied men accustomed to farm-work, the farmers paying their passage, which included the captain’s fees, the laborers contracting to serve for a certain term of years to reimburse the farmer for his outlay; the farmers agreeing to furnish the laborers with wholesome and sufficient food and comfortable clothing.

These people were called redemptioners, and the term of service was generally three years, and, in the case of boys, four.

The system, however, which operated very well for a while, had its disadvantages that brought it into disrepute, and resulted in its abolition. The principal of these was its falling into the hands of speculators, who went to the other side and took whomsoever they could pick up, without regard to their honesty, industry, or capacity of labor, some of them parish-poor, not only ignorant of agricultural labor, but even thieves and vagabonds. These persons collected them in gangs of twenty, and even more, and drove them through the country and delivered them to the farmers, ostensibly at the rate of their passage-money and a reasonable compensation for their own trouble and expense in seeking and bringing them over.

Mr. Wilson naturally a man of kindly feelings, that had not been entirely blunted by the business in which for many years he had been engaged, and who—having been well brought up by godly Scotch parents—could by no means wholly ignore the lessons of his youth, was now on board of the “Betsy” brig, in Liverpool, bound for Philadelphia, and had engaged berths for thirteen persons, eleven of whom different farmers in Pennsylvania had agreed to take off his hands. He had paid the passage of the twelfth at his own risk, and wanted, but had not been able to obtain, one more, having been disappointed in a man whom he had engaged on the previous voyage, and, as he would be compelled to pay for the berth, whether occupied or not, he was, of course, anxious to obtain another man. The vessel was not to haul out of the dock under two days, and he resolved to make a final effort to find another man.

Mr. Wilson was well known among the neighboring population, and therefore possessed peculiar facilities. The persons already obtained he had brought from the country, and he doubted not from his extensive acquaintance that he could dispose of almost any man who was sound in limb, accustomed to labor, whether much acquainted with farm-work or not. “If he is only honest,” said Wilson to himself, “and young enough, it will do; for what he don’t know he can learn, and must work for his employer a longer time, that’s all.”

In regard to character he was able, in many cases, to obtain references, but a shrewd judge of men, he trusted much to his own judgment, and had seldom cause to repent it, although, as we shall see, he was deceived in the character of one of the men then on shipboard which led to his relinquishing the traffic not many years after.

He set out early in the morning for a village about ten miles from the city, and where he had often found men to his liking, especially on the previous voyage. He found quite a number eager to go, but some were Irish, whom he did not like; some were boys, some old and decrepid, or too much labor-worn.

He was returning from his bootless search in no very satisfactory state of mind, when he stumbled upon a company of young persons, who late as was the hour, had just started out from the shelter of some old crates filled with straw that had been piled against the brick wall of a glass-house, in which were built the chimneys of several ovens, and which had afforded them warmth, for the nights were quite cool.

They were shaking the straw from their garments and evidently preparing to break their fast. One had a fish in his hand, another meat, and another vegetables, but all uncooked.

The group presented such a hardened vagabond appearance, that Wilson who had paused with the intention of speaking, was about to pass on, when upon second thoughts, he said within himself, “They look like thieves, but they are a hard-meated rugged looking set and all young. Perhaps there may be among them one who taken away from the rest, and put under good influences, and among good people, might make something.”

Turning towards them, he said,

“Young men, do any of you want to go to America?”

“Go to ‘Merica,” replied a dark-complexioned fellow of low stature, with a devil-may-care-look, and quite flashily attired, apparently in the cast-off clothes of some gentleman.

“Yes, some people are going over to the States with me as redemptioners, and I want one more to make up my number, it’s a first-rate chance for a young man who’s smart, willing to work, and wants to make something of himself. There are scores of men there whom I carried, that are now forehanded, have large farms, cattle and money at interest, who when they left here lived on one meal a day and often went without that.”

“Don’t you know Dick,” said a red-headed, saucy, but intelligent-looking chap, with sharply cut features, “that’s the genteel name of those poor devils who sell themselves for their passage and this ‘ere likes is the boss what takes the head money.”

Without noticing the interruption, Wilson continued,—

“Here, for instance, is a young man who can get no work these hard times, which means no clothes, no bread, no place to put his head in. A farmer over there who wants help pays his passage. He works for that farmer till he pays up the passage money; and the farmer takes him into his family, and feeds and clothes him while he is doing it.”

“How long will he have to work to pay for his passage?”

“Three or four years; three if he is used to farm work.”

“What does he do after that?”

“Then he is his own man and can always have plenty of work at good wages and found, and won’t have to lay up alongside of a glass-house chimney to keep from freezing. Land is so cheap that if he is prudent and saves his money, he can in a few years buy a piece of land with wood on it that he can cut down, build him a log house, plant and sow and be comfortable. In some places the government will give him land to settle on if he builds a house and stays five years, or he can pay for it by working on the highways.”

“Go, Dick,” cried the red-head, “they say it’s a glorious country, plenty of work, plenty of bread, and no hanging for stealing, just the place for you my lad.”

“You shut up. What is he going to do after he gets the land!”

“Work on it to be sure, make a home of it, have cattle, and sheep, and hogs, and lashings to eat.”

“Then all the redemptioners, as you call ‘em, go to ‘Merica for is to work?”

“To be sure, to get a chance to work and get ahead, and that’s what they can’t do here.”

“Well, grandfather, I won’t be a redemptioner, because work and I have fallen out. Ain’t it so with you, Tom Hadley?”

This interrogatory was addressed to a tall pale youth, clothed in a suit of rusty black, that might have belonged to a curate, with finger nails half an inch in length, and on his fingers three valuable rings and a broad-brimmed hat on his head.

“Yes, I never fell in with it yet. Don’t think I am fool enough to work three years for the sake of getting a chance to work all the rest of my life, a thing I am altogether above and do despise.”

“If you won’t work how do you expect to live?”

“By stealing,” replied the lank boy, displaying his rings.

“By working when we can’t do any better, granddaddy, and begging for the rest,” said Tom Hadley.

During this conversation this select company had gradually gathered around Wilson, and one of them was in the act of purloining a handkerchief from the latter’s pocket, when he received a blow from a stout cudgel in the hand of the Scotchman, that felled him to the ground.

“Why don’t you take Foolish Jim?” said the red-headed chap, “he’ll work; rather work than not.”

“Who’s Foolish Jim?”

“There he is,” pointing to a boy leaning against the wall of the glass-house, aloof from the rest.

“Why do you call him Foolish Jim?”

“‘Cause he’s such a fool he won’t lie, swear nor steal; but we are dabsters at all three.”

“What makes him so much worse dressed than the rest?”

“‘Cause he’s a fool and won’t steal. Now we all get one thing or another, meat, fish, vegetables; and we’re going down to the brick yards to have a cook and a real tuck-out, but he’s had no breakfast, nor won’t get any, till he runs some errand for the glass-house folks, or gets some horse to hold, or some little job of work, just ‘cause he won’t steal nor beg either. If you’d a dropt that handkerchief on the ground and he’d a picked it up, instead of putting it in his pocket, he’d a run after you crying, ‘Mister you’ve lost your handkerchief.’ Now there’s no work to be had by those who are fools enough to work, so he’s just starving by inches.”

“And to help him out of the world you keep him with you to make sport of him.”

“That’s so, as much as we think will do, but we can’t go but about so far, ‘cause he’s strong as a giant and he’s got a temper of his own, though it takes an awful sight to git it up; but when its up you’d better stand clear, he’ll take any two of us and knock our heads together. When the glassmen have a heavy crate to lift, they always sing out for Jim.”

“Ask him to come here.”

“Jim, here’s a cove wants yer.”

Mr. Wilson scanned with great curiosity the lad whom his companions termed a fool because he would neither lie nor swear, steal nor beg, but was willing to work. He was tall, large-boned, with great muscles that were plainly visible, of regular features, fair complexion and clean, thus forming a strong contrast to his companions, who were dirty in the extreme. He might be called, on the whole, good looking, as far as form and features went, but on the other hand there was an expression of utter hopelessness and apathy in his face that seemed almost to border upon fatuity, and went far to justify the appellation bestowed upon him by his companions.

His movements also were those of an automaton; there was none of the spring, energy or buoyancy of youth about him.

He was barefoot, with a tattered shirt, ragged pants and coat of corduroy, the coat was destitute of buttons and confined to his waist by a ropeyarn. On his head he wore a sailor’s fez cap, streaked with tar and that had once been red, but was faded to the color of dried blood.

“What is your name, my lad?”

“Jim.”

“Jim what?”

“Jim, that’s all.”

“How old are you?”

“Don’t know.”

“Where are your father and mother?”

“Haven’t got none?”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Where did you come from? Where do you belong?”

“Work’us.”

“Do you want to go to America with me, and get work?”

“I’ll go anywhere if I can have enough to eat, clothes to keep me warm, and some warm place to sleep.”

“Will you work?”

“Yes; I’ll work.”

“What kind of work can you do?”

“I can dig dirt, and hoe, and pick oakum, and drive horses, and break stones for the highway, and break flax.”

“What other farm-work can you do?”

“I can mow grass, and reap grain, and plash a hedge, and thrash (thresh) grain.”

“Where did you learn these things?”

“They used to put me out to farmers once.”

“How long was you with the farmers?”

“Don’t know.”

“Mister,” broke in the lank youth, “he don’t know anything. Why don’t you ask ‘em up to the work’us; like’s they know who he is, where he came from, and all about him. They feed him, but he’s so proud he won’t call upon ‘em if he can help it, ‘cause he thinks it’s begging. He might have three good meals there every day if he would, but he’s such a simpleton he won’t go there till he’s starved within an inch of his life.”

Upon this hint the Scotchman, whose curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, taking the lad for a guide, started for the workhouse.

CHAPTER III.
JAMES RENFEW.

As they went along, Wilson, feigning fatigue, proposed that they should sit down to rest, but his real motive was that, undisturbed by his companions, he might observe this singular youth more at his leisure and be the better able to form some more definite opinion in his own mind respecting him.

After long contemplating the features and motions of Jim at his leisure, Mr. Wilson came to the conclusion that there was no lack of sense, but that discouragement, low living, absence of all hope for the future, ignorance and being made a butt of, were the potent causes that had reduced the lad to what he was; and that, under the influence of good food and encouragement, he would rally and make an efficient laborer and perhaps something more, and resolved to sift the matter to the bottom.

From the records of the workhouse he ascertained that the boy’s name was James Renfew, that he was not born in the institution, but was brought there with his mother, being at that time three years of age. The mother was then in the last stages of disease, and in a few weeks died. He was informed that the boy had been several times put out to different farmers, who, after keeping him till after harvest, brought him back in the fall to escape the cost of his maintenance in the winter.

Wilson mentioned what he had been told in respect to his character, to which the governor replied it was all true, and that he should not be afraid to trust him with untold gold, that he came and went as he pleased; and when starved out, and not till then, he came to them and was housed, fed and made welcome.

“Where did he get ideas in his head so different from those of workhouse children in general?”

“I am sure I don’t know except they grew there. You seem to have a great deal of curiosity about the history of Jim, there’s an old Scotchwoman here, Grannie Brockton, who took care of his mother while she lived and of the boy after her death; she’s a crabbed venomous old creature, deaf as a haddock, but if she happens to be in a good mood and you can make her hear, she can tell you the whole story.”

“I’ll find a way to make her agreeable.”

He found Grannie Brockton, who seeing a stranger approach, drew herself up, put one hand to her ear, and with the other motioned the intruder away.

Wilson, without a word, approached and laid a piece of silver on her knee. This wrought an instantaneous change, turning briskly round she pulled down the flap of her right ear (the best one) and said,—

“What’s your will wi’ me?”

“I want you to tell me all you know about James Renfew and his parents.”

“It’s Jeames Renfew ye want to speer about, and it’s my ain sel’ wha’ can tell you about him and his kith, and there’s na ither in this place that can.”

The interrogator felt that the best method of getting at the matter was to leave the old crone to her own discretion, and without further questioning placed another small piece of silver in her lap.

“What countryman may ye be?”

“A Scotchman.”

“I kenned as much by the burr on your tongue; ay then, ye’ll mind when the battle o’ Bannockburn was.”

“The battle of Bannockburn was fought on the twenty-fifth day of June.”

“True for ye. It was sixteen years ago Bannockburn day that this boy’s mother was brought here sick, and this Jeames wi’ her a bairn about three years old. A good woman she was too. I’m not a good woman, naebody ca’s me a good woman, I dinna ca’ myself a good woman, but for all that I know a good person when I see one.

“She had death in her face when she was brought in, would have been glad to die, but her heart was breaking about the child to be left to the tender mercies o’ the work’us.

“When she had been here little better than a week, a minister came to see her; a young, a douce man. Oh, he was a heavenly man! She was so rejoiced to see him, she kissed his hands and bathed them wi’ her hot tears. She thanked him, and cried for joy. I could nae keep from greeting my ain sel’.”

“Where was he from?”

“He was the curate of the parish where she used to live, was with her husband when he was sick, and read the service at his funeral; and he had christened this child, and aye been a friend to them.”

“She told me the parson o’ the parish was a feckless do-little, naebody thought he had any grace; this curate did all the work and visited the people, who almost worshipped him.”

“Did he come any more?”

“Ay, till she died, and then attended the burial. For four years after her death he came three times a year to see the child, and would take him on his knees and tell him stories out of the Bible and teach him the Lord’s prayer. He made the child promise him that he would never lie, nor swear, nor steal, and taught him a’ the commandments. He likewise made me promise that I would hear him say the Lord’s prayer, when I put him to bed, and that I would be kind to him. I did hear him say the prayer, but I was never kind to him, for ‘tis not in my nature to be kind to any body, but I used to beat him when he vexed me.”

“Who was this boy’s father?”

“He was a hedger and ditcher, and rented a small cottage, and grass for a cow, in the parish where the curate lived. After his death, his widow came to Liverpool, because she had a sister here who had saved money by living at service, and they rented a house, and took boarders, and washed and ironed; but her sister got married and went to Canada, and she was taken sick, and came here to die.”

“What became of the curate?”

“He came here till the laddie was seven years auld, and then he came to bid him good-by, because he was going to be chaplain in a man-of-war, and the laddie grat as though his heart wad break.

“The curate gave him his mother’s Bible, but little good will it do him, for he canna read a word, nor tell the Lord’s prayer when he sees it in print.” Finding her visitor was about to leave, she said,—

“Mind, what ye have heard frae me is the truth, sin a’ body kens that cross and cankered as auld Janet may be, she’s nae given to falsehood.”

The relation of auld Janet had stirred the conscience of Robert Wilson, and probed his soul to its very depths.

“I cannot,” he said within himself, “leave the boy here. The curse of that dying mother would fall on me if I did. He must come out of this place. Let me see what can I do with him? Could I only hope to prevail upon Bradford Whitman to take him—I know he hates the very sight of me and of a redemptioner, but a friendless boy of this one’s character, that I can get a certificate from the governor of the workhouse to establish, might operate to move him, and he’s a jewel of a man. I’ll try him. If I can do nothing with him, I’ll try Nevins or Conly, but Whitman first of all. If none of them’ll keep him, you must take him yourself, Robert Wilson; take him from here, at any rate.”

Mr. Wilson made his way back to the authorities, and said to them:—

“I’m taking some redemptioners to the States; if you’ll pay this boy’s passage, I’ll take him off your hands, but you must put some decent clothes on him.”

To this the chairman of the board replied: “We cannot do that. We will let you have the boy and put some clothes on him, and that’s enough. You make a good thing out of these men; you don’t have to advance anything, the farmers pay their passage and pay you head-money.”

“Thank you for nothing, that’s not enough. The rest of my redemptioners are able-bodied men used to farm-work, but this creature is but nineteen, don’t know much of anything about farm-work; only fit to pick oakum or break stones on the highway, and there’s none of that work to be done in the States. He’ll be a hard customer to get rid of, for he don’t seem to have hardly the breath of life in him; these Americans are driving characters; they make business ache, and will say right off he’s not worth his salt. I shall very likely have him thrown on my hands (if indeed he don’t die before he gets there) for I have no order for any boy.”

“You are very much mistaken, Mr. Wilson, that boy will lift you and your load, will do more work than most men, is better fitted for a new country than one who has been delicately brought up.”

“Mr. Governor, I have made you a fair offer. This boy has got a settlement in this parish, and you cannot throw it off, so you will always have him on your hands more or less. By and by he’ll marry some one as poor as himself, and you’ll have a whole family on your hands for twenty, perhaps fifty years. You know how that works, these paupers marry and raise families on purpose, because they know they will then be the more entitled to parish help. Give him up to me and pay his passage, you are then rid of him forever and stop the whole thing just where it is. I’ve told you what I’ll do. I won’t do anything different.”

After consultation the authorities consented to pay his passage and give him second-hand but whole shoes, shirts, and stockings enough for a shift, and a Scotch cap.

Mr. Wilson then took him into a Jew’s shop, pulled off his rags, furnished him with breeches and upper garments, and put him on board the brig.

Mr. Wilson was an old practitioner at the business of soul-driving. His custom was to stop a week in Philadelphia in order to let his men recover from the effects of the voyage, which at that day, in an emigrant ship, was a terrible ordeal, for there were no laws to restrain the cupidity of captains and owners. This delay answered a double purpose, as his redemptioners made a better appearance, and were more easily disposed of and at better prices. He also improved the opportunity to send forward notices to his friends, the tavernkeepers, stating the day on which he should be at their houses; and they in turn notified the farmers in their vicinity, some of whom came out to receive the men they had engaged, and others came to look at and trade with Wilson for the men he might have brought on his own account, of whom he sometimes had a number, and not infrequently his whole gang were brought on speculation.

It was about nine o’clock on the morning of the second day after his arrival in Philadelphia, and Mr. Wilson, having partaken of a bountiful meal, was enjoying his brief rest in a most comfortable frame of mind. He had good reason to congratulate himself, having safely passed through the perils of the voyage, and, on the first day of his arrival disposed to great advantage of the man he had brought at his own risk; the other eleven were engaged, and the boy alone remained to be disposed of.

His cheerful reflections were disturbed by a cry of pain from the door-yard, and James was brought in, the blood streaming from a long and deep gash in his right leg.

The tavern-keeper asked him to cut some firewood, and the awkward creature, who had never in his life handled any wood tool but an English billhook, had struck the whole bit of the axe in his leg. The blood was staunched, and a surgeon called to take some stitches, at which the boy neither flinched nor manifested any concern.

The doctor and the crowd of idle onlookers, whom the mishap of James drew together, had departed, the landlord had left the bar to attend to his domestic concerns. Mr. Wilson, his serenity of mind effectually broken, paced the floor with flushed face and rapid step, and talking to himself.

“Had it been his neck, I wad nae hae cared,” he muttered (getting to his Scotch as his passion rose) “here’s a doctor’s bill at the outset; and I maun stay here on expense wi’ twelve men, or take him along in a wagon.

“I dinna ken, Rob Wilson, what ailed ye to meddle with the gauk for an auld fool as ye are, but when I heard that cankered dame wi’ the tear in her een tell how his mother felt on her deathbed, and a’ about the minister taking sic pains wi’ him, it gaed me to think o’ my ain mither and the pains she took tae sae little purpose wi’ me. I thocht it my duty to befriend him and gi’ him a chance in some gude family, and aiblins it might be considered above, and make up for some o’ thae hard things I am whiles compelled in my business to do. I did wrang altogether; a soul-driver has nae concern wi’ feelings, nor conscience either. He canna’ afford it, Rob, he suld be made o’ whin-stone, or he canna thrive by soul-driving.”

Mr. Wilson arrived in Lancaster county, within a few miles of the residence of the Whitmans and their neighbors, the Nevins, Woods, and Conlys, with only three redemptioners, who were already engaged to farmers in the vicinity, and the boy Jim, who was so lame that he had been obliged to take him along in a wagon.

CHAPTER IV.
THE WHITMAN FAMILY.

The starting of a boy in the right direction, and the imparting of that bent he will retain through life, is a work the importance of which cannot be overrated. That our readers may appreciate the force of these influences about to be invoked to shape the future,—to fling a ray of hope upon the briar-planted path of this pauper boy, and quicken to life a spirit in which the germs of hope and the very aroma of youth seem to have withered beneath the benumbing pressure of despair,—we desire to acquaint them with the character of Bradford Whitman, to whose guiding influence so shrewd a judge of character as Robert Wilson wished to surrender his charge (and moreover resolved to leave no method untried to effect it), and in no other way can this object be so effectually accomplished as by our relating to them a conversation held by Whitman and his wife in relation to the building of a new dwelling-house on the homestead.

Several of Whitman’s neighbors had pulled down the log-houses their forefathers built and replaced them with stone, brick, or frame buildings, but Bradford Whitman still lived in the log-house in which he was born; it was, however, one of the best of the kind, built of chestnut logs, with the tops and bottoms hewn to match, and the ends squared and locked.

Whitman was abundantly able to build a nice house, and only two days before the event we are about to narrate occurred, mentioned the subject to his wife, saying that several of the neighbors had either built or were about to build new houses, and perhaps she felt as though they ought to build one, but she replied,—

“Bradford, you cannot build a better house than the old one, a warmer or one more convenient for the work, nor could you find a lovelier spot to set it on than this. It is close to the spring from which your father drank when he first came here a strong lusty man, stronger, I have heard you say, than any child he ever had. There’s many a bullet in these old logs that were meant for him or some of his household.”

“True enough, Alice, for Peter dug a bullet out last fall that came from an Indian rifle, and made a plummet of it to rule his writing-book; but the same may be said of many other houses in this neighborhood that have been taken away to make room for others, for there are but few on which the savage did not leave his mark.”

“But I fear it would give the good old man a heartache to miss the house in which his children were born, his wife died, all his hardships and dangers were met and overcome, and his happiest days were spent.

“A little jar will throw down a dish that is near the edge of the shelf; the least breath will blow out a candle that’s just flickering in the socket, and though I know he would not say a word, I am sure it would make his heart bleed, and I fear hurry him out of the world. Besides, husband, while your father lives your brothers and sisters will come home at New Years, and I have not a doubt they would miss the old house and feel that something heartsome and that could never be replaced, had dropped out of their lives. I hardly think you care to do it yourself, only you think that as we are now well to do, I have got ashamed of the log-house, and want a two-story frame, or brick, or stone one, like some of the neighbors.”

“It would be very strange if you didn’t, wife.”

“No, husband; I am not of that way of thinking at all. We have worked too long and too hard for what we have got together to spend it on a fine house. Here are some of our neighbors whom I could name who were living easy, had a few hundred dollars laid by that were very convenient when they had a sudden call for money, or wanted to buy stock, or hold a crop of wheat over for a better market, but their wives put them up to build a fine house. It cost more than they expected, as it always does, and when they got the house, the old furniture that looked well enough in the old house, didn’t compare at all with the new one, they had to be at a great expense to go to the old settlements to buy fine things; it took all the money they had saved up, and now those same people, when they want to buy cattle or hire help, have to come to you to borrow the money.”

“That is true; for only yesterday a man who lives not three miles from here, and who lives in a fine house, came to me on that same errand.”

“No, husband; you and I are far enough along to be thinking less of mere appearances than we might have done once. We have three children to school and start in the world; a new house won’t do that, but the money it would cost will.”

“May the Lord bless you,” cried Bradford Whitman, imprinting a fervent kiss on the lips of his wife, “and make me as thankful as I ought to be for the best wife a man ever had. You have just spoken my own mind right out.”

Alice Whitman blushed with pleasure at the commendation of her husband so richly deserved, and said,—

“Husband, that is not all. If we have something laid by we can open our hearts and hands to a neighbor’s necessities as we both like to do, and I am sure I had much rather help a poor fatherless child, give food to the hungry, or some comfort to a sick neighbor, than to live in a fine house and have nice things that after all are not so comfortable nor convenient as the old-fashioned ones.”

“You are right wife, for when John Gillespie was killed by a falling tree last winter and all the neighbors helped his widow and family, William Vinton said his disposition was to do as much as any one, but he hadn’t the means, and the reason was that the cost of his new house had brought him into difficulties. I knew it gave him a heartache to refuse, and I believe he would have much rather have had the old chest of drawers and the log-house and been able to give something to the fatherless, than to have the new house and the nice furniture and not be able to help a neighbor in distress. I hope Alice you won’t object to having the old house made a little better and more comfortable, providing it can be done without much expense.”

“If you will promise not to make it look unnatural, like an old man in a young man’s clothes and wig, and if you meddle with the roof (as most like you will) not to disturb the door that bears to-day the gash cut by the Indian’s tomahawk who chased your mother into the house, and that took the blow meant for her, nor meddle with the overhang above it, through which your father fired down and shot him.”

Bradford Whitman put a new roof on the house and ceiled the wall up inside with panel work, thus hiding the old logs. He also laid board floors instead of the old ones that were laid with puncheons (that is, sticks of timber hewn on three sides) that were irregular, hard to sweep over and to wash. But in his father’s bedroom he disturbed nothing, but left both the walls and the floors as they were before. The grandfather, though he made no remark, yet manifested some trepidation in his looks when the roof was taken off, and the floors taken up, and seemed very much relieved when he found that the walls on the outside were not disturbed, that the old door with its wooden latch, hinges and huge oaken bar, the former scarred with bullets and chipped with the tomahawks of the savages, remained as before. And when he found that his son, with a thoughtfulness that was part of his nature, had, after ceiling up the kitchen, replaced in its brackets of deer’s horns over the fireplace, the old rifle with which he had fought the savage and obtained food for his family in the bitter days of the first hard struggle for a foothold and a homestead, not only expressed decided gratification with the change but to the great delight of Alice Whitman desired that his bedroom might be panelled and have a board floor like the rest of the house. And the delighted daughter-in-law covered it with rugs, into the working of which were put all the ingenuity of hand and brain she possessed.

This was the family in which Robert Wilson desired to place James Renfew, for notwithstanding in his passion, he had wished that James had stuck the axe into his neck instead of his leg, he was really interested in, and felt for, the lad, and wanted to help him.

He knew Bradford Whitman well, knew that he was as shrewd as kindly-affectioned, and that he was bitterly prejudiced against the business of soul-driving in which he was engaged, as Wilson had for years vainly endeavored to persuade him to take a redemptioner; but he had heard from the miller that Mr. Whitman was coming to the mill in a few days with wheat, and he resolved to make a desperate effort to prevail upon him to take James.

“He’s a kindly man,” said Wilson to the miller, “perhaps he’ll pity the lad when he comes to see him.”

“Yes, he is a kindly man but if he could be brought to think that it was his duty to take that boy, your work would be already done, and if he should take him, the boy is made for life, that is, if there’s anything in him to make a man out of.”

“Can’t you help me old acquaintance?”

“I would gladly, Robert, but I don’t feel free to, for this reason. Bradford Whitman is a kindly man as you say, and an upright man, and a man of most excellent judgment, a man who knows how to make money and to keep it and is able to do just as he likes. We have always been great friends, but he is a man quite set in his way, and if I should influence him to take this boy, about whom I know nothing, and he should turn out bad (or what I think is most likely, to be stupid and not worth his salt) he never would forget it.”

But notwithstanding the backwardness of the miller to aid his friend, the Being who is wont to shape the affairs of men and bring about events in the most natural manner, and one noticed only by the most thoughtful, was all unbeknown to the soul-driver preparing instrumentalities and setting in operation causes a thousand times more effective than the efforts of the miller (had he done his best), to bring about the purpose Wilson had at heart.

CHAPTER V.
THE UNSEEN HAND.

As the Whitmans were seated at the supper-table of an autumn evening, Peter, the eldest boy, who had just returned from the store, reported that Wilson, the soul-driver, had come to the village and put up at Hanscom’s tavern, with some redemptioners, and that Mr. Wood, one of their neighbors, who had engaged one the last spring, was going over to get his man, and they said there was a boy he hadn’t engaged, and wanted some one to take him off his hands.

“From my heart I pity these poor forlorn creatures,” said the mother; “brought over here to a strange land with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and how they will be treated and whose hands they will fall into, they don’t know.”

After the meal they all drew together around the fire, that the season of the year made agreeable.

The children, hoping to obtain some old-time story from their grandfather, drew his large chair with its stuffed back and cushion, worked in worsted by the cunning hand of their mother, into his accustomed corner. Bradford Whitman sat in a meditative mood, with hands clasped over his knees, watching the sparks go up the great chimney.

“Bradford,” said the old gentleman, “I have sometimes wondered that you don’t take one of these redemptioners; you are obliged to hire a good deal, and it is often difficult to get help when it is most needed.”

“I know that there are a good many of these people hired by farmers; sometimes it turns out well, but often they are villains. Sometimes have concealed ailments and prove worthless; at other times stay through the winter, and after they have learned the method of work here, run off and hire out for wages in some other part of the country.”

“Husband, Mr. Wilson has been many years in this business, and I never knew him to bring any people of bad character.”

“He is too shrewd a Scotchman to do it knowingly, but he is liable to be deceived. I have thought and said that nothing would ever tempt me to have anything to do with a redemptioner, but when Peter came to tell about that boy it seemed to strike me differently. I said to myself, this is a new thing. Here’s a boy flung on the world in a strange land, with nobody to guide him, and about certain to suffer, because there are not many who would want a boy (for it would cost as much for his passage as that of a man), and he will be about sure to fall into bad hands and take to bad ways; whereas he is young, and if there was any one who would take the pains to guide him he might become a useful man.”

“That, husband, is just the light in which it appears to me.”

“So it seemed to me there was a duty for somebody concerning that boy, that there wouldn’t be allowing he was a man. When I cast about me I couldn’t honestly feel that there was any person in this neighborhood could do such a thing with less put-out to themselves than myself. Still I can’t feel that it’s my duty; he might turn out bad and prove a great trial, and I am not inclined to stretch out my arm farther than I can draw it back.”

“My father,” said the old gentleman, “was a poor boy, born of poor parents on the Isle of Wight. His father got bread for a large family by fishing, and by reaping in harvest; and his mother sold the fish, and gleaned after the reapers in wheat and barley harvest. The children as they grew large enough went out to service.”

“What was his name?” said Peter.

“Henry.”

“What relation was he to me?” said Bert.

“Your great-grandfather. When he was sixteen years old, with the consent of his parents, he came to Philadelphia in a vessel as passenger, and worked his passage by waiting on the cook and the cabin passengers. The captain spoke so well of him that a baker took him into his shop to carry bread. A farmer who hauled fagots to heat the baker’s oven offered to hire him by the year to work on his farm, and he worked with him till he was twenty-one. After that he worked for others, and then took what little money he had, and your grandmother who was as poor as himself, for her parents died when she was young and she was put out to a farmer, and they went into the wilderness. They cleared a farm and paid for it, raised eight children, six boys and two girls. I was the youngest boy; my brothers and sisters all did well, they and their husbands acquired property and owned farms. Your mother and I came on to this land when it was a forest. I with my narrow axe, she with her spinning-wheel; and a noble helpmate she was as ever a man was blessed with.”

The old gentleman’s voice trembled, he dashed a tear from his eye and went on. “We raised eleven children, they all grew to man’s and woman’s estate, the girls have married well, the four boys are all well-to-do farmers and prospering. There are nineteen farmers and farmers’ wives without counting their children, and not a miserable idle “shack” among them; all of whom sprang by the father’s side from that poor boy who was the poorest of the poor, and worked his passage to this country, but found in a strange land friends to guide him. So you see what good may come from a friendless boy, if he is well-minded and helped.”

“You know, husband, the children have a long distance to go in the winter to school, and a boy like that would be a great help about the barn and to cut firewood, or go into the woods with you. The clothing of him would not be much, for I could make both the cloth and the clothes, and as for his living, what is one more spoon in the platter? And in regard to the money for his passage you know we haven’t built any new house, and so you won’t need to borrow the money.”

“Wife, if you want to take that boy, I’ll start off to-morrow morning and get him.”

“I want you to do just as you think best in regard to taking anybody, either boy or man. We are only talking the matter over in all its bearings, and as you brought up the disadvantages and risks, your father and myself were bringing up something to balance them; it is not a very easy matter to decide, at any rate.”

“But father,” cried Peter, “Bertie and Maria and I want you to take him.”

“Why do you want me to take him?”

“‘Cause we want him to come here and grow up to be a great, smart, good man, just like our great-grandfather—and as grandfather says he will.”

“And we want to help about it and befriend him,” put in Bertie.

“And me, too,” cried Maria; “I want to befriend him.”

“No, Peter, I didn’t say he would become a good man, because no one knows that but a higher Power. I said that to my certain knowledge one boy did, and that ought to be an encouragement to people to put other boys in the way of making something.”

“Well, that’s what grandpa means,” said Peter, resolved to carry his point.

“Father,” said Maria, “I want you to take him, ‘cause if Peter or Bertie was carried ‘way off where they didn’t know anybody, and where their father and mother wasn’t, they would want somebody who was good, to ask ‘em to come to their house and give them something to eat.”

“Wife, where did Peter get all this news that seems to have set him and the rest half crazy?”

“At Hooper’s, the shoemaker. He went to get his shoes, and Mr. Hooper told him that his father-in-law, John Wood, was going to-morrow to Hanscom’s tavern to get a redemptioner Mr. Wilson had brought over for him, and that neighbor Wood wanted him to get word to you that Wilson had a man and a boy left. Mr. Wood wants you to go over with him to-morrow and take the boy; he says you couldn’t do better.”

“I am going over there day after to-morrow to haul some wheat that I have promised; if the boy is there I shall most likely see him.”

“Oh, father, before that time somebody else may get him.”

“Well, Peter, let them have him; if he gets a place, that’s all that is needed.”

“But perhaps ‘twon’t be a good man like you who’ll get him.”

“He may be a great deal better man.”

More enthusiastic and persistent than her brothers, and unable to sleep, the little girl lay wakeful in her trundle-bed till her mother and father had retired, and then crawling in between them, put her arms around her father’s neck and whispered,—

“Father, you will take the boy, won’t you?”

“My dear child, you don’t know what you are talking about. I have not set eyes on him yet, and perhaps when I come to see him he will appear to me to be a bad, or stupid, or lazy boy, and then you yourself would not want me to take him.”

“No, father; but if you like the looks of him, and Peter likes the looks of him, ‘cause if Peter likes him Bertie and I shall, will you take him then?”

“I’ll think about it, my little girl, and now get into your bed and cuddle down and go to sleep.”

Instead of that, however, she crept to the other side of the bed, hid her face in her mother’s bosom and sobbed herself to sleep.

Notwithstanding the entreaties of the children, their father remained firm in his purpose, but, at the time he had set, started, taking Peter with him, as the lad was to have a pair of new shoes. He was also to buy the cloth to make Bertie a go-to-meeting suit, as the cloth for the best clothes was bought, and made up by their mother who wove all the cloth for every-day wear. He was also to buy a new shawl for Maria, and get a bonnet for her that her mother had selected some days before. In the mean time Peter had received the most solemn charges from both Bertie and Maria, “to tease and tease and tease their father to take the boy.” Just as they were starting Maria clambered up to the seat of the wagon and whispered in his ear,—

“If father won’t take him, you cry; cry like everything.”

Peter promised faithfully that he would.

When the sound of wagon wheels had died away in the distance, Bertie and Maria endeavored to extract some consolation by interrogating their mother, and Bertie asked if she expected their father would bring home the boy.

“Your father, children, will do what he thinks to be his duty, and for the best, but there is an unseen hand that guides matters of this kind. I shall not be very much surprised if the boy should come with them.”

No sooner was the wheat unloaded than Peter entreated his father to go and see the redemptioner.

“Not yet, my son, I must go and pay a bill at Mr. Harmon’s, he is going to Lancaster to-day to buy goods and wants the money. And then I must get your new shoes and the cloth for Bertie’s suit, and a bonnet and shawl for Maria, and then we will go.”

“Couldn’t you pay the bill please, and get our things after you see the redemptioner?”

“I don’t know, I’ll see.”

The truth of the fact was, Mr. Whitman was sorry that he had expressed before his family the transient thought that crossed his mind in regard to the boy, because he felt that his wife and father were anxious that he should take him, although they disclaimed any desire to influence his actions; and being an indulgent parent, the clamorous eagerness of the children aided to complicate the matter. He likewise felt that he had so far committed himself, he must at least go and look at this lad, though inclined to do it in that leisurely way in which a man sets about an unpleasant duty. But, to the great delight of Peter, before the horses had finished their provender, Mr. Wilson himself appeared on the ground.

“Good morning, Mr. Whitman. I understand from Mr. Wood, to whom I have brought a man, that you want a boy. I have a boy and a man at the public house and would like to have you step over and look at them.”

“I have never said to neighbor Wood nor to any one that I wanted a redemptioner; he must either have got it from Peter here, through some one else, or have imagined it. All I ever had to do in the matter was to say, when we were talking in the family about your having a boy among your men, that I did not know but it might be my duty to take the boy. It was however merely a passing thought. I have about made up my mind that I will have nothing to do with it, and I do not think it is worth while (as I have met you) for me to go and see either of them.”

“You had better go look at them, your horses have not yet finished eating.”

“I am an outspoken man, Mr. Wilson, and make free to tell you I don’t like this buying and selling of flesh and blood. It seems to me too much like slavery, which I never could endure. I think a capable man like you had better take up with some other calling, and I don’t care to encourage you in this. If you’ll buy oxen or horses or wheat I’ll trade with you, but I don’t care to trade in human bodies or souls.”

“I know, Mr. Whitman, that we are called soul-drivers, and a great many hard things are said of us, but just look at the matter for a moment free from prejudice. Here is a young able-bodied man on the other side, willing to work, but there is no work to be had, and he must do one of three things—starve, steal, or beg; there is a farmer in Pennsylvania who wants help but can’t get it. I introduce these men to each other and benefit both. The farmer gets help to handle his wheat, the poor starving man bread to eat, he learns the ways of the country, and when his time is out can find work anywhere and become an owner of land. You know yourself, Mr. Whitman, that within ten, twelve, and twenty miles of here, yes, within five, are living to-day persons, owners of good farms and one of them a selectman, another of them married to his employer’s daughter, who were all brought over by me, and came in rags, and who would not care to have their own children know that they were redemptioners.”

“I’ve no doubt but that like everything else almost in this world, the business has its benefits. And by picking out the best and leaving out the worst parts of it, you may make a plausible showing so far as you are concerned, but you know yourself that it is liable to be abused, and is abused every day, and I don’t care to have anything to do with it.”

“But father,” cried Peter, with the tears in his eyes, “you promised me you would go and see him when the horses had done eating.”

“I forgot that, then I will go; I never break a promise.”

“I will bring the boy here,” said Wilson, “it is but a few steps.”

“Perhaps that is the best way, as, now I think of it, I want to trade with the miller for some flour.”

Wilson soon returned with our old acquaintance Foolish Jim, very little improved in appearance, as his clothes, though whole, did not by any means fit him. His trowsers were too short for his long limbs, and his legs stuck through them a foot, and they were so tight across the hips as to seriously interfere with locomotion. As to the jacket, it was so small over the shoulders and around the waist it could not be buttoned; a large breadth of shirt not over clean was visible between the waistcoat and trowsers, as instead of breeches he wore loose pants or sailor trowsers and no suspenders. The sleeves, too short, exposed several inches of large square-boned black wrists, and on his head was a Highland cap, from under which escaped long tangled locks of very fine hair; and his skin, where not exposed to the weather, was fair. Jim was so lame that he walked with great difficulty by the help of a large fence stake, his right leg being bandaged below the knee, and he was barefoot. He wore the same stolid, hopeless look as of old, and which instantly excited the pity and moved the sympathies of Peter to the utmost.

His father, on the other hand, could not repress a smile as he gazed on the uncouth figure before him.

“Do you call him a boy, Wilson? If he was anything but skin and bones he would be as heavy as I am, near about.”

“Yes I call him a boy, because he’s only nineteen, though there’s considerable of him.”

“There’s warp enough, as my wife would say, but there’s a great lack of filling.”

“He’s a wonderfully strong creature, see what bones and muscles he’s got.”

The miller rolled out three barrels of flour for Whitman, and he and Wilson went into the mill leaving James seated on one of the barrels.

“What do you think of him?” said Wilson when they were inside?

“I think I don’t want anything to do with him. What do you think I want of a cripple?”

“That’s nothing; he cut himself with an axe after we landed, and I had to carry him in a wagon, but it’s only a flesh wound. He’s got a good pair of shoes, but has been so used to going barefoot that they make his feet swell.”

“The boy looks well enough, Mr. Wilson, if he was put into clothes that fitted him; is handsomely built, has good features, good eyes and a noble set of teeth, and that’s always a sign of a good constitution. But there don’t seem to be anything young about him, and if he had the use of both legs seems to have hardly life enough to get about. He is like an old man in a young man’s skin. Then he has such a forlorn look out of his eyes, as though he hadn’t a friend in the world, and never expected to have.”

“Well, he hasn’t, except you and I prove his friends. It is the misery, the downright anguish and poverty that has taken the juice of youth out of that boy. He never knew what it was to have a home, and no one ever cared whether he died or lived, but there is youth and strength; and kind treatment and good living, such as I know he would get with you, will bring him up.”

“Where did you get him that he should have neither parents, relatives, nor friends?”

“From a parish workhouse.”

“I judged as much.”

“They gave him up, and he is bound to me.”

“It was not much of a gift; I wonder so shrewd a man as I know you to be should have taken him with the expectation that anybody would ever take him off your hands.”

“I know, Mr. Whitman, you think we are all a set of brutes, and buy and sell these men just as a drover does cattle, but there’s a little humanity about some of us, after all.”

He then related the circumstances with which our readers are already familiar, saying, as he concluded the narration,—

“When I saw those miserable wretches with whom he was brought up, dressed up in stolen clothes, and he in rags that were dropping off him; heard them call him a fool because he would neither beg, lie, swear nor steal; and when, being determined to know the truth of it, I inquired and heard the story of the old nurse at the workhouse confirmed by the parish authorities,—a change came over me, and I determined to take this boy, but from very different motives from those that influenced me at first.”

“How so?”

“You see I had engaged, and had to pay for, berths to accommodate thirteen men, had been disappointed and had but twelve. The vessel was about ready for sea, I had to pick up some one in a hurry and thought I would take this boy. I knew I could get rid of him somehow so as to make myself whole in the matter of trade. But when I heard about the poor dying mother, and the good minister, I determined to take that boy, bring him over here, put him in some good family and give him a chance; and that family was yours, Mr. Whitman, and I have never offered this boy to any one else, never shall. If you do not take him I shall carry him to my house.”

“Body of me, why then did you come within two miles of your own house and bring him here? And what reason could you have for thinking that I of all persons in the State would take him?”

“I will tell you. You and I have known each other for more than twenty-five years. I have during that time felt the greatest respect for you, though you perhaps have cherished very little for me. I know how you treat your hired help and children, and believed that there was something in this boy after all,—stupid as misery has made him appear,—and that you could bring it out both for your benefit and his, whereas I cannot stay at home. I must be away the greater part of the time about my business, and at my place he would be left with my wife or hired men and small children. If I was to be at home, I would not part with him even to yourself.”

Peter could restrain himself no longer, but climbing upon the curbing of the millstone near which his father stood, flung his arms around his parent’s neck, exclaiming,—

“Oh, father, do take him! I’ll go without my new shoes; Maria says she will go without her new bonnet and shawl, and Bertie will go without his new suit, if you will only take him. Grandpa wants you to take him, and so does mother, though they didn’t like to say so. I can tell by mother’s looks when she wants anything.”

Peter burst into a flood of real heartfelt tears, that would have satisfied both his brother and sister had they witnessed it.

“Be quiet, my son; I’ll see about it.”

Wilson then handed him a certificate from the parish authorities, in which they declared: “That the boy James Renfew had been under their charge since he was three years of age, and that he was in every respect of the best moral character.”

After reading this document Whitman said: “This is a strange story, yet I see no reason to doubt it; neither do I doubt it, nor wonder that you took the boy.”

“If you had been in my place, and seen and heard what I did, you would have taken him in a moment. Those workhouse brats all have their friends, and enjoy themselves in their way together. But because this boy would not do as they did, they hated him and called him a fool, till I believe he thought he was a fool; and I don’t know where they would have stopped, short of murder, had it not been for one thing.”

“What was that?”

“The authorities told me that it was possible by long tormenting to get his temper up, and then he was like a tiger, and so strong that they were all afraid of him, and glad to let him alone. He seemed to me (so innocent among those villains) like a pond lily that I have often wondered to see growing in stagnant water, its roots in the mud and its flower white as snow spread out on that black surface. He was, poor fellow, shut out from all decent society because he was a workhouse boy; and from all bad because he was a good boy. No wonder he looks forlorn.”

“Can he do any kind of work?”

“I will call him and ask him.”

“No matter now. What do you want for your interest in this boy?”

“The passage-money, eight pounds.”

“But you have a percentage for your labor, and you were at expense keeping him at a public house, and after he was lame had to carry him in a wagon.”

“My usual fees and the expenses would be about ten dollars. I will make him over to you (as he is a boy and has about everything to learn before he can be of much use) for four years for eight pounds. And if at the end of a year you are dissatisfied, you may pay me the ten dollars, and I will take him off your hands and agree in writing to pay you back the eight pounds, in order that you may see that I do not want to put the boy on you, just to be rid of him.

“I will take him, and if he runs away, let him run; I shall not follow him.”

“Run?” said the miller; “when you have had him a fortnight, you could not set dogs enough on him to drive him off.”

“I shall not take him but with his free consent, and not till the matter is fully explained to him, Mr. Wilson.”

“Explained, you can’t explain it to him; why he’s as ignorant as one of your oxen.”

“So much the more necessary that the attempt should be made. I never will buy a fellow-creature as I would buy a “shote” out of a drove.”

“You are not buying, you are hiring him.”

“Nor hire him of somebody else without his free consent.”

The boy was now called and Wilson said to him,—

“Jim, will you go to live with that man,” pointing to Mr. Whitman, “for four years?”

“He my master?” said the boy, pointing in his turn to Mr. Whitman.

“Yes. He’ll give you enough to eat every-day, and good clothes to keep you warm.”

“I’ll go, have plenty to eat, warm place to sleep, clothes keep me warm.”

“You are to work for this man, do everything he tells you.”

“I love to work,” replied the boy with a faint smile.

“Tell him about the length of time,” said Whitman.

“You are to stay with him four years.”

“Don’t know.”

“He don’t know how long a year is,” said the miller.

“You are to stay four summers.”

“I know, till wheat ripe, get reaped, put in the stack four times?” counting on his fingers.

“That is it.”

“Yes I go, I stay.”

“What can you do James?” said Mr. Whitman.

“I can break stones for the road, and pick oakum, and sort hairs for brushmakers, and make skewers for butchers.”

“What else can you do?”

“I can drive horses to plough.”

“That indeed! what else my lad?”

“I can milk cows, and reap grain, and thrash wheat, and break flax.”

“What else?”

“I can hoe turnips, mow grass, and stook up grain.”

“That is a great deal more than I expected,” said Whitman.

The money was paid, and the writings drawn, at the miller’s desk who was a justice. James made his mark at the bottom of the articles of agreement, and Mr. Whitman gave an agreement to him, after reading and explaining it to him.

When they left the mill three barrels of flour were lying at the tail of Mr. Whitman’s wagon.

“Jim,” said Wilson, “put those barrels into that cart.”

He took hold of the barrels and pitched them one after another into the cart, without bringing a flush to his pale cheek, though it burst open the tight fitting jacket across the shoulders,—while Peter clapped his hands in mingled pleasure and wonder.

“You won’t find many boys, Mr. Whitman, who can do that, and there are twenty men who can’t do it, where there is one who can. He’ll break pitchfork handles for you, when he gets his hand in, and his belly full of Pennsylvania bread and beef.”

Mr. Whitman did not take advantage of the self-denying offer of his children, who had volunteered to give up their new clothes as an inducement to their father to take the boy, but procured them all as he had at first intended.

After calling at the public house to get James’ bundle, they turned the heads of the horses homeward; refreshed by provender and a long rest, and relieved of their load, they whirled the heavy wagon along at a spanking trot. Peter in great spirits kept chattering incessantly, but James sat silent and stoical as an Indian at the stake, apparently no more affected by the change of masters than a stone.

Wilson compromised with his conscience by putting the boy into a good family, and consulted his interest by putting the eight pounds in his own pocket,—since the workhouse authorities had paid the passage-money to the captain of the brig Betsy,—which he probably felt justified in doing, as he had agreed and was holden to take the boy back if Whitman at the end of a year required. He really meant to do it and keep the boy himself, and do well by him, for like most men he acted from mixed motives. It is easy to see, however, that he was not so thoroughly upright as Bradford Whitman.

Thus was the unseen hand, spoken of by Alice Whitman, guiding both the soul-driver and the Pennsylvania farmer, though they knew it not, and in accordance with the prayers of that Christian mother whose last thought was for her child.

CHAPTER VI.
“THERE’S LIFE IN HIM YET.”

In due time it appeared that this silent boy had been taking careful note of the household arrangements and the routine of work. James had hitherto slept till called to breakfast, but one morning Mr. Whitman at rising found the fire built, the teakettle on, the horses fed, and James up and dressed. As they were about to go to milking he took the pail from Mrs. Whitman and said he would milk.

“You may take this pail, James, and I’ll take another; the sooner the cows are out the better. Sometime when I’m in a hurry, or when it rains, you can milk my cows.”

After breakfast James, without being told, began to clean the horses. They were harvesting the last of the potato crop, and Mr. Whitman, wishing to ascertain how much the boy really knew in regard to handling horses, asked him if he could put the horses on the cart and bring it out at night to haul in the potatoes as they sorted them on the ground. James replied that the harnesses were not like those to which he had been accustomed, but thought he could get them on. At the time he came with the cart, it was evident that he was no novice in handling horses, and that the animals knew it as he backed up his load to the cellar door in a workmanlike manner.

Mr. Whitman expressed his approbation very decidedly, and Peter said afterwards,—

“Father, he was ever so much pleased that you told him to bring out the cart, and that you liked what he did.”

“How do you know that? What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything, but I have got so that I can tell when he is pleased.”

Saturday evening came, work was cleared up early, and preparation made for the Sabbath in accordance with the custom of our forefathers.

“This boy, husband, must not grow up among us like a heathen. He must go to meeting, and I must make him a good suit of clothes to go with.”

“He is farther removed from being a heathen if, as is reported of him, he will neither swear, lie nor steal, than some among ourselves who go to meeting every Sabbath and yet are guilty of all three. I intend that he shall not only go to meeting but to school as well.”

“I thought the only thing that made you ever think of getting a boy at all, was to have his help in the short days of winter, as the children have not time to do the chores before they go, and after they get home, from school.”

“True, but since I have learned that he is ignorant of everything that he ought to know, except what he learned by rote from the lips of that minister, I feel that it becomes my duty to send him to school. A boy who has made so good use of what he does know, in spite of poverty and persecution, certainly deserves to be further instructed.”

“Then I must teach him his letters. I never would send one of my own children to school till they knew their letters; I won’t him.”

“How will you ever get the time with all you have to do?”

“I’ll take the time, and Bertie can help me.”

“I’ll help you, mother. I’m going to teach him to tell the time of day by the clock. I asked him if he would like to have me teach him, and he said he would. He can swim and fire a gun first rate. I got him to talk a little yesterday; he said he worked with a farmer who gave him powder and small shot and kept him shooting sparrows that eat up the grain. And after that he was all summer with the gamekeeper on a nobleman’s place, and used to shoot hawks and owls; he says they call ‘em vermin there; and he used to drive horses for weeks together.”

There were no Sabbath-schools in those days, but after meeting on Sabbath afternoon Mr. Whitman catechized his children. They were all assembled in the kitchen, and he put to Peter the first question:

“What is the chief end of man?” Peter replied,—

“To glorify God and enjoy him forever;” when James exclaimed abruptly,—

“I know that man.”

“What man?”

“God. Mr. Holmes used to tell me about him; and he’s a Lord, too,—he made the Lord’s prayer and the Bible, and made me, and every kind of a thing that ever was, or ever will be.”

“Mercy sakes, James!” cried Mrs. Whitman, holding up both her hands in horror; “God is not a man.”

“I thought he was a great big man, bigger than kings or queens; and I heard a minister what came to the workhouse read in the Bible, ‘The Lord is a man of war.’”

“He is indeed greater than all other beings; but he is not a man, but a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

“What is a spirit?”

“Don’t you know what a spirit is, what your own spirit is?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear! What shall we do with him, Mr. Whitman? We shall be accountable for him; we must get the minister to come and talk with him.”

“Tut, the minister would not do any better with him than yourself, not as well. Wait till he goes to school, and when he comes to obtain knowledge in general, he’ll find out the distinction between flesh and spirit. All will come about in proper time and place, as it has with our children—they had to learn it, and so will he.”

“What else did Mr. Holmes tell you?” said Mrs. Whitman.

“He told me the prayer and said God made it, said you must remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Mustn’t work that day nor play; that you mustn’t lie nor steal nor swear for God didn’t like it, and if you did he wouldn’t like you. He told me the commandments. Then I promised him I would say the prayer every night and morning, and I have. I promised him I would never lie nor steal nor swear, and I never did. I would be cut in pieces first.”

“Where do you think you will go to when you die?”

“I shall go to heaven. Mr. Holmes said he expected to go there, and if I did as he told me, I would go there and be with him. I want to go there to see him. He’ll take me on his knees and kiss me just as he used to do; nobody ever loved me only Mr. Holmes, and I never loved anybody else only him.”

“Didn’t he never tell you about your mother?”

“Yes, and said she died praying for me; and gave me a bible that was my mother’s, her name is in it, but I can’t read it, though I know where it is.”

He drew a bible from his breast pocket and pointed with his finger to the fly-leaf, on which was written “Estelle Whitneys, her book, bought while at service at Bolton Le Moors.”

Bertie, who had become intensely interested in this narration, entreated that he might have the sole care of instructing James, and as the evenings were now quite long, the time after supper was devoted to that purpose. As they took supper at an early hour this afforded them a good opportunity, James being excused from milking and all other work at that hour. James stipulated that he should first of all be taught to tell the time by the clock. He was soon able to tell the hours and half hours and quarters, and by the next Sabbath had mastered the minutes and seconds.

It was the intention of Mr. Whitman to ascertain and bring out the capabilities of the boy by leaving him as much as possible to his own direction, hoping in that way to stimulate thought, and cultivate a spirit of self-reliance. He had engaged to haul another load of wheat to the miller, and also wanted to have some corn (that the old grandfather had shelled) ground, and the horses required shoeing, and as James had recovered from his lameness, and was able to carry the bags of grain into the mill, resolved to entrust him with the errand.

Mrs. Whitman demurred at this, saying that the horses had not done much work of late, and were full of life; that he did not know anything about James, whether he was capable of driving a team with a valuable load on a long hilly road or not. Besides he knew neither the way to the mill, nor to the smith’s shop.

“I’ve watched his movements with the horses, and I’ll risk him. He is altogether different from one of our boys, who are quite likely to undertake more than they can perform, and will hesitate at nothing. I’ll ask him, and if he is willing to do it, I’ll let him go, and send Bert with him to show him the way, and tell the miller and blacksmith what I want done.”

“Why don’t you send Peter with him, and then all will go right?”

“That would be just to take the business out of his hands and spoil the whole thing; whereas I want to put it into his hands and give him the sole management of the team.”

James professing his readiness to go, the pair set out taking their dinner with them. Bertie was heard chattering, expatiating upon the good qualities of the horses, and telling James their names, ages, and pedigree, till his voice became inaudible in the distance.

“If he rides eight miles with Bert and don’t talk any, he will do more than I think he can,” said Mr. Whitman, as he looked after them, not without a shade of anxiety upon his face as he remarked the rate at which the spirited team whirled the heavy load down a long reach of descending ground, snorting as they travelled. It passed off however, as he saw that James had them well in hand, and stopped them to breathe at the foot of the first sharp rise. They returned, having accomplished their errand, and after James had eaten his supper and retired, Mr. Whitman said to Bertie,—

“I did not expect you for an hour and a half, as you had to get a grist ground, and the horses shod, and one of them shod all round.”

“Everything worked just as well as it could. There was no grist in the mill, and Mr. Lunt turned our corn right up. I took the horses right to the blacksmith’s and found Joe Bemis sitting on the anvil smoking his pipe. Wasn’t I glad! So he went right at the horses. When I got back James had carried in every bag of the wheat, and the grist was in the wagon, and all we had to do was to feed the horses, eat ourselves, and start. Mother Whitman, we found the prettiest place to eat! a little cleft in the rocks, a birch tree growing out of it. Father, a bag of wheat is just nothing to James, he’s awful strong.”

“What did Mr. Lunt say to him?”

“Don’t you think he didn’t know him?”

“Didn’t know him?”

“No, sir; and asked me who that man was with the team; and when I told him it was the redemptioner you had of Mr. Wilson he wouldn’t believe it for ever so long, and said he didn’t look like the same man. No, he don’t father; he gets up and sits down quicker, and he was just pale, but now there’s a little red spot in the middle of each cheek. His cheeks were hollow and the skin was drawn tight over the bone, and looked all glossy, same as the bark on a young apple-tree where the sheep rub against it in the spring. He looked kinder,—what is it you call it mother, when you talk about sick folks?”

“Emaciated?”

“That’s it; he looked emaciated but he don’t now.”

“How did you find the road?”

“They have been working on the road in the Showdy district, and it was very bad, and the worst hills are there, too.

“If I had known that, I would not have put on so much load. Did you have any trouble? Did James have to strike the horses, or did he get stuck?”

“He never struck them nor spoke to them, only chirruped, ‘cept once, and that was on Shurtleffs hill. The nigh wheel sunk into a hole into which they had hauled soft mud, and he said ‘Lift again Frank!’ Then old Frank straightened himself, and took it out with a great snort, and when he stopped him on top of the hill I could see the muscles on the old fellow’s shoulder twitch and quiver.”

“Did he talk with you any, going to the mills?” said the mother.

“Never opened his mouth from the time we started till we got there, but once; when he said it was a noble span of horses.”

“Then you think it is safe to send him with a team?”

“Safe, mother? he knows all about it. How to guide four horses or six, and the horses know it, and do what he asks ‘em to. Frank thinks he knows, and Dick does just as Frank tells him, for Dick hasn’t any mind of his own.”

“How do you know what Frank thinks?”

“Mother, you may laugh, but I know what Frank thinks just as well as I know what our Maria thinks. And he likes James, too; for when he hears his step he’ll begin to look, and when James pats him he’ll bend his neck and put his nose on his shoulder. Frank wouldn’t do that to anybody he didn’t like.”

“Shouldn’t think,” said Peter, “he’d be very good company on the road if he wouldn’t say anything.”

“When he sat down to eat he talked a lot. Said he never saw an ox yoked in England,—that they did all their work with horses; called ‘em bullocks and killed ‘em for beef; said they didn’t have any of our kind of corn there, and the farmers gave their horses beans for provender, and only a few oats, and that they fatted their hogs on peas and barley. He said the beans they gave their horses were larger than ours. That they had no woods, only scattering trees in the hedges, and all their land, except where it was too rocky to plough, was just like our fields. They would plough and plant and sow it ever so long, and then make pasture of it and plough up what was pasture before, and keep twice as many cattle on the same ground as we do.”

“I never thought,” said Mrs. Whitman, “that he would talk so much as that; or that he knew so much about any kind of business.”

“Why mother, he knows more than I do, if I am his teacher.”

“I asked him why he, and the men who came over in the vessel with him, couldn’t work in England and get their living, instead of going to the poorhouse, or selling themselves to come over and work.”

“What did he say to that?” inquired the father.

“He said there were so many folks wanted to work, there was no work for them, and because there were so many, the farmers would only give those they did hire just enough to keep alive; and if they were taken sick, or lame, or had no work, they must go to the workhouse.

“He said they used to send him away to farmers, and they would keep him all summer, make him work very hard, and not give him half so much to eat as he had at the workhouse, and after they got their harvest all in, carry him back and say he was good for nothing, so as not to keep him in the winter.

“I asked him if the workhouse folks ever drove him off, he said no, but it seemed so much like begging to ask them, that rather than do it he had gone three days without anything but water and a little milk.

“I asked him how he came to think of coming here. He said he knew winter was coming on, he had no work, no clothes, and not a friend in the world, and one day after the rest of the boys had been abusing him and calling him a fool, and showing him things they had stolen, he put some stones in his pocket and went down to the water to kill himself, but something told him not to, and he flung ‘em away. And the next day Mr. Wilson came along and asked him to go to America, and he thought he couldn’t be in any worse place, and couldn’t suffer any more so he came.”

“What did you say to that?”

“Father, I’d rather not tell.”

“You cried,” said Maria, “I know he did, father, he’s most crying now.”

“I couldn’t help it May, and I guess you couldn’t have helped it neither, if you had only seen how pitiful he looked, and how sad his voice sounded.”

“What did he say when he found you cried?”

“He put his arm round me and said ‘don’t cry Bertie,’ and said he was sorry he made me feel bad. I tell you, all of you, I love him, I know he’s good as he can be, and I knew he was from the first, ‘cause I saw Frank loved him. Frank knows I tell you.”

“I suppose Frank will love anybody who’ll feed and make much of him.”

“No he won’t father, because there was Mike Walsh who stole your coat, and ran off after you overpaid him, would feed him and try every way to get the right side of him, but he couldn’t, and Frank would bite him whenever he could get a chance; and you know father he couldn’t catch him in the pasture.”

“Did he talk with you on the way home?”

“Never opened his mouth only to say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ or ‘don’t know.’”

“I shouldn’t think you’d like him so much as though he talked more, I shouldn’t,” said Maria.

“Who wants anybody all the time a gabbing just like Matt Saunders when she comes here to help mother draw a web into the loom, her tongue going all the time like a pullet when she’s laid her first egg. I’ve heard mother say it was just like the letting out of water, but when James says anything there’s some sense to it,” retorted Bertie resolved in the enthusiasm of friendship that no fault should be found in his protégé.

“Ain’t you glad you took him, father?”

“I took him because I thought it to be my duty, and I think we always feel best when we have done our duty,” replied the cautious parent.

“I am!” exclaimed the grandparent, “what a sin and a shame it would have been for a young able-bodied man like that to have remained starving in rags, scorned by the sweepings of a workhouse, because he could find no work by which to earn his bread, had too much pride of character to beg, and too much principle to steal.”

“Aye,” said Alice Whitman, “and suppose he had been driven by misery to take his own life. But now he is in a fair way to make a good and useful member of society. As far as I am concerned, he shall have as kind usage as any child of mine, for I believe he was sent to us.”

“The prayers of good persons are always heard, but are not always answered at once; and I have no doubt it was the prayer of that Christian mother that stood in the way to stay his hand when he thought to commit murder upon himself.”

“You need not be afraid, Jonathan Whitman, to do for and trust that lad. His father was a hard working Christian man, and his mother a hard working Christian woman. There’s no vile blood in his veins, he was born where the birds sang, and the grass grew around the door-step, if he did find shelter in a workhouse. You’ll honor yourself and bring a blessing upon your own hearthstone by caring for him.”

“Amen,” exclaimed the grandparent, laying his great wrinkled hand in benediction upon the head of his son’s wife.

In making such minute inquiries of Albert in respect to the conversation between himself and James, Mr. Whitman was influenced by a stronger motive than mere curiosity. He knew, for he was a keen observer, that James would unbosom himself to this innocent, enthusiastic and artless boy in a manner that he would not to any other; and he wanted to get at his inward life that he might thoroughly know, and thus understandingly, guide and benefit him.

Reflecting upon what he had heard, he drew from it this inference, and said within himself, “There’s life in him yet.”

CHAPTER VII.
NOBLE CONDUCT OF BERTIE.

The next day proved rainy, but Mrs. Whitman perceived that—notwithstanding the lack of enthusiasm manifested by her husband the evening before,—though there was much work under cover that was quite necessary to be done, he did not set James about it; but told Bertie that he and James might take the day to study, after doing the chores, and, taking Peter, went to the barn to thresh beans.

“Father, can I teach James to write, too?”

“You have no writing-book.”

“I have one I didn’t quite finish last winter, and so has Maria.”

“There’s not a quill in the house, and but one pen that has been mended till there’s not much of it left, and I can’t spare that.”

“We can pull some out of the old gander.”

“They will be too soft.”

“Mother says she can bake ‘em in the oven.”

“Well, fix it to suit yourselves.”

One obstacle surmounted, another arose.

“Mother, I can’t find my plummet, and there’s not a mite of lead in the house; what shall I do to rule the writing-book?”

“Ask grandfather to give you a bullet; he’s never without bullets.”

When grandfather was appealed to, he said, “I have but one, Bertie; and that’s in my rifle. I loaded her for an owl that’s been round trying to kill a goose, but I will lend it to you to rule your book.”

He took down the rifle into which Bertie had seen him drive the bullet, wrapped in a greased patch. “Grandpa, you never can get it out.”

“Go up stairs and get a bag of wool that is right at the head of the stairs.”

When Bertie brought the wool, grandfather made a circle on the bag with a smut coal, and a cross in the middle of it.

“Now, Bertie, take that bag out of doors and set it up where I tell you. I’m going to put a bullet into the middle of that cross.”

After placing the bag at the distance pointed out, he said, “Where shall I stand, grandpa?”

“Wherever you like, ‘cept betwixt me and that cross.”

“Why, grandfather, what are you thinking of? Come right into the house, Bertie,” cried Mrs. Whitman, “your grandfather’s going to shoot.”

“What if I am,” replied the old man testily, “I’m not going to shoot all over the country. His father would hold the bag in his hand, as he has done smaller things, a hundred times.”

“I know it, grandpa; but you must remember that you are an old man now, and of course can’t see as well as you could once, and your hand cannot be so steady.”

“I can see well enough to thread your needle when you can’t, and well enough to hit a squirrel’s eye within thirty yards.”

The old gentleman fired, the bag fell over and Bertie cried,—

“There’s a hole right in the middle of the cross, as you said, grandpa.”

“Indeed! I wonder at that. Wonder the bullet hadn’t gone up into the air, or into the ground, or killed your father or Peter in the barn, or into the pasture and killed one of the horses,” replied he, entirely unable to digest the suspicion that his powers were waning, implied in the caution of Mrs. Whitman to Bertie.

The bullet was found in the wool, having penetrated a few inches. After hammering the bullet into the shape of a plummet on the andiron, he gave it to Bertie, saying,—

“When you are done with it give it back to me, and I will run it into a bullet again, for I want to kill that owl. It’s all I’m fit for now; to kill vermin, some people think. I expect I’m in the way.”

Mrs. Whitman never noticed any little testiness that occasionally clouded the spirit of the genial sunny-tempered old gentleman, who, though he would sometimes say that he was growing old, could seldom without disturbance brook the remark or even suspicion, from another.

He had been celebrated for strength and activity, and with the exception of a stiffness in his legs, the result of toils and exposures in early life, was still strong. It was surprising to see what a pile of wood he would cut in an hour. He used no glasses, had every tooth he ever possessed, his mind was clear, his judgment good, his health firm, and his disposition such as made every one happy around him. Any labor that admitted of standing still or moving slowly he could still perform; could reap, hoe, chop wood, took entire charge of the garden, and could work at a bench with tools, and nothing seemed to disturb the serenity of his mind, save the suspicion that he was superannuated. No one could equal him in putting an edge on a scythe, and he ground all the scythes in haying time, the grindstone being placed under the old chestnut, and fitted with a seat for his convenience.

Alice Whitman soon restored the old gentleman’s good humor by showing him the pattern of a new spread for his bed that she was then drawing in the loom to weave; she then wheeled his great chair to the fire, flung on some cobs to make a cheerful blaze, and grandfather, restored to his composure, began to chat and tell of the birch-bark writing-books they had in his school days.

Thus did Bradford Whitman and his wife unite in smoothing the declivity of age to one who had fought and won life’s battle; made many blades of grass to grow where there were none before; reared a large family in habits of industry and virtue; had fought with the savage in defence of his own hearthstone; bore the scars of wounds received in the service of his country, and having made his peace with God, resembled an old ship just returned from a long and tempestuous voyage—her sails thread-bare, her rigging chafed and stranded, her bulwarks streaked with iron-rust—riding quietly at anchor in the outer harbor, waiting for the tug to tow her to the pierhead.

The example of the parents infected the children, and they vied with one another in attention to their grandfather and in obedience and affection to their parents. Thus were Jonathan Whitman and his wife reaping as they had sown, and daily receiving the blessing promised to filial obedience.

Provided at last with quill and writing-book and plummet, the boys spent the entire day in alternate exercises of teaching and learning the letters of the alphabet, and to make straight marks.

When the boys had gone to bed, Mr. Whitman and his wife were looking at the writing and the latter said,—

“The last of James’ straight marks are a good deal better than the copy Bertie set for him.”

The old gentleman, after looking at it, said, “That boy will make a good penman. You can see that he improves, as he goes on; his marks are square and clean cut at top and bottom. I think, for a boy that never had a pen in his hand before, he has done remarkably well.”

“Husband, what are you going to set James about to-morrow?”

“Driving horses to plough. Why?”

“We want some wood cut; and I don’t think your father ought to cut so much as he does. The weather is getting cooler, and we burn a good deal more, but I am afraid it will hurt his feelings if anybody else cuts wood for the fire, as he considers that his work.”

“I can arrange that. I’ll tell him in the morning that I want James to learn to handle an axe; that he undertook at Hanscom’s tavern to cut some wood and stuck the whole bitt of the axe in his leg the second clip, and ask him if he won’t grind an axe for him and take him to the wood-pile with him, and teach him, and see that he does not cut himself.”

The old gentleman was well pleased with the idea of teaching James an art in which he was so competent to instruct, not in the least suspecting that it was thought he could not supply the fire without doing more than he was able.

No sooner was breakfast despatched than, having ground an axe, he proceeded with James to the wood-pile.

The old gentleman set his chopping-block on end near a pile of oak and maple limbs cut eight feet in length, and said to his pupil,—

“Now, Jeames (he held on to the old pronunciation) I’ll hold these sticks on the block and I want you to strike just there,” pointing with his finger, “where they bear on the log, because if you don’t, you’ll jar my hands.”

Not, however, reposing much confidence in his assistant, he had taken the precaution to put on a very thick patched mitten to deaden the jar.

James began to strike, the blows were forcible but most of them misspent. Whenever he struck fair on a stick he cut it off as though it had been a rush. But many times he struck over, and as many more fell short, so that only the corner of the axe hit the stick, and sometimes missed it altogether and drove the axe into the block with such force that it was hard work to pull it out.

It was by no means the old chopper’s purpose to find fault, he praised the vigor with which James struck and protected his own fingers from the jar of the random blows as well as he could. In the course of an hour James improved very sensibly; perceiving this, Mr. Whitman began to point out some of his errors and said: “You must look at the place where you mean to hit and not at your axe, and you must let your left hand slip up and down on the axe-handle and guide your axe a good deal with your right hand, whereas you keep a fast grip with both hands on the axe-handle, just as a woman does when she undertakes to cut wood.”

James blushed and replied,—

“If I should do that way I don’t think I could strike as fair as I do now.”

“You won’t at first, but after a while you will. You may cut off small limbs on a block in your fashion, but you could not work to any purpose in cutting large wood on the ground. I’ll cut a while and you may hold on, and you’ll see how I cut.”

The blows of the senior were delivered with the precision of a machine.

James took the axe again, and though, at first, he seemed to retrograde, it was not long before he became accustomed to the new method. The old gentleman now began to put on the block sticks that were so large that it required two or three blows to sever them when the blows were delivered with precision, but it required seven or eight of James’. For instance, if it was a stick that might be cut at two blows, he would deliver one and cut it half off, and then, instead of striking in the same scarf and severing it he would strike a little on one side or the other and the blow went for nothing. He now saw that it was necessary to strike fair, for by striking once in a place he could never cut a stick of any size off, and feeling that when he did strike into the same place it was more by chance than skill, began to be somewhat discouraged.

The senior noticed this and said,—

“Let me cut a spell, you are tired and will strike better after resting a while.”

James could not but admire the precision and ease with which he lopped the sticks, so true were the blows that when he took and looked at the ends they seemed to have been cut at one blow, whereas the ends of his sticks looked like a pair of stairs and the bark was in shreds.

When at the expiration of an hour the old gentleman gave him the axe, and he saw what a pile of wood the former had cut, James could not help saying,—

“I don’t believe I shall ever strike true.”

“Indeed you will; it’s all in practice. You mustn’t be discouraged if you should find that little Bertie can strike truer than you can now, for the boys here begin to chop as soon as they can lift an axe, whereas it is a new thing to you.”

The next morning his instructor set James to cutting large logs, showed him how to cut his scarfs and told him to strike slow, and as fair as possible, for every miss clip was so much time and strength laid out for nothing, and thinking it would only discourage James if he should go to cutting logs with him, employed himself in splitting.

It was now an entirely different thing with James. He was stiff and sore, but after he got warmed up, he found that he could strike a great deal better. The old gentleman praised his work and told him he had a mechanical eye and he knew it by his writing, and with practice he would handle any kind of a tool.

The hands of James were now blistered, and Mr. Whitman, who had a large breadth of ground to plough for spring wheat, made out two teams,—Bertie driving John and Charlie for Peter, and James driving Frank and Dick for him.

James proved an excellent driver, and Mr. Whitman was so much gratified, that at night he said to his wife,—

“I believe, after all, that boy is going to make most excellent help, he handles horses as well as anybody, young or old, that I ever had on the place.”

“He has a great memory, and if he learns other things as fast as he learns to read and write, you’ll never regret that you took him.”

“James,” said Mr. Whitman, as they were at work together the next day, “did you ever hold plough?”

“I never was anything but a ploughboy. In England the ploughman does nothing but plough, and in many places drives and holds both, but I have held plough a few hours, and sometimes half a day, when the ploughman was sick or away.”

“Well, take hold of the handles.”

Mr. Whitman took the reins, and James held so well, that his master kept him at it till noon. Peter and Bertie were ploughing in the same field, and they could not help going into the house for a drink, and telling their grandfather that James was holding plough, and their father driving the horses.

While matters were thus pleasantly going on among the Whitmans, the most contradictory stories were circulated in the neighborhood in respect to James.

Those who obtained their information from the landlord of the public-house where Wilson put up, having James with him, averred that Jonathan Whitman had got awfully cheated in a redemptioner; that he was lame and underwitted; a great scrawny, loutish boy, and no life in him, and had such a down look that many people reckoned he might be a thief, most likely he was, for Wilson got him out of a parish workhouse.

Others were of opinion that the next time Wilson came that way he should be treated to a coat of tar and feathers for putting such a creature on to so good a man as Mr. Jonathan Whitman; still others said there could be no doubt of it, for Blaisdell, Mr. Wood’s redemptioner, who came over in the same vessel, said he thought he was underwitted or crazy, for he never heard him speak, nor saw him talk with any of the passengers.

While this talk was going on in the bar-room, a shoemaker came in, who said that Lunt the miller told him that the week before the redemptioner was at his mill with Whitman’s youngest boy, and he never saw a man handle a span of horses or bags of wheat better, and that he would pitch a barrel of flour into a wagon as easily as a cat would lick her ear.

James Stone the peddler then said that the last time he was there, the redemptioner was sitting in the sun on the wood-pile, while Whitman and Peter were threshing in the barn with all their might, and the redemptioner had been there a week then.

At that moment a drover, a joking, good-natured fellow, came into the bar-room and said he was over in Whitman’s neighborhood that very forenoon, and when he went by there about eleven o’clock, the redemptioner was holding plough, and Whitman was driving, and the horses were stepping mighty quick too.

This occasioned a great laugh, and the subject was dropped. The verdict, however, remained unfavorable to James, as Eustis the shoemaker was not considered very reliable, and Sam Dorset the drover was so given to joking, that though a truthful man, everyone supposed he then spoke in jest.

James now went again to the wood-pile with the old gentleman, and chopped for four days in succession, the former cutting till he was tired, and then going into the house or piling up the wood.

The weather was fast growing cooler, and it was the custom of Mr. Whitman to cut and haul a large quantity of wood to last over the wet weather in the fall and till snow came. He also wished to haul wheat to the mill himself, and wanted Peter to go with him, going two turns in a day. He therefore asked his father if he felt able to go into the woods with James and Bertie, and show James how to fell a tree, and see that he didn’t fell one on himself or Bertie.

The old gentleman said he could go as well as not, that he could ride back and forth in the cart, chop as much as he liked, and then make up a fire, and sit by it, and see to them, and he thought it would do him good to be in the woods.

The old gentleman selected a tree and cut it down, while James who had never seen a tree cut down in his life, looked on; he then selected another and told him to chop into it. James did so, though he found it a little more difficult to strike fair into the side of a tree, than into a log lying on the ground. When it was more than half off his instructor told him where to cut on the other side.

James walked round the tree and stood by the lower side of his scarf, and was about to strike.

“You mustn’t stand there; turn round and put your left shoulder to the tree, and your left hand on the lower end of the axe-handle, now strike.”

“I can’t cut so, it don’t come right, I ain’t lefthanded.”

“That indeed! but all good choppers, when they fell a tree, learn to chop either hand forward; you must put your right hand forward.”

“I couldn’t guide the axe with my right hand forward; I never could cut a tree down in that way. I should only hack it off.”

“Well, hack it then, you must creep afore you can walk, it comes just as unhandy to everybody at first.”

He then took James to a ravine, the sides of which were quite perpendicular and the edges covered with large trees, and said,—

“Now, suppose you wanted to cut one of those trees, you couldn’t stand on the lower side to cut, but must either cut them off all on one side, or chop right hand forward. Besides, there is often another tree in the way and you would have to cut both, to cut one.”

CHAPTER VIII.
INFLUENCE OF HOPE.

As the old gentleman ended, James heard the crash of a falling tree, and saw that Bertie had just dropped a much larger tree than the senior had given to him, and had also cut it right hand forward; this determined him, and he began to chop into the side of another tree while his instructor, feeling that James would rather not have his eye upon him, went to help Bertie.

James took very good care to cut the tree almost off in his usual way, in order that he might be compelled to chop as little as possible in the new fashion (that is, new to him); he however found that little sufficiently puzzling. Two only out of five blows that struck upon the upper slanting side of his kerf took effect in the same place, but when he came to strike in square across on the lower side, the first blow hit the root of the tree, and the edge of the axe came within a hair’s breadth of a stone; the next struck about half way between the root and the spot aimed at, and the third alone reached the right place. James sweat, grew red in the face, and showered blows at random, very few of which effected anything, and when at length the tree came down the stump looked as if it had been gnawed by rats. In cutting up the tree, James recovered his equanimity, his nervous spasm passed off, and, resolved to conquer, he cut the next only half way off in his usual manner, and when he turned to the other side, succeeded so much better as to feel somewhat encouraged, especially as he was assured by Bertie that it was long before he learned to chop right hand forward, and that in his opinion James was getting along remarkably fast, and would soon be able to chop as easily with his right hand forward as with the left.

They had brought their dinners with them, and besides a jug of hot coffee wrapped in a blanket to keep it warm. Bertie had also brought a gun, and while James was making a great fire against a ledge of rocks he shot a wild turkey, a great gobbler, and they roasted it before the fire, and also roasted potatoes in the ashes, and set the coffee jug in the hot ashes till the contents fairly boiled. They now made a soft seat for grandfather with bushes, on which they spread their jackets, and he sat with his back against the ledge that was warmed from the heat of the fire, while the sun shone bright upon his person, and then they fell to, with appetites sharpened by labor and the breath of the woods, and had a great feast, drinking their coffee out of birch-bark cups that the grandfather made and put together with the spike of a thorn-bush for a pin.

This, which was but an ordinary affair to Bertie and his grandfather, opened a new world to James. It was the first time in his experience that pleasure was ever connected with labor. Hitherto labor with him recalled no pleasant associations; it was hard, grinding toil, performed to obtain bread, and under the eye of a task-master, and dinner was for the most part a little bread and cheese, eaten under a hedge, or rick of grain, with a mug of beer to wash down the bread, made largely of peas,—with the dark background of the past and a hopeless future,—but now every moment and every morsel was full of enjoyment. The good old man, refreshed by rest and a hearty meal, breathing once more the air of the woods where he loved to be, and exhilarated by old and pleasant associations, was in a most jovial mood, that infected his companions; and when Bertie, in response to some humorous remark of his grandfather, broke out in a ringing laugh, James joined heartily in it. The surprise of Bertie at such a development can only be imagined, not described. His features expressed wonder, mingled with surprise, in so ludicrous a manner as to provoke another peal of laughter from James, who from that moment became a different boy. The fetters that had bound him to despondency as with gyves of steel were loosened. A ray of sunlight darted athwart the gloom, hope was born, and a dim consciousness of something higher and nobler began to dawn upon him. He stretched himself on the ground beside the fire, and lay looking up into the sky in a perfect dream of happiness. Rousing himself at length, he asked the old gentleman who planted all the trees on that land.

“The Lord planted them; they’ve always been here; as fast as one dies or is cut down another comes up. We don’t plant trees here, except fruit trees; we cut ‘em down. When I came on to this farm it was all forest, and no neighbor within nine miles.”

“It must be some great duke or earl who owns this land. I shouldn’t think he’d let you cut down so many trees. In England, if you cut a little tree as big as a ramrod you’d be sent to jail, and I don’t know but be hung.”

“Dukes or earls! We don’t have any such vermin here; but my father came from England, and we’ve heard him say that there a few great proprietors own all the land, and the farmers are mostly tenants and pay rent. Thank God, any man who has his health and is sober and industrious can own land here.”

“Does Bertie’s father own all this land?”

“Yes, it was mine; I gave it to him.”

“You can own a piece of land, James,” said Bertie; “I am saving my money to buy a piece of land. I’ve got twenty dollars now, and a yoke of steers that I am going to sell. I mean to have a farm of my own, and raise lots of wheat, just as grandfather did, and then when I’m old I can tell what I did, just as he does; and I hope there will be a war, so that I can fight, and have it to tell of, and be made much of, just as he is.”

“Such as me have a farm!” and James smiled incredulously.

“Sartain you can,” replied the senior; “if you are steady and industrious and learn to work, when you have done here you can obtain all the work you want at good wages. It takes but little money to buy wild land. You can go where land is cheap and begin as I did.”

This was an idea too large for James to grasp, and seemed, though magnificent, altogether fantastic. He again smiled incredulously, and repeated to himself in a low tone, “Such as me have a farm!”

“Why do you say such as me?” replied the senior, who overheard the remark. “If you want to be a man, and to be well thought of and respected, and to have friends, all in the world you have to do in this country is to learn to work and read and write and be honest; and nobody is going to ask or care who your father was, all they will want to be satisfied about is as to what you are. There’s nothing can hinder you, nothing can keep you down.

“But there’s another thing, and it is of more consequence than all the rest. If you want to feel right and prosper, fear the Lord who giveth food to man and beast.

“When I came into these woods, all I had left after paying for my land was the clothes on my back, my rifle, a few charges of powder and shot, a narrow axe and a week’s provisions; all my wife had was her spinning-wheel, cards, a few pounds of wool, two pewter plates, one bottle and the clothes on her back and some blankets. I carried a pack on my back, and my axe, and hauled the other stuff on a sledge—for it was the last of March and there was plenty of snow in the woods—she carried my rifle and a bundle.”

“But, Mr. Whitman,” said James, “if it was all woods and nobody lived near, where were you and your wife going to stop?”

“My intention was to cut out a place to build a log-house, and I had expected to reach the spot at noon, so as to be able to make a bush camp by night to shelter us while building; but the travelling was bad, the sun was down before reaching the spot and we came into the woods by twilight.

“I built a fire after scraping away the snow with a piece of bark, and as we sat by it and listened to the sound of the wind among the trees, you don’t know how solemn it seemed.”

“I should have thought you would have felt afraid,” said Bertie.

“I had been well instructed, and both myself and wife had professed to fear God—and did fear him—but we did not fear much else, though we had but a week’s food, and were nine miles from any human being. We knelt down together and I told my Maker there and then, that my wife and I were a couple of his poor children; that she was an orphan and had been put out since she was twelve years of age and had never had any home of her own. That we had nothing but our hands, and health, and strength, and were about to begin for ourselves in His woods; and wanted to begin with His blessing. That we would try to do right, and if we found any poorer or worse off than ourselves, would help them and be content with and thankful for whatever He gave us, be it little or much.

“I then made a bed of brush for my wife, covered her with blankets, threw some light brush on them, and sat all night by the fire with my rifle in hand.”

“I guess grandmother didn’t sleep much?” said Bertie.

“She slept all night like one of God’s lambs, as she was, though she had the courage of a lion. The next day I made a shelter of brush that kept out rain and snow, and by Saturday morning I had built a house of small-sized logs (such as your grandmother and I could roll up) with a bark roof, a stone fireplace and chimney of sticks and clay. I had also shot a buck, we brought a peck of Indian meal with us, your grandmother baked her first loaf of bread on the hearth, and we kept the Sabbath all alone in the woods with glad hearts. It is more than fifty years since I thus sought God’s blessing, and during all that time I have never lacked. I have raised up a large family of children; they are all well-to-do in the world. I am still able to be of some use, and am ready whenever the Master calls.

“Jeames, my laddie, fear God, you may be tempted to think trying to do right has in the past brought you nothing but unhappiness, that you have only been scorned and flouted because you would not take His name in vain. But those bitter days will never come back. His providence has brought you to us, and should you live as long as I have, you will never regret having put your trust in Him!”

No force of learning, eloquence, or wit, could have produced so genial and abiding an impression upon James, as the words we have recorded. The character and person of the speaker himself—the very situation, beside a forest fire—all tended to heighten both the moral and physical effect of the sentiments uttered.

The elder Whitman possessed indeed a most commanding presence. His great bones and sinews, now that the body was attenuated by age, stood out in such bold relief as to challenge attention; showing the vast strength he once possessed, and that still lingered in those massive limbs, while the burden of years had neither bowed his frame, nor had age dimmed the fire of his eye.

In addition to all this, the accounts James had heard from Bertie of his encounters with the red men, and with bears, and wolves, together with the scars of wounds that he had upon his person, supplemented by the respect and affection with which he was treated by the whole household, caused James to look upon and listen to him with awe and wonder.

He could understand the plain and terse utterances of the old woodsman, and they gave a new and strong impulse to ideas and trains of thought that were now germinating within him.

The next morning, as Mr. Whitman wanted the four horses to haul wheat, he told Bertie they must take the oxen and cart with them, and bring home a load of wood both at noon and night. He also told his father that he had better not go, that two days’ work in succession and the travel back and forth were too much for him. The old gentleman, however, said it was not, he could ride in the cart; and that as they were now to cut larger trees, it was not safe to leave the boys to fell them alone.

James had never seen an ox in the yoke, and he was much surprised to see with what docility the near ox came across the yard to come under the yoke, when Bertie held up the end of it and said,—

“Bright, come under.”

He also observed how readily they obeyed the motion of the goad, and handled the cart just as they were directed.

“I never thought a bullock knew anything, but they seem to know as much as horses,” said James.

“Yes, just as much.”

Having ground their axes—with grandfather in the cart—they started, and when they came to the wood the oxen were unyoked to go where they pleased.

“Won’t they run away?” said James.

“No, they saw the axes in the cart and know what we are going to do; you see they don’t offer to start. The very first tree we fell, if it is hard wood or hemlock, they’ll come to browse the limbs. They love to browse dearly, and all day they won’t go farther than a spring there is near, to drink.”

They now began to cut the trees, and the moment the cattle heard the sound of the axes they came running to the spot.

“What did I tell you?” said Bertie. “They know what the sound of an axe means, just as I know when I come home from school and see mother look into the oven, or reach her hand up on the top shelf, she’s got something good laid away for me.”

A road was first cleared, and then the trees were cut into lengths of sixteen feet, and rolled up in piles on the sides of the road.

“What makes your grandfather have them cut so long, they can never be put into a cart?” said James.

“This wood is for next winter, and won’t be hauled till snow comes, and then it will be hauled on two sleds put one behind the other.”

Mrs. Whitman insisted that grandfather should take a nap after dinner, and as Bertie had to wait to haul him out, James went to the wood-lot alone. He had felled a large hemlock and was cutting off the first log, when he observed a man on horseback attentively watching him. In a few moments the man rode up and inquired where Mr. Whitman was. James replied that he had gone to the mill with a load of wheat. He then inquired if the oxen were there, James told him they would be along in a few minutes, and as they were talking Bertie and the old gentleman came. This person was the drover who had seen James holding plough, and who occasioned so much merriment by saying so at the tavern. He felt of the cattle, took a chain from his pocket, measured them, and then told the old gentleman to inform his son to be at home the next Monday, for he was coming that way then, and wanted to trade with him for the oxen and some lambs.

When, on the next Saturday night, the usual company of idlers and hard drinkers assembled in the bar-room of the tavern, the drover added still more to the muddle of conflicting opinions in regard to James by telling the crowd that he “went through the woods to Malcom’s, after lambs, and, as he returned through Whitman’s woods, came across the redemptioner chopping alone. That he had just cut a big hemlock and was junking it up and handled an axe right smart. That he made some talk with him and called him a real good-looking, rugged, civil-spoken fellow,” and went on to say that he “wouldn’t give him for two, yes, three, of that Blaisdell, Mr. Woods had got. The boy certainly was not lame, for he stood on the tree to chop, and when he got down to speak to him didn’t limp a particle, and he believed all the stories told about him were a pack of lies, got up to hurt a civil young man because he was a foreigner.”

This brought out the tavern-keeper, and the dispute came near ending in a downright brawl, and was only prevented by the drover proposing to “treat all hands and drop it.”

The elder Whitman was so much gratified with the progress made by James that he resolved to make him aware of it. The next day proved stormy, and after breakfast he brought out an axe that had been ground, and said,—

“James, that axe of yours is not fit to chop with. It is not the best of steel, nor is it made right to throw a chip, and the handle is too big and stiff; it’s just the handle to split, not to chop with. But there’s an axe Mr. Paul Rogers made for me that’s made just right to work easy in the wood, and he is the best man to temper an edge-tool I ever knew. My cutting days are about over and I’ll give it to you, and make a proper chopping handle to it, and then we’ll grind it and you’ll have a good axe.

“I’ve not the least doubt you’ll make a first rate chopper, and be real ‘sleighty’ with an axe. This is a heavier tool than I care to use now, but you’ve got the strength, and practice will give you the sleight.”

James, stimulated by finding that he had finally mastered the difficulty, and delighted with the kindly interest manifested by the old gentleman, gave his whole soul to work; and by the time the winter’s wood was cut could chop faster than either of the boys, and could drive the oxen well enough for most purposes.

A variety of circumstances conspired not only thereby to develop the ability of James, but also to prove that he was by no means untouched by the kindness with which he was treated.

Mr. Whitman, having sold his large oxen to the drover, to be delivered in a week, desired, before parting with them, to break up a piece of rough land with them and the steers, and also to plough a piece of old ground that had been planted with corn that year, and that two horses could plough. All this work must be done speedily, as the ground was likely to shut up.

In the evening the family were seated around the fire, Bertie superintending James who was writing, when Mr. Whitman said,—

“Father, I don’t see but I must hire a hand. I want to plough a piece of corn-ground for wheat, and I want very much to break up that rough piece before I give up the old oxen. By hiring some one to drive for James to plough for wheat I could accomplish it. After the land was struck out, Bertie could drive the oxen and Peter tend the plough for me.”

“Peter is not strong enough to tend the plough in that ground. There will be roots to cut, stumps to drag out of the way, great turfs as big as a blanket to turn over; it needs a strong man such as this poor old worn-out creature was when you was a boy. But I can drive the oxen, and then you can have both boys to tend plough.”

“I never will allow that; you cannot travel over that rough ground. I can stop the team once in a while, and help Peter.”

James, who had listened to this conversation, gave Bertie a hint to go into the porch, and when they were alone, said,—

“Bertie, I can take Frank and Dick, and plough that ground alone.”

“You can’t do that, James; nobody here ever ploughs alone with horses. They do sometimes with old steady oxen.”

“Yes, I can. In England most of the ploughmen drive themselves. The corn-butts have been all taken off, and the plough won’t clog much.”

James resumed his writing, and Bertie soon made the matter known to his father, who said,—

“James, can you plough that corn-ground alone?”

“Yes, sir; with old Frank and Dick. I would not try it with the other horses.”

The next morning the two teams started at the same time. Bertie wanted to go and see James begin, but his father told him to keep away, as he had no doubt James would prefer to be alone.

Bertie was on tenter-hooks all the forenoon to know how his protégé got along, and kept chattering incessantly about it.

“Father, I saw him cut four alder sprouts as much as six feet long, with a little bunch of leaves left on the end, and then he stuck ‘em under the hame-straps on Frank’s collar.”

“That was to mark his land out. The sprouts are so limber that the horses will walk right over them without turning aside, and the tuft of leaves on top will enable him to see them between the horses’ heads.”

At eleven o’clock they stopped to rest the oxen, and Bertie improved the opportunity to climb a tree that he might be able to see James over the rising ground between them.

“Can you see him?” said Peter.

“I can’t see him, but he’s ploughing all right. Everything is going along just right.”

“How do you know that, my son, if you can’t see him?”

“Because, father, I can see the heads and part of the necks of the horses, and they are going round and round as regular as can be. They are stepping lively, too, and every now and then old Frank keeps flirting up his head just as he does when he feels about right and everything suits him. You know how he does?”

“No, I don’t know, for I don’t take so much notice of Frank’s ways as you do.”

When they left work at noon, and while his father and Peter were tying up the oxen, Bertie scampered off to the field where James had been at work and came back in most exuberant spirits. After dinner he could not be satisfied unless his father went out to see the ploughed ground, and to his great delight his grandfather accompanied them.

The ground was a hazel loam, free of stones, and James had turned a back furrow through the middle as straight as an arrow. The furrows were of equal width; there were no balks, and it looked like garden mould. Mr. Whitman was very much gratified, as Bertie knew by his looks, though he merely observed,—

“That is good work.”

“It is as good a piece of work as I ever saw done,” said the grandfather.

When night came Bertie importuned James to tell him how he drove the horses so straight the first time going round, when they had no furrow to guide them and held the plough at the same time.

James, in ridicule of Bertie, who was so fond of imputing human intelligence to Frank, and with a sly humor, of which he had never manifested a trace before, said,—

“I told old Frank I had never tried to plough alone before, and wanted to plough a straight furrow, and I asked him if he wouldn’t go just as straight for the marks as he could, and so he did.”

“Oh, now you’re fooling; come tell me.”

“I stuck up my marks, and then I drove the horses twice back and forth over the ground, before I put the plough to ‘em. Don’t you know that when a horse goes over ground the second time he always wants to step in the same tracks?”

“No.”

“Well, he does, and if another horse has been along, to step in his tracks. Did you never notice in the lanes and wood roads, how true the lines of grass are each side of the horse?”

“Yes.”

“They wouldn’t be, if horses didn’t want to go in the same track. The horses could see their tracks in the soft ground, and when I came to put the plough to ‘em, knew what I wanted, and that helped me to guide ‘em. Horses go in the main road because in the first place folks make ‘em go there, and when the ruts get worn, the carriage keeps them there, and it is easier than to cross the ruts. But in the pastures the horses and cattle always have their beaten paths, and nobody makes ‘em go in them, yet they always go in them,—and all go in them,—they wouldn’t be horses if they didn’t.”

“What did you do with the reins?”

“Flung ‘em over my neck.”

CHAPTER IX.
THE REDEMPTIONER AT MEETING.

While James was thus giving new proofs of capacity for usefulness, Mrs. Whitman had woven a web of cloth, sent it to the mill where it was colored and pressed, and had made James a suit of clothes for meeting, and a thick winter overcoat, and Mr. Whitman had bought him a hat.

Sunday morning came, Mrs. Whitman gave the clothes to James and told him to go up stairs and put them on, that she might see how they fitted. While the children, enjoying his dazed looks, were bursting with repressed glee, Bertie capered around the room at such a rate that Peter said he acted like a fool.

“Isn’t he stuck up?” said Peter.

“I mean to peek and see how he acts when he gets by himself,” said Bertie with his foot on the lower stair.

“Don’t do that, Bertie; mother, don’t let him,” said Peter.

His mother called him back, and he reluctantly sat down to await the conclusion.

At last they heard James, with a slow, hesitating step, descending the stairs. He paused long in the entry, and at length opening the door as cautiously as would a thief, crossed the room, and with a scared, troubled look, went and stood by the window with his back to all the inmates of the room, looking directly into the main road.

Mrs. Whitman found it somewhat difficult to compose her features as she said,—

“Come here, James, and let me see how they set; they may need some little alteration.”

When he turned, Mr. Whitman was looking straight at the crane, Peter was buried in the catechism which he held up to his face, while Bertie and Maria ran out to the barn and there vented their long suppressed feelings in peals of laughter, till they had obtained sufficient command of themselves to return to the house.

What unalloyed satisfaction, resulting from contributing to the happiness of others, predominated in the breasts of that household, as Mrs. Whitman turned James round and round, and invited the criticism of her husband as to the set of the garments. The grave features of Jonathan betokened a strong disposition to smile as he said,—

“I think they set well, and don’t see how you can alter them for the better.”

“They are a trifle long, husband, and a little large, but I can turn up a seam and it will do to let out again, for he’s growing.”

“Not one mite too large, wife, he’s at least forty pounds heavier than he was when he came here.”

The children now came around him with the charitable desire of relieving his embarrassment, and began to talk to him.

“What nice pockets!” said Bertie, thrusting his hands alternately into those of the waistcoat, and into the breast-pockets of the coat. Maria took hold of his hand and stood looking at the buttons of the coat, and Peter, passing his hands over the shoulders of James, admired the fit of the coat.

Mrs. Whitman now brought out the overcoat and put it on him, the children assisting, and thrusting his arms through the sleeves.

James knew that Mrs. Whitman was making him a suit of clothes, because she had taken his measure. But he did not know that she was making him an overcoat, and that at the same time she measured him for the coat and pants and waistcoat, had also measured him for that garment; neither did she intend he should. The surprise therefore was as great as she could have wished.

During all this time James stood like a statue, staring into vacancy, while the children made their comments and handled his limp form as they pleased. Mrs. Whitman, in the meantime, buttoned up the garment, pulled it down behind and before, manipulated it in various ways, finally pronouncing it as good a fit as could be made, concluding with the declaration that James had a good form to fit clothes to.

“Ain’t they handsome? Don’t you like ‘em?” said Bertie, putting his arms around the passive recipient of all these favors.

Instead of replying, this apparently insensible being burst into tears. Peter and Maria drew back amazed. Bertie’s eyes moistened with sympathetic feeling, and the situation was becoming sufficiently embarrassing to all, when Mr. Whitman said,—

“James, put Frank and Dick into the wagon; it’s getting towards meeting time, but go upstairs first, and take off your clothes.”

Thankful for the interruption, James quickly left the room.

“What made him cry, father?” said Peter. “Didn’t he like the clothes?”

“Yes, tickled to death with them.”

“Then what made him cry?”

“He cried for joy.”

“I didn’t know anybody ever cried because they were glad.”

“Some folks do; your mother burst out a crying when she stood up to be married to me, and there never was a gladder woman.”

“I guess somebody who didn’t cry was just as glad,” retorted Mrs. Whitman.

“That’s a fact, Alice; and has been glad ever since. Boys, run out and help James water, clean, and harness the horses, because he has got to shift his clothes again. Tell him he is going to meeting with us, and that I want him to drive.”

The great bulk of the people, in that day, rode on horseback, the women on pillions behind their husbands. They had the heavy Conestoga wagons, for six, four, or two horses, to haul wheat to market, and for farm work, but Whitman and a few of his neighbors had covered riding wagons.

As they neared the meeting-house Mr. Whitman told James to rein up, and pointed out to him the horse block. This was a large stick of timber placed near the main entrance of the church, one end of which rested upon the ground, while the other was raised so as to be on a level with the stirrup of the tallest horse. This arrangement accommodated everybody; the elderly people rode to the upper end, where they could dismount on a level, and where was a little platform, and a pair of steps with a railing, by which they could descend from the timber, while the others dismounted lower down. Many of the young gallants, however, disdained to make use of the horse-block at all.

Great was the wonderment when James drove up to the block in such a manner that the old grandfather could step out on the platform; and then drove to the hitching-place under a great locust tree, in the branches of which was hung the sweep of a well that furnished the people and animals with water, as there was no house in the vicinity, and most of the congregation came long distances to meeting.

From one to another the whispered inquiries and comments went around.

“Who is that driving the Whitmans?” said Joe Dinsmore to Daniel Brackett.

“That’s Whitman’s redemptioner.”

“Pshaw! what are you talking about, most likely it’s some relation of theirs from Lancaster. A mighty good-looking fellow he is, too; and has seen a horse afore to-day.”

“I tell you it’s his redemptioner.”

“And I tell you I know better. Why, man alive, do you think a redemptioner who’s a half fool, as everybody knows his redemptioner is, and was took out of a workhouse, would look, and act, and handle horses as that chap does?”

“Well, there’s Sam Dorset, the drover, knows him, and has spoken to him; I’ll leave it to him.”

Beckoning to Dorset, who was sitting on the horse-block, to come near; Brackett asked, —

“Who is that young fellow who drove Whitman’s folks up to the block just now?”

“Jim Renfew, his redemptioner.”

“You are such a joker that it’s hard to tell how to take you. Be you joking, or not? The story round our way is, and came pretty straight too, for it came from the tavern-keeper with whom Wilson always puts up, that Wilson took him out of a workhouse and that he’s underwitted.”

“I don’t know what he was took out of, but I know this much, that I was by Whitman’s, saw him holding plough and Whitman driving. I was there again, and came across him chopping in the woods and making the chips fly right smart, and last week I went there after lambs, and saw him ploughing by himself with the horses; and I venture to say there’s not a man of all who run him down can draw so straight a furrow as that fellow drew. I reckon Whitman has just got a treasure in that redemptioner, and I, for one, am glad of it. Jonathan Whitman is a man who is willing that others should live as well as himself, and uses everybody and everything well, from the cattle in his pastures to the hired hands in his field. And his wife is just like him, and so are the whole breed of ‘em; strong enough to tear anybody to pieces and not half try, and wouldn’t hurt a fly except they are provoked out of all reason, then stand from under.”

When the morning service was ended, Mrs. Whitman produced a basket of eatables of which they all partook, after which Mr. Whitman went into the porch.

It was not long before John and Will Edibean came into the pew and were introduced to James. John was about the age, and a great friend, of Peter, and Will of Bertie.

“Come,” said Bert, “let’s go sit in the carriage and talk till meeting begins.”

The boys turned the front seat round, so that they faced each other, and conversed, James putting in a word at times when drawn out by some question from Peter, and while they were thus engaged Sam Dorset sauntered along and shook hands with James.

In the porch Mr. Whitman encountered his neighbor Wood, who after greeting said,—

“Jonathan, you was dead set against having a redemptioner, allers said all you could agin the whole thing; now you’ve got one, how do you like him?”

“I despise the whole thing as much as ever, but I like the redemptioner well enough thus far; the old saying is ‘you must summer and winter a man to find him out,’ and I have not done either yet.”

“If you haven’t changed your mind and still despise the whole thing, what made you take this redemptioner?”

“I got kind of inveigled into it. Had he been grown man, such as most any one would have been glad to have, I would have had nothing to do with it, but when I came to look at the poor lad, lame, with scarcely a rag to his back, without friends or money, and in a strange land, when I found that he came out of a workhouse, and naturally thought he could do no farm work, and noticed how kind of pitiful he looked, you don’t know how it made me feel. I knew in reason that boy would be like to suffer, because well-to-do people would not have him, and he would be almost certain to fall into the hands of those who would abuse him.”

“I see it worked on your feelings.”

“More than that, it worked upon my conscience. I knew I was able to protect that boy; something seemed to say to me, ‘Jonathan Whitman, you won’t sell an old horse that has served you well, lest he should fall into bad hands; are you going to turn your back upon a friendless boy, made in the image of God who has blessed you in your basket and your store?’ Still I could hardly bring myself to take a boy who had been born, as it were, brought up, at least, in a workhouse, and thought to give him a ten-dollar bill and get off in that way.”

“You didn’t want to take him into the family with your own children?”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head. As I said at first, I got inveigled into it and took him; but if it was to be done over again I would do it. Now that you have wormed all this out of me, I am going to measure you in your own bushel. For these six years past you’ve been aching to take a redemptioner, and importuning me to take one, now that you’ve got one, how do you like him?”

“Not over and above, and I don’t mean to do much in the way of clothing him, or keeping him, till I find him out. When I come to see how much less he does than a man I could hire; and feel that I must keep and board him all winter when he won’t earn his board; must run the chance of his being taken sick or getting hurt, I find that it is not, after all, such cheap labor as I at first imagined,—let alone the risk of his running away after he finds out what wages he can get elsewhere. I am going to find out what’s in him before I throw away any more money on him. By the way, don’t you think you’re beginning rather strong with your redemptioner? You take a boy right out of the workhouse, who, by all accounts, has been hardly used and kept down, bring him into your family, dress him up and treat him just like one of your own children; don’t you think he’ll be like to get above himself and you too, and give you trouble?”

“I don’t calculate to make him my heir, or indulge him to his injury; but I mean that he shall have the privilege of going to meeting and to school as my children do.”

“To school! What, send a redemptioner to school?”

“Yes, I am after the same thing that you are; you are trying to find out what is in your redemptioner, and I in mine.”

“That’s a queer way to find out.”

“It is somewhat different from yours, but suppose you had a colt and wanted to bring out his real disposition, which would be the surest way, to keep him short, work him hard, give him a cold stable, never bed or curry him, or to give him plenty of provender, a warm blanket, a good bed, and dress him down every day?”

“I suppose if there was any spirit or any ugliness in him, the good keeping would bring it out.”

“I think so, and if my man is of that nature that he can’t bear nor respond to good treatment I don’t want him.”

“But you are taking a very costly way to get information; and if, after all your expense of sending him to school, clothing, and buying books for him, he gives you the slip, you have failed of your object, which was to get cheap labor, and lost much money. While I, if my man proves worthless, have only lost a portion of the passage money.”

“I shall not have failed of my object, since it was not my intention in taking this lad to obtain cheap labor, or to make money out of him.”

“I should like to know what you did take him for? You’re a sharper man than I am, can make two dollars where I make one, and calculate to get labor as cheap as any body.”

“I took him because I thought it my duty to befriend a friendless boy. His being a redemptioner had nothing to do with it; but his youth, his misery, and his liability to be abused had. I don’t believe in cheap labor, which means dear labor in the end. I don’t believe in losing fifty bushels of wheat for the sake of saving two shillings on a man’s wages in harvest. Thus I shall not fail of my object if the boy does not turn out well, because I shall have discharged my duty. It seems to me, neighbor, that upon your principle of not risking anything, not trusting anybody, nor letting the laboring man have a fair chance, lest he should take advantage of it, that business could not go on, or if it could, that the relish would be all taken out of life.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the hour for afternoon meeting.

Sam Dorset invited James to sit with him, he was about to decline but Bertie gave him a punch in the ribs, and volunteered to go with them, John and Willie Edibean taking their places in his father’s pew. It was the design of Bertie to secure a friend for James who had some influence among people in general, for the drover was a frank, good-natured fellow, whom few could talk down and very few indeed dared to provoke, and whose occupation gave him a large acquaintance.

We shall watch with interest the different methods pursued by these very different farmers with their redemptioners.

In the course of the evening, Mrs. Whitman asked James how he liked the minister.

“I liked to hear him talk; I knew who he meant by that man he talked about in the afternoon, it was Mr. Holmes.”

“No, James, that was the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“I know he called him so, but that was who he meant, for he said he was just as good as he could be, and went about doing good, and that’s just what Mr. Holmes was, and just the way he did. I suppose he was afraid Mr. Holmes wouldn’t like it if he knew he called him by name.”

“But, dear child, Mr. Holmes was nothing but a man, and the Lord Jesus Christ is God.”

“The minister said he was a man and had feelings just like anybody. He said he was born at a place called Bethlehem (if he was born he must be a man) and told how he grew up, and said when a friend of his, a Mr. Lazarus, died, he felt so bad he wept, and after that he died himself; and now you say he was God, but one Sunday a good while ago when I said God was a man, you said he wasn’t, he was a spirit.”

“You had better drop the subject there, wife. And you will understand it better by and by, James, when you have heard more,” said Mr. Whitman, “and when you can read the scriptures for yourself.”

This incident, however trifling in itself, gave token that new ideas had begun to stir in that hitherto vacant mind, and to shape themselves into processes of connected thought. It, at the same time, served to confirm in the minds of his friends the belief already cherished, that he possessed a most retentive memory; as they found that as far as he could understand what he had listened to, he could repeat the most of both sermons, and had committed the questions and answers in the catechism by hearing Mr. Whitman ask them and the boys reply. The result of which was that when they came to go through the catechism again, he could get along as well without the book as the others could by its aid, and could repeat what he was unable to read.

CHAPTER X.
THE REDEMPTIONER AT SCHOOL.

The great chestnut was the favorite resort of the boys and their mates for planning all sorts of enterprises. In the hollow of it they kept their bows and arrows, fishing-poles and bats. It was so large that a little closet was made in one side, where they put foot-balls, fish-hooks, skates, powder-horns, shot, bullet-moulds and anything they wished to keep safe and dry. But in the winter they met for consultation in a little room over the workshop, which was used to keep bundles of flax in. And being on the south side of the barn, and three of its sides and the space overhead filled with hay,—while the chimney of the workshop ran through it,—was warm enough for them. When there was a fire in the workshop they sat on bundles of flax with their backs against the chimney; when there was not they burrowed in the hay and kept warm by contact, or wrapped themselves in skins. The great object of Peter and Bertie in introducing James to the Edibean boys, was that when he should go to school he might have some companions beside themselves. They had succeeded in inspiring them with the like interest for the welfare of James, and many and grave were the consultations held under the great tree, as the time for school to commence drew near.

In pursuance of a settled plan, the Edibeans began to come to Mr. Whitman’s in the evenings. James was unwilling to spell or read before them, or even to write, lest they should look over, and wanted Bertie to go up stairs with him.

It was, however, no part of the boys’ plan to permit this, for their design in inviting the Edibeans was to bring James to recite before them, and thus to moderate the shock to his extreme diffidence that they foresaw would occur when he should be compelled to recite before the whole school; and Bertie, excessively proud of his pupil’s progress, longed to exhibit him to his friends. So he hit upon this plan,—Willie Edibean was a poor writer, but an excellent scholar in other respects. Bertie borrowed his writing-book, and showing it to James and the family, said,—

“There, James, only see how much better your writing is than Willie Edibean’s. Isn’t it, father? Isn’t it, mother? See, gran’pa.”

“It is a great deal better,” said Mr. Whitman, taking both the books in his hand and comparing them, and then handing them to his father.

“James,” said the latter, “you need not be afraid to show that writing-book to anybody.”

“May I show it to the boys, James, next time they come?” said Bertie.

“When are they coming?”

“Day after to-morrow night.”

“I don’t want them to see this old book that I began in, but I’ve written it full, and to-night I’m going to begin the new one your father brought me. I will write in that to-night and to-morrow night instead of reading and spelling, and then you can let ‘em see that.”

When the evening came and Bertie produced the writing-book, James’ face was redder than a fire coal. The boys lavished their praises upon the writing, in which all the family joined. Indeed they laid it “on with a trowel.”

To relieve the embarrassment of James, and prevent the boys from increasing it by their questions, Mrs. Whitman placed a bowl of butternuts and chestnuts upon the table. But the old grandfather changed the subject much more effectually by saying,—

“Fifty years ago this morning, about day-break I shot a Seneca Indian behind the tree these butternuts grew on, with that rifle that hangs over the fireplace, buried him under it, and his bones are there now.”

No more was thought of writing, reading, or spelling, that evening, and for half an hour the nuts were untasted.

James soon became so accustomed to the Edibeans, that he did not hesitate to write when they were present, and John Edibean proposed that they should have a reading-lesson together, and also a writing-lesson, after which they should spell together, the whole family taking part, which was done.

James could now read short sentences and spell most words of two syllables, and could make a better pen than any of them; the boys soon ascertained this and got him to make their pens. So little a matter as this tended very much to inspire him with confidence, and help him overcome the shrinking sensitiveness and self-deprecation when contrasting himself with others, and which he ever manifested in the expression, “such as me or the likes of me.”

When they were about to write, it was quite ludicrous to hear Bertie sinking the master in the pupil, and with much effort to keep a sober countenance, saying,—

“Master, please mend my pen.”

Jonathan Whitman had a good set of carpenter’s tools, made all his farm implements that were constructed of wood, and repaired his buildings. This tendency he inherited from his father, who, according to the son, possessed much more mechanical ability and ingenuity than himself, though the stern struggles and exigencies of his early life left scant opportunity for the practice of it. But now in his old age he spent much time in the shop, repaired all the farming tools, and was considered the best man to make a wheel or stock a rifle in the whole county.

One day he was making a gate, and having lined some boards, set James to split them up with a ripping saw, and after he had finished, said,—

“You have split those boards as true as I could have split them, and cut the chalk mark right out. If I had set either of our boys to splitting them, the line would have been left sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and they’d have been sawed bevelling, and wider on one side than the other.”

He then laid out some mortises, and set James to boring and beating them out with mallet and chisel, and then to planing the slats, after which he said,—“James, I see you have a mechanical eye and a natural turn to handle tools. I knew that before by your chopping. I advise you to cultivate it, because it will give you a means to earn your bread. I’m most always here stormy days in the winter, come in and practise with the tools, and I’ll show you. If, as I trust you will, you should have a piece of land, it will be a great thing in a new settlement to be able to handle tools.”

Scarcely had the old gentleman and James left the shop, than Peter, Bertie, and the Edibeans came in, replenished the fire to heat the chimney, and taking some skins from the wagon, ascended to the loft above, and seated themselves for consultation, evidently with something of great weight upon their minds.

“The fact is,” said Peter, “school begins in two days. James is going, father says so. How he’ll look, great big creature, bigger than the master,—yes, he could take the master and fling him over his head,—standing up to read and spell with little tots not up to his knees. I don’t believe he’ll be able to get a word out.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” said John Edibean, “perhaps some of ‘em will laugh because he’s a redemptioner, Sammy Parsons called Mr. Wood’s man an old redemptioner, and the man flung a stone at him and hurt him awfully.”

The master, Walter Conly, was a farmer’s son, living two miles distant, and the boys knew him well, as he had kept the school the winter previous.

“Let us do this,” said Willie, “Walter Conly is a nice man; we’ll go over there this evening, tell him all about James, how fast he learns and how hard we’ve been trying to help him, and ask him if he won’t hear him read by himself, and not put him in a class with little children.”

“So we will,” said Bertie, “he’s going to board round, and I’ll ask father to tell him to come to our house first and get him to send a note by me, and then James will get acquainted with him. We’ll call you the minute we get our supper.”

Mr. Conly, a young man of nineteen, who labored on his father’s farm in the summer and taught school in the winter, and under the instruction of the minister was fitting for college, received this deputation of his best scholars with great cordiality. He listened to their story with great interest, and expressed his gratification at the spirit they had manifested, and the efforts they had put forth to benefit James, but told them that he would improve much faster to be in a class than to recite by himself, as there would be more stimulus, though he might be subjected to some mortification at first.

“If,” said he, “James has so good a memory, and is as willing to apply himself as you have represented, he will very soon begin to excel his mates, because the mind of a boy of that age is more mature than the mind of a child, and he is capable of more application. He will outstrip them, that will encourage him. I will then put him into a class with older scholars, which will stimulate him still more. I shall put him to nothing but reading, writing, and spelling, for the first two months, but at home you can teach him the multiplication table, and then give him some sums to do in his head, and thus prepare him to cipher the last part of the school term.”

Bertie was a beautiful boy, with a face that expressed every emotion of his heart, and Mr. Conly, observing a shade of disappointment upon his handsome features, said,—“Boys, you have manifested such a noble spirit in regard to James, that I would not, for any consideration, that you should feel hurt or be in any way discouraged. On the other hand, I want you to feel satisfied and happy, and if you are not content with my method I will hear him by himself.”

The boys, after talking the matter over among themselves, concluded the master’s plan was the best.

“I see what troubles you in particular. You fear that as he has never been at school, coming on the floor to spell, and standing before me a stranger, will so confuse him that he will not be able to spell perhaps at all; certainly not to do himself justice. I think, however, we can get over that. The school was so large last winter that I was compelled to make use of some of the older scholars as assistants. It will be larger this winter, as the two districts are to be put together and the term lengthened. I will appoint you, Albert, to hear the class that I put James in, and that will go a good way towards giving him confidence.”

“O, sir, I thank you.”

“We all thank you,” said John Edibean.

“That will make all the difference in the world,” said Peter. “You see, sir, what makes him so sensitive is that in England they picked upon him and called him ‘workhouse,’ and in the vessel coming over, the rest of the redemptioners and the sailors did so. Mr. Wilson told my father, after he came here, a good many mean fellows at the public-house made fun of him and called him a redemptioner. He told me that a good many people who came to look at and see if they would take him, called him hard names. One man told Mr. Wilson he was a chowder-head; wasn’t worth his salt, and the best thing he could do would be to put a good stone to his neck and drop him into the mill-pond. And another man asked Wilson whose cornfield he robbed to get that scarecrow.”

“He was lame then, sir,” said Bertie, “‘cause he had cut himself and had on the worst-looking old clothes, and such a downcast look. But now he has good clothes; is not lame, has got red cheeks, and we think is real handsome.”

“So he is, Bertie,” said Mrs. Conly, the master’s mother. “I saw him in your pew Sunday, and told husband when we came home I guessed that young man was some of your mother’s relations from Lancaster.”

When the boys reached home, Bertie noticed that James seemed a good deal disturbed about something, and very sad, and in a few moments went to bed.

“What is the matter with James, mother? What makes him look so downcast?” said Bertie.

“Your father has told him he must go to school, and he feels bad about it, I suppose.”

Bertie ran up stairs and told James not to feel bad about going to school, for the master was a real kind man, and he was going to hear him recite there just as he did at home. James’ ideas of school were very vague; he only knew that he was going among a crowd of strange boys to be exposed to criticism, and put under a new master, but much comforted by what Bertie told him, he composed himself and went to sleep.

The morning school was to begin, the boys took an early start, thus giving James an opportunity to view the schoolhouse. It was a log building of the rudest kind, and nearly a hundred years old. It had remained without alteration, except receiving a shingle roof and glazed windows. The walls were chestnut logs of the largest size, save a few near the top, and the crevices between them were stuffed with clay, and moss and hemlock brush had been recently piled to the windows around the whole building, for the sake of warmth. The door was of plank with wooden hinges and latch.

It was situated in a singularly wild and rugged spot, on a high ridge of broken land, over the surface of which huge boulders and precipices alternated with abrupt hills and swales of moderate extent, the whole region heavily timbered with oak, chestnut, and beech.

The ancient building seemed to have appropriated to itself the only level spot in the vicinity, a little green plot, though of small extent.

It was bounded on the northwest by a precipice that rose perpendicularly above the roof of the schoolhouse that was built within a few feet of it. On the summit of this cliff were large beeches that thrust their gnarled roots into the interstices of the rock, and flung their branches over the ancient building. The main road was through a natural break in the ridge of rock, and beside it a pure spring of water supplied the wants of the school, and the necessities of travellers.

There lay in the mind of this apparently stolid lad, whose life hitherto had known neither childhood nor joyous youth, a keen susceptibility to impressions of the beautiful and majestic in nature. Through all those years of misery it had lain dormant and undeveloped, but of late the woods and fields had begun to have a strange fascination for him, he knew not why, and his happiest hours were spent while laboring alone in the forest. He had as yet seen nothing to compare in rugged grandeur and beauty with this, and the old schoolhouse was in such perfect keeping with its wild surroundings that it seemed to have grown there.

“Do let me look a little longer.”

This to Bertie, who was pulling him by the arm and saying,—“Come, let’s go into the schoolhouse. I want you to speak to Arthur and Elmer Nevins before the rest come; they are first-rate boys and live close by here, this land is on their farm. I want you to see Edward Conly, the master’s brother, too.”

“In a moment.”

James kept gazing, and for the first time the thought came into his mind: “Oh, that I could own land like this!” As this idea like the lightning’s flash darted through his mind, and with it all the stories he had heard the old grandfather tell of persons who began with only their hands and obtained a freehold, it was with reluctance he at last permitted Bertie (who might as well have tugged at a mountain) to pull him away from the spot.

Entering the house they found the Nevins boys, Edward Conly, and a few more of both girls and boys present, with a fire sufficient to roast an ox and every window open. The boys had overdone the matter, for the schoolhouse, though old, was warm, being sheltered by the precipice and the forest from the cold winds. It had been stuffed with moss and clay that fall, and the logs, though decayed on the outside were of great size, making a very thick wall and sound at heart.

If the outside of the house had arrested the attention of James, the inside was much more calculated to do so. The fireplace was of stone. The jambs and mantel were large single stones, the back composed of single stones set edgewise upon each other. There were a large pair of shovel and tongs, but no andirons, and in their stead were two stones four feet in length, and a foot in height, to hold the wood and afford a draft beneath, and an iron bar laid across to keep the wood from rolling out.

The walls were of rough logs with the bark still adhering, except where it had been pulled off by the busy fingers of the children. There was no flooring above, all was open to the roof and the purlins were decked with swallows’ nests, the birds having found admittance at some place where the clay had fallen out, and despite the noise of the children during the summer school, had reared their young and migrated at the approach of winter. Along the walls on either side were seats for single scholars, and the space between was filled up with seats that held three, and aisles between.

Arthur Nevins was nineteen, and Edward Conly eighteen, they were therefore among the largest boys, excellent scholars, of good principles and dispositions, and met James in a very kind and social manner.

“I am going to take my old seat,” said Bertie, selecting one of the single seats in the back corner,—“Where are you going to have yours, James?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, take the one right before me, put your books in it, and sit down, then you’ll hold it.”

Peter, John, and Will Edibean took the back seat next to Bertie; Arthur and Elmer Nevins, and Edward Conly the seats before them. Thus by previous arrangement among the boys, who were no novices in these matters, James had Bertie directly behind; Peter and the Edibeans, Arthur and Elmer Nevins, and Edward Conly on the side, and behind; all fast friends to each other and all friendly to him. Peter, Bertie, and the Edibean boys, had determined to make the school pleasant for James, by prejudicing the Nevins boys and Edward Conly in his favor, and they had come to school thus early for that purpose. Let boys alone for carrying out any plan of that kind they get in their noddles. They never let the iron cool on the anvil, not they.

By the time the master came they were nearly all seated, though there was some bickering about seats, that was not settled but by an appeal to him, and some trading for seats among the boys themselves.

The majority of the boys had quills for pens, plucked from their parents’ geese.

Nat Witham,—a disagreeable lad, whom the boys had nicknamed Chuck,—sat in the seat before James; his hands were covered with great seed-warts that he was always pricking, and endeavoring to put the blood on the hands of the smaller children, to make them have warts, and pulling the hair of the children before him. He got more whippings than any boy in school, and deserved more than he got.

Bertie and Arthur Nevins gave this boy a Dutch quill each, to change seats with Stillman Russell, a good scholar, and a boy whom they all liked. Having thus successfully carried out all their plans, the Whitmans and Edibeans flattered themselves that they had arranged matters satisfactorily for their own progress and comfort, and that of James during the school term, but they were destined to find that,—

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men

Gang aft a-glee.”

Great was the curiosity manifested, when the master called out the class to which James had been assigned, and told Bertie to hear them. You might have heard a pin drop. James was taller by a head than any boy in the school, and his classmates were children; they had attended a woman’s school in the summer, but it was two months’ previous; they had become rusty, and had to spell half their words. James, on the other hand, who had been over the lesson with Bertie the evening before and early that morning, read right along in a very low tone, but without hesitating a moment, greatly to the relief of Bertie, whose heart was in his mouth, for he was afraid James would not muster courage to hear the sound of his own voice.

It was no less a matter of surprise to the school, most of whom were ready to titter at seeing such a big fellow reading with little children.

When, in the afternoon, he came to write, and the master complimented him for the excellence of his writing, James took heart of grace and felt that the worst was over, and when he entered the house at night, Mrs. Whitman gathered from the expression of his face that all had gone well.

While Peter and James were doing up the chores at the barn, Bertie, who was bringing in the night’s wood, embraced the opportunity to unbosom himself to his mother.

“Oh, mother, James did first-rate, ma’am, first-rate.”

“Yes, child, I hear you.”

“He’s tickled to death. What do you suppose he did, mother? He didn’t know anybody saw him, but I was up on the haymow; he put both arms round Frank’s neck, and hugged him, and talked to him ever so long, and I expect he told Frank how glad he was that he had read and spelt, before the whole school, and got through the first day.”

“What reply did Frank make?” said his mother, laughing.

“He wickered. You may laugh, mother, but he knew well enough that James was glad, and that was his way to say he was glad too.”

“I suppose Frank heard you on the mow, and wickered for some hay.”

“James,” said Bertie, not heeding the interruption, “won’t talk with other folks, but he’s all the time talking to the horses when he thinks nobody hears him.”

The naturally proud and sensitive nature of James shrank from familiar contact with those who had been reared under such different conditions. He was haunted with the notion that, in their secret mind they looked upon him as inferior, and notwithstanding the kindness they manifested, did in thought revert to his former condition; but in regard to the animals this feeling had no place, he lavished upon them his caresses, and understood their expressions of gratitude. To them, he well knew, the redemptioner and “work’us” was master, benefactor, friend.

Thus passed away the first week of school, to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned.

CHAPTER XI.
THE PLOT EXPOSED.

The next week the master set James copies in fine hand, and also copies of capital letters; and he began to learn at home, and recite to Bertie, the multiplication table, that was, in those days, printed on the covers of the writing-books. The next week the master gave him short sentences to copy, and wound up the week’s work on Saturday, with setting him for a copy of his own name and that of his mother before her marriage. James was so much delighted with this as to overcome his usual diffidence, and show it to Mr. Whitman.

When school was half done, Mr. Conly put James into the class with Bertie, who no longer instructed James in reading, spelling, or writing at home, as the latter could read nearly as well as his former teacher; and write much better than any boy in the school, or even the master.

The afternoon of Saturday was a half-holiday and stormy; the old gentleman had a fire and was at work in the shop. Mr. Whitman having broken a whiffletree in the course of the week, laid the broken article on the bench, intending to mend it. James saw it, made a new one by it, and put the irons of the old one on the ends. About the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Whitman bethought himself of the whiffletree, and going to the shop, found the remains of it on the bench, and a new one lying beside it.

“Father, did you make this whiffletree?”

“No, Jonathan; your redemptioner made it.”

Mr. Whitman made no remark, but his father noticed that afterwards, on stormy days, he but seldom gave James any indoor work, but seemed well content to have him work in the shop with his father, who in the course of the winter and spring taught him to dovetail, hew with a broad axe, and saw with a whipsaw.

Although Peter, Bertie, and their friends, had taken such unwearied pains, and exhausted their ingenuity, to render the position of James at school both pleasant and profitable, circumstances conspired to render their efforts, to a great extent, and for some time, abortive.

Children hear all that is said in the family, and often much more than it is meant, or desirable, they should.

Many of the boys at the other extremity of the district, had seen James while Wilson had him at the tavern. They had many of them heard disparaging remarks made by their parents and brothers at home. Some of them had listened to the talk in the public-house by their elders respecting him, and imbibed the tone of feeling in the neighborhood that was in general hostile to redemptioners, and were thus prejudiced against him, even before he came to school. The parents of some of the largest scholars were, in politics, the opposite of the Whitmans, and they had heard their parents say that no doubt Jonathan Whitman took that ragamuffin to train him up to vote as he wanted him to, and then would get him naturalized. This feeling of prejudice would have probably worn off, if James had been less reserved, and had joined with the rest in the horse-plays that were ever going on at recess and between schools.

James, however, did not know how to play; sport and amusement were to him terms without signification. The only things he could do that boys generally practise were to shoot, swim, and throw stones. He could shoot indifferently well, swim like a fish, and could kill a bird or a squirrel with a stone.

His sensitiveness made him believe the boys would not care to associate with him, and his whole mind was given to his books, for he had begun to appreciate the value of knowledge, and desired to make the most of the present opportunity, for he did not expect to have another.

When the other boys were at play during noon and recess, he was in his seat getting his lessons, and never spoke unless he was spoken to.

This gave occasion to those who had come prepared to dislike him to say that he was stuck up; that the Whitmans and Edibeans, Nevins and Conlys, had made too much of him; that he was getting too large for his trousers, and should be taken down, and they were the boys to take him down; that he put on great airs for a redemptioner, just out of the workhouse.

Some were nettled because he, in so short a time, distanced them in study, and in spelling went above them, and kept above.

The master one day gave mortal offence to William Morse, because, being busy setting copies, he told him to go to James to mend his pen.

Some who disliked the Whitmans and Edibeans, because they were better scholars than themselves, and their parents were better off, were willing to see James annoyed, because they knew it would annoy them.

Chuck Witham felt aggrieved because he had sold his seat so cheap, and wanted Bertie and Arthur Nevins to give him two more quills; but they told him a bargain was a bargain, that they gave him all he asked; and being possessed of a sullen, vindictive temper, he likewise was on the watch to annoy them through James.

This hostile spirit had been long fermenting in the breasts of a portion of the scholars, and was only prevented from breaking out in offensive acts from wholesome fear of the strength of James, and uncertainty in regard to the temper of one so reserved.

The boys were constantly pitting themselves against each other, and testing their strength and activity by wrestling, jumping and lifting rocks and logs.

James never manifested the least interest in their sport, not even enough to look on. Thus they could find no opportunity to form any estimate of his strength, or disposition. His whole bearing, however, was indicative both of strength and activity, for he had lost the low, creeping gait he once had, and the despondent look. In addition to this, two of their number, Ike Whitcomb and John Dennet, were fishing for eels in the mill-pond the day Wilson brought James to Mr. Whitman, and told the others that they saw him pitch the barrels of flour into the wagon as though they had been full only of apples. This information tended also to inspire caution.

There was still another sedative, and by no means the least influential. There was a circle of friends around James, not merely those we have named, but several others from both districts, of like sympathies and principles; and though far inferior in numbers, they comprised the best minds and the most energetic persons of the whole school, and were actuated by a sentiment of chivalry, taking the part of the oppressed, that made them doubly formidable.

Arthur Nevins was in his twentieth year; the most, athletic boy in the school, the leader in all exercises that tested strength and endurance, and resolute as a lion. There was no doubt which side he would take, in any affair that Peter or Bertie Whitman were concerned in.

As, however, this feeling of enmity increased, and grew all the faster from being causeless, and open rupture being considered imprudent,—it found vent at first in ill-natured remarks, slurs and gibes, as, for instance: “There goes the redemptioner.” “Here comes ‘work’us;’ got any cold vittles?” “Any old clo’es?”

At noon, when James was in the schoolhouse, and his enemies outside, one boy would shout to another so as to be heard all over the schoolhouse,—“I say, John Edmands, do you know how to pick oakum?”

“No.”

“Well, then ask Redemptioner. He learned the trade in the work’us, and he’s a superior workman.”

Did James leave the schoolroom at recess, half a dozen snowballs flung by nobody would hit him. When at night he had his books under his arm going home a volley of balls would cover his books with snow.

James endured all this in silence, and without manifesting the least resentment, which only served to encourage imposition. Not so, however the Whitmans, and the Nevins boys, and the Valentines; when either of those caught a boy flinging a snowball at James, they returned it with interest, and Arthur Nevins generally had an icy one at hand.

This brought on a general snowball fight, under cover of which James, as his enemies said, “meeched” off.

It was now the turn of James to build the fire. Orcutt, who built it the morning previous, had put on a very large rock-maple log, which, being but half burnt out, gave promise of a noble bed of coals for James to kindle his fire with in the morning.

After school at night, the three boys cut up and carried into the schoolhouse a large quantity of wood to build the morning fire, but when James reached the schoolhouse in the morning, there was not a coal on the hearth, the fireplace was full of half-melted snow, and not a single stick of all the wood carried in the night before was to be found anywhere.

James had his axe on his shoulder, and was equal to the occasion; he cut a log, back-stick, fore-stick, and small wood, went into the woods and split kindling from a pine stump, then went to Mr. Nevins’ for fire. Arthur and Elmer instantly came with him; Elmer with a firebrand, and Arthur hauling a load of dry wood on a hand-sled, which, in addition to what James had already prepared, made one of the hottest fires of the season, and soon dried up the snow-water that flooded the hearth, and the floor around it that was smeared with ashes. They cut some hemlock-brush, made a broom, and soon restored things to their pristine order.

“Now,” said Arthur, “whoever did this thing thought that James, not being used to wood fires, would not be able to make one; the master and scholars would get here, find no fire, and he would appear like a fool, and be blamed. James, don’t you lisp a word of it, and we won’t; if it comes out, the one who did it will have to tell of it himself, and then we shall find out who did it.”

The perpetrators of the trick did not know that James had built the fire every morning at Mr. Whitman’s for two months.

Just as the school was called to order, Arthur and Elmer came in, and stood so long with their backs to the fire, that the master at last said,—

“Boys, are you not sufficiently warm?”

They were by no means suffering from cold, but as they stood thus, facing the whole school, they took careful note of the surprise depicted on several faces at finding a good fire, and everything as usual, likewise of sundry nods, winks, and whispers; sometimes saw something written on a slate, and the slate held up for some one in another seat to read the message. When the two brothers came to compare notes that night, after returning home, they were not in much doubt as to the perpetrators of this low trick.

The Nevins boys held themselves in readiness to assist James, if needful, the next morning, who came early but found everything as usual.

“Their gun has missed fire,” said Arthur to James.

“Elmer, you and I must be all eyes and ears, for we shall certainly hear about it to-day. They’ll get no fun out of it, unless it comes out.”

It was not long after school began, before there took place an unusual movement all over the room. Every one seemed to be excited in regard to something, but in a very different way; some very much pleased, but by far the larger number indignant. Presently a slate was passed to Arthur, on which was written, “There is a story going, that night before last the fireplace was filled with snow, and all the wood we cut was carried off; but it is a lie, for if it had been so, James would have told us of it,” signed “Albert.”

The slate was passed back with the question, “Who told?”

Soon the answer was returned,—

“Chuck Witham started it.”

At recess the affair became a matter of discussion, but it was almost universally condemned. Even most of those who were prejudiced against James and the Whitmans revolted at the low character of this act.

The girls came out en masse in favor of James, avowing it was the meanest and most dastardly thing they ever had heard of; that there was not a more obliging or better behaved boy in the school than James, and if they knew who the fellows that did it were they would never speak to them again.

The girls had ascertained the willingness of James to oblige; for, noticing that he always made and mended pens for Bertie Whitman, they got Maria to carry their pens and quills to him, and as they became better acquainted, went to him themselves.

Arthur Nevins said very little, but taking Chuck aside said,—

“Who told you all that news?”

“Sam Topliff.”

He went to Sam, and found that Will Orcutt told him. Going to Orcutt he inquired,—

“Who told you about what was done in the schoolhouse, night before last?”

“None of your business.”

“Say that again, I’ll shake your teeth out of your head; you were one of them.”

“No, I wasn’t one of them, neither.”

“Ay, my fine fellow, you may think it a good joke, but I can tell you it may prove a sore joke to you. Every decent boy, and all the girls in school, are down on you; and if it gets to the ears of the master and the school-committee, you’ll see trouble, for it was not merely a trick upon a boy, but it was trespass, breaking into the schoolhouse in the night. You broke a lock, you villain. Mr. Jonathan Whitman is one of the school-committee, and is not a man to be trifled with; you had better think about it.”

He then left him, but when Arthur started for home at night, Will Orcutt followed him and said,—

“I wasn’t one of them, and you needn’t think, nor say, I was.”

“Then why won’t you tell who told you?”

Orcutt made no reply.

“If you’ll tell me the names of all who were in it, I’ll give you a pistareen, and if you won’t, I’ll tell Mr. Whitman you was one of them.”

“I’m afraid to; they’ll lick me to death.”

“I never will tell who told me.”

“But they’ll know, because they know I am the only one, except themselves, who knows who did it.”

“If I guess whom they were, will you tell me if I guess right?”

“If, instead of the pistareen, you’ll give me a quarter, and keep it to yourself till day after to-morrow noon, I’ll tell you.”

“Why don’t you want me to keep it to myself any longer than till day after to-morrow noon?”

“Because to-morrow is my last day of school, and I am going off the next morning to Reading, to learn a trade, and I know you won’t tell a lie.”

“I’ll give you the quarter, and promise to keep it till then.”

“Then go into the schoolhouse with me. I’ll show you on the fire-list.”

The fire-list was a paper fastened to the master’s desk, on which were the names of all the boys who were expected to take their turns in making the fires, and Orcutt pricked with a pin the names of William Morse, David Riggs, George Orcutt.

“Two of them are the very fellows I had picked out, the other was Sam Dinsmore. I never should have thought your brother George would have been in it.”

After this matter came out, the boys told James that he was able to take his own part, and ought not to tamely submit to anymore abuse; for still the petty insults from small boys, set on by the larger ones, continued.

Peter Whitman told the others, that there were only four or five large boys who set the rest on, and they ought to pitch into them, give them a good beating, and protect James.

“I don’t feel like going into a fight,” said Arthur, “to protect a fellow who is better able to protect us than we are him, and could thrash the whole of ‘em with one hand tied behind him; they are a set of cowards, and would be quiet enough if they once saw in him any inclination to resist.”

“I think as Arthur does,” said Elmer.

The Edibean boys were of the same mind.

“But he won’t resist. He’ll only say, ‘It is not for such as me to be making a disturbance,’” said Bertie, sorely puzzled.

“Do you think he’s afraid of ‘em, Bertie? Don’t he know we’ll back him up?”

“I don’t believe he cares a straw for them, or cares whether anybody backs him up, or not; but it seems as if he thinks, because he came out of a workhouse, that he was made for other people to wipe their feet on.”

“Let’s go at him,” said Stillman Russell; “and tell him that he must stick up to them, and thrash the next one who insults him, and we’ll back him up. But if he don’t, we shan’t care anything about him and shall be ashamed of him.”

“That’s it; only leave the last part out, for that would break his heart, and it would be a falsehood for me to say I would not care anything about him,” said Bertie; “and let us also do another thing. James thinks everything of my grandfather; they talk together a great deal, when they are at work in the shop, and grandfather never will tell anything if you ask him not to. We’ll tell grandfather the whole story, and get him to stir James up. If grandfather tells James to defend himself, he’ll think it’s right, and he will, but as for us, we are but boys like himself.”

“It is not for such as me to make any disturbance. I didn’t go to school to make a disturbance. I went to learn,” was the reply of James to his aged adviser.

“Such as me,” replied the irate grandfather; “don’t ever use that phrase again. Haven’t I told you, time and again, that in this country, one man’s as good as another, provided he behaves as well; and if he don’t he is not. It’s the character, and not the nation, the blood, nor money, that makes a man here.”

“The boys in the school don’t seem to think so.”

“The most of ‘em do, and their parents do, and the most of their parents wouldn’t uphold ‘em in anything else. It is only a few rapscallions who are at the bottom of the whole thing. They are keeping the whole school in confusion, and taking the attention of the scholars off their lessons; and you are helping to keep it along by putting up with it. If they insult you without provocation, knock ‘em over, and they will be quiet as frogs, when a stone is flung into the pond.”

“It is not my place to strike and hurt boys whose fathers own land, when my father hadn’t any land; my mother went out to service and died in the workhouse, and was buried by the parish. If I was in England they would all call me a workhouse brat. Old Janet, my nurse, when she got mad used to say to me,—

“‘My grandfather was a hieland lord and my father was a hieland gentleman; but your mither was a servant girl, and your father was a hedger and ditcher, and out of nothing comes nothing, ye feckless bairn.’”

“Pshaw, it’s no fault of yours that your parents were poor and that you was born in a workhouse, nor disgrace neither; and it’s no merit of theirs that their fathers own land. It came about in the providence of God, who is no respecter of persons.”

“Is not a man who owns land, better than one who don’t?”

“No; he may be a great deal worse; owning land don’t make a man any better in the sight of God, and it ought not to in the sight of men.”

“I always thought that anybody who owned land was next to the quality; ain’t the quality better?”

“No.”

“I always thought they were kind of little kings.”

“Kings are no better.”

“O, yes, grandfather, kings must be better, because the Bible tells about ‘em; and Mr. Holmes always used to say, his most sacred majesty.”

“All moonshine; half of ‘em are great rascals. Being a king don’t make a man better or worse any more than owning land does. It only gives them a better chance to act out their true characters.”

“If a king was no more and no better than a man, how could he cure the king’s evil?”

“No king ever did cure it, and it’s my opinion it never was cured.”

“O, yes, there was Farmer Vinal’s son, whose father I worked for, had a great swelling on his neck, and his father carried him into the procession when the king went to the tower, and the king touched it and it went away.”

“I’ve no doubt it went away,” replied the sturdy republican; “but if the king had never been born, it would have gone away all the same. It’s a disorder that once in the blood is always there, and goes and comes. Medicine will appear to cure it, and drive it from one part of the body to another, and just as like as not, it went away on account of some medicine the child had been taking. You’d better put all such nonsense out of your head; it is not worth bringing over the water. If those boys impose upon you, defend yourself; you are big enough. Give no offence and take none; the whole district will uphold you in it.”

CHAPTER XII.
STUNG TO THE QUICK.

James could be neither goaded to retaliation by the provocation of his persecutors, nor stimulated to self-defence by the arguments and persuasions of his friends, so thoroughly had the bitter lesson of submission to superiors been impressed by the iron fingers of stern necessity; but an event now occurred, which, placing the matter before him in a new light, removed his scruples in a moment.

The persons who had put the snow in the fireplace were well known to James, for Arthur had not scrupled to expose them after the time had elapsed during which he had promised to keep the secret. James also knew that they still continued to instigate Chuck Witham and other boys to annoy and insult him. He occupied a side seat near one of the back corners of the schoolhouse, and his head, when bent over his book, was on a level with a crevice between two logs, that was stuffed with clay and moss. One night after school, Chuck Witham bored a small hole through this clay, and filled the hole with cotton, for fear James would feel the draft and observe it. The next day he brought to school, half an ox-goad, with a long brad in it, made of a saddler’s awl.

The day was warm for the season; there was quite a large fire, and at recess time, the master opened a window on each side of the fire to create a draft, and ventilate and cool the room.

James was in his seat writing, when he suddenly sprang to his feet, upsetting his inkstand, and throwing all his books to the floor. The master was walking back and forth on the floor, and seeing him put his hand to his head, looked out of the window and saw Chuck running from the hole, for the woods. He instantly pursued and caught him, with the goad in his hand, called the scholars in and gave him a severe whipping. Witham, with the expectation of mitigating his punishment, declared that he was persuaded to it by Morse, Riggs, and Orcutt, and that Will Morse gave him a two-bladed knife to do this and other things he had done to James. This declaration was made before the whole school, and Peter and Arthur Nevins now recollected that William Morse stayed in during recess, a thing he had never been known to do before, and it was evident to all that he had stayed in to gloat over the torture about to be inflicted upon one who had never injured, or even spoken to him.

The brad was long, and entered deep, for the stab was given with good-will, and the blood flowed freely.

At noontime the boys and girls collected together in knots, commenting upon the affair, when Chuck Witham, still writhing under the effects of the castigation, for it was most severe, made some disparaging remark about redemptioners, in a tone loud enough for James to hear, as he was passing by on his way to the spring, to wash off the blood that had dried on his neck, upon which William Morse laughed heartily, in which he was joined by Riggs and Orcutt.

Perfectly willing to pick a quarrel, Bert replied,—“Morse, you should have had that licking yourself; for you set Chuck on, and have been at the bottom of all the mean tricks that have been done, and that you had not courage to do yourself.”

This brought a sharp rejoinder from Morse. Riggs and Orcutt sided with Morse, and the debate became so warm that just as James came along on his return from the spring, Morse, feeling he was getting the worst of the argument, caught a stick from the wood-pile and felled Bertie to the ground. James saw the blow fall on the head of the boy whom he loved better than himself,—yea, almost worshipped,—his scruples vanished in a moment. It was no longer the workhouse boy against the landed gentry; but, forgetting all that, he dealt Morse a blow that cut through his upper lip, knocked out a tooth, flattened his nose, and sent him backward over the wood-pile. Riggs turned to run, but came in contact with the broad shoulders of Arthur Nevins, who was purposely in the way, and before he could recover himself, James, seizing him behind, flung him to the ground, and catching up the stick that fell from the hand of Morse, beat him till he cried murder. While this was going on George Orcutt would have made his escape, but Stillman Russell, the most retiring boy in school, and so diffident that he would blush if you spoke to him, put out his foot and tripped him up. Before he could rise, Arthur Nevins put his foot on him, but James went into the schoolhouse, and resumed his studies.

“Now for Chuck Witham,” shouted Will Edibean. Chuck took to his heels with three boys after him, but Edward Conly cried,—“He’s had enough; he’s only an understrapper,” and they came back.

The boys had formed a ring round Orcutt, and whenever he would attempt to break through, one would trip him, another pull him over backwards, and while on his back others would pelt him with great chunks of snow and crust, or push three or more smaller boys on top of him; and even the girls took part and flung snowballs, so much was his conduct detested. In the morning before school, it being a thaw, the smaller boys had rolled up several great balls of snow, meaning at noon to make a fort. With these they buried him, and stuck up over him, this inscription, printed with a smut coal on a piece of fence-board,

“JUSTICE.

Administered by the Scholars of District No. 2.”

They next formed a cordon around him, snowballs in their hands, and the moment he attempted to move pelted him anew, and kept watch till the master was so near that he could not but notice the inscription, and then all went into the schoolhouse and were seated when he entered.

Morse having washed himself at the spring, came in late, in company with Riggs, while George Orcutt crawled out of his prison, and sneaked home.

The face of Morse was discolored, and his lips swollen, and Riggs exhibited two red stripes on the back of both hands, and one across his face, extending from the roots of the hair across the forehead and face to the lower jaw. They tried to attract the attention of the master. Morse displayed a bloody handkerchief, and Riggs snivelled occasionally, but the master was too much occupied to notice them, and asked no questions. As for James, he was commended by nearly the whole school.

“Is he not a noble, manly fellow,” said Emily Conly, “to bear so much from those mean creatures, while he might at any time have done what he has done to-day?”

“Yes,” said Mary Nevins, “and when at last he did turn upon them, it was not upon his own account, but Albert Whitman’s, and our Arthur and Elmer both say they don’t believe he would have touched them, let them have done what they might to him, if William Morse had not struck Albert.”

“What a different spirit he manifested,” said Emily, “from Morse, who after hiring Witham to stick the awl into James, stayed in at recess to see and enjoy it, but Renfew didn’t stop and look on when the other scholars were punishing George Orcutt, but went right back to his books. Oh, I do like him.” Then feeling she had gone too far, and seeing the rest of the girls begin to titter, she blushed to the roots of her hair, and stopped short.

“Never mind, Emily,” said Jane Gifford; “we all like him; all of the girls are on the side of the redemptioner.”

“My brother Stillman thinks the reason he learns so fast, is because he is so old, and sees the need of it, and makes a business of learning, as a young boy wouldn’t; and not knowing anybody, and being so by himself, has nothing to take off his attention. Still. says if he knew all the boys and girls, and had brothers and sisters, and went with them, to bees and apple-parings, and singing schools, and parties, and spelling schools, he wouldn’t learn half so fast; but now he’ll learn as much and more this winter, than a small boy would in three years,” said Eliza Russell.

The friends of James could hardly contain themselves till school was out. Arthur Nevins had invited Peter, Bertie, the Edibeans, and Ned Conly, to take supper with him, and have a real “howl of triumph,” and had sent Elmer home at recess to tell his mother she would have seven hungry school boys at supper time. After a bountiful supper, they sat down to eat nuts and apples, and to congratulate each other upon the success of all their plans.

“The master,” said Ned Conly, “is going to put James into arithmetic soon.”

“He’s got all the multiplication by heart now,” said Bertie, “and every night after supper, father and grandpa give him sums to do in his head, and he can add, and subtract, and multiply, and divide, and makes handsome figures. When he first came to our house he didn’t know how long a year was, but called four years four times reaping wheat, and couldn’t tell the clock; but now he can tell how many months there are in a year, and how many days in a year, and how many hours in a day, and minutes in an hour, and all about it. I think that’s a good deal for a boy to do in one fall and winter, starting from nothing. He is fast learning to handle tools, too, and can dovetail, and plane and saw and handle a broad axe.”

The first question asked by Bert when he reached home, was,—“Mother, where is James?”

“Gone to bed.”

“And grandfather, too?”

“Yes, James said the whole of his multiplication table, and didn’t miss a figure, and then your father and grandfather gave him sums to do in his head.”

“Did he tell you what happened at school to-day?”

“He didn’t tell us anything.”

“Just like him. Didn’t he tell you there had been a real sisemarara—an eruption, an earthquake—there to-day. Didn’t you see the blood on his shirt collar? Don’t you see that bunch on top of my skull?” displaying a swelling the size of a hen’s egg. “Oh, he’s done it; he’s done it up to the handle.” And Bert went capering about the room, and slapping his sides with his hands.

“Tell us what you mean, if you mean anything, Albert,” said his father, “or else sit down and let Peter.”

“Tell, Pete, tell ‘em regular, and I’ll put in the side windows, the filagree work.”

Peter rehearsed the whole matter to his parents, by virtue of keeping his hand part of the time on Bert’s mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell your father or me what was going on, and ask your father’s advice?”

“Because,” said Peter, “James begged us not to; said he didn’t want to make a disturbance, and the boys would get ashamed of their tricks after a while, and leave off. James said we might tell grandfather if he would promise not to tell, and he did, and so we told him.”

“What did your grandfather say?”

“He had a long talk with James, and told him he had borne enough; to give no offence and take none; but if they continued to insult him, knock ‘em over.”

“Well, I don’t know about such doings; husband, what do you think of it?”

Jonathan Whitman, who had listened all this time without question, replied,—“I think father gave good advice, and James did well to take it.”

There the matter dropped. Morse, Riggs, and Orcutt were so ashamed, and so well convinced that nearly all the members of the school heartily despised them, and that if they made complaint at home the master and scholars would inform their parents of the provocation James had received, that they lied to account for their bruises, and made no complaint at home.

Jonathan Whitman and his next neighbor, Mr. Wood, were great friends, and had been from boyhood, though about as unlike as men could well be, and though, when his boys told him of the doings at school, Mr. Wood fell in with the general verdict of the district, “served them right,” he could but feel a little sore, that his neighbor should be so much more fortunate in his choice of a redemptioner than himself.

The first time they met he could not forbear remarking,—

“Jonathan, they say that you are finding out what’s in your redemptioner pretty fast; that he begins to feel his oats, and is showing a clean pair of heels. How do you like him now, neighbor?”

“Better and better. Old Frank is the best horse I ever had, and a little child might safely crawl between his legs; Bert has done it many a time, but a man would run the risk of his life who should abuse him.”

These apparently untoward events accomplished what nothing else could have done, and which all the efforts of his friends had utterly failed to effect, they broke the crust and shattered the reserve, hitherto impenetrable, that isolated him, and furnished a stimulant that urged him onward in a course of more rapid development.

Before the boys separated on the evening which they spent together at Mr. Nevins’, they were closeted an hour in Arthur’s bedroom. What grave consultations were held, and what profound ideas were originated in their teeming noddles, will probably never be fully known, save that as they parted, Bertie shouted back: “Good night; now we’ve got him a-going, let’s keep him a-going.”

CHAPTER XIII.
THE SCHOLARS SUSTAIN JAMES.

The next morning Peter, Bertie, John, and Will Edibean, the Nevins boys, and Edward Conly, by pure accident, entered the schoolroom at the same moment with James, and some little time before the master came.

James, as usual, made directly for his seat; but they all surrounded and crowded him along to the fireplace, and instantly the Wood boys, the Kingsburys, the Kendricks, Stillman Russell, and all the girls, got round him, shook hands with him, told him he did just right, the day before, that those boys had always domineered over the smaller scholars, set them on to mischief, and made trouble in school, and with the master when they could. James, to his amazement, found himself the centre of an admiring crowd; he blushed and fidgeted, stood first upon one foot, then upon the other, and rolled up his eyes, till Bertie, fearing he would burst into tears, as he did when he received his new clothes, took him by the hand, and said,—

“Come, James, let us look over the reading-lesson before the master gets here.”

When recess came, Peter and Bertie went to his seat, and asked James to go out and play with them. This, to use a homely phrase, “struck him all of a heap.”

“How can I go? I don’t know how to play any of your plays.”

“We are not going to play plays or wrestle, but fire snowballs at a mark, and you are first-rate at that,” said Peter.

James still declined; but Bertie stuck to him like bird-lime, and so did Peter, who called Ned Conly, whom James particularly liked, to aid them; but all in vain, till at length Bertie said,—

“Come, James, if you don’t want to go upon your own account, go to please me; this is the first thing I ever asked you to do for me.”

James rose directly; and Bertie, taking him by the hand, led him out of the house in triumph. The windows of the school were furnished with board shutters, and the boys had utilized one of them for a target by propping it with stones, and making three circles on it, and a bull’s eye in the centre. The boys, having heard how well James could throw stones, stipulated that he should stand six paces farther from the target than the rest, otherwise, they said, “there would be no chance for them.”

As James wanted the sport to go on to please Bert, he assented to this. Bert threw the first ball, hitting just outside the centre ring.

“I can beat that,” said John Kendrick, and hit within the second ring.

Arthur Nevins hit right on the third ring. None of them, however, struck the bull’s eye. It was now the turn of James. His first ball struck within the innermost circle, and about half-way from that to the bull’s eye; and the second he planted directly in the central dot, and covered it all over. They all shouted,—

“You can’t do that again.”

Upon which he plumped another on the second. None of the boys except James hit the centre, but very few within the second ring; and they were blowing their fingers, and beginning to tire of the sport, when Sam Kingsbury, pointing upwards, shouted,—

“Only look there!”

Following the direction of his finger, they saw an owl of the largest size (that had been overtaken by daylight before he could reach his roosting-place) sitting upon the branch of a large oak, motionless, and apparently lost in meditation, and entirely regardless of the uproar beneath.

“If anybody had a gun,” said Arthur Nevins. “I wonder if there’s time to run home and get mine before school begins.”

“No,” said Peter, “and if you should, perhaps you’d miss him; but I’ll bet James’ll take him with a snowball.”

“I could with a good stone, but I don’t think I can with a snowball; for I never threw a snowball in my life before to-day.”

James searched the stone wall of the pasture, but could find no stone to suit him, and urged by the boys to try, made three snowballs as hard as he could, with a small stone in the centre of each. The first ball brushed the feathers of the philosophical bird, and broke the thread of his meditations; but as he was gathering himself up to fly, a second struck him with such force under the wing as to bring him down half stunned into the snow, and before he could recover himself Ned Conly flung his cap over his head and caught him.

“Give him to me, will you, Ned?” said Bertie.

“I will, if you and Peter and James will come over to my house to supper to-morrow night and spend the evening.”

James objected decidedly to this arrangement.

“Well, he can’t have the owl unless you come.”

“Come, James, do go, because I want it ever so much to put it in a cage. I never had an owl in my life. I have had crows, and eagles, and bluejays, and robins, and coons, and foxes, and gray squirrels. I’ve got a nice cage that my bob-o-link was in.”

James was sorely pressed. He liked Ned Conly, for Ned and Stillman Russell were the only boys with whom he had any intercourse approaching to intimacy. Ned Conly in school sat next beside and Stillman Russell before him; he also could not bear to prevent Bertie from getting the bird that he saw he wanted. The perspiration fairly stood in drops on his forehead. At length he said,—

“I cannot go to supper, for then there would be nobody to do the chores, and it would not look well to leave Mr. Whitman to do them, but I’ll come after supper.”

They, therefore compromised on that ground.

“The master’s coming; how shall we keep him till school’s done?” said Bert.

“Cut his head off,” said James.

This was the first time that James had ever volunteered a remark, or been guilty of an approach to a witticism, and Peter stared at him astonished.

“I’ve got a skate-strap; you may have that,” said Chuck Witham, who was aching to be once more noticed, for no one spoke to him now.

“Thank you,” said Bert, though not very cordially, and took it, and with this they fastened the owl in the entry of the schoolhouse.

“Is not Ned Conly as quick as lightning?” said Arthur Nevins to Elmer; “who but he would have thought of that way to get James over there; he might have invited him till Doomsday to no purpose, but when James found Bertie couldn’t have the owl unless he went, that brought him. Only think how long we’ve been trying to get him to come to our house.”

James Brings down an Owl. Page [175].

“What shall we do with James, mother?” said Peter, as he and Bertie were preparing to go to Mr. Conly’s. “What shall we do with him when he comes? We don’t want him to sit all the evening and look straight into the fire, and never open his mouth, and Ned won’t either, and he’ll be frightened half to death.”

“I’ll tell you what to do,” said the grandfather; “ask him questions that he cannot answer by yes and no; he’ll have to answer them, and after he hears the sound of his own voice a few times he’ll gain courage.”

“What shall we ask him?”

“Ask him about the manner in which they do farming work in the old country, and if you can get him started, he will, I have no doubt, tell a great many things that Mr. Conly’s folks would like to know, for he never learned to reap, and mow, and break flax, and swingle it, and handle horses as he does, without working on the land a good deal. He talks when he is in the shop with me.”

The boys set out, leaving Maria to come with James, in order that he might not be obliged to come in alone.