CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRESTON FAMILY.
“MOTHER, may I go over to Ralph Preston’s, this evening, with Clinton?” asked Whistler, one day, about the middle of September. “Oscar has got home, and his cousin Marcus has come with him. I’ve seen them both. We are going to take Clinton and Oscar by surprise. Oscar doesn’t know that Clinton is in town, and Clinton doesn’t know that Oscar is. There’ll be quite a scene, I guess, when they come together; you know they used to be pretty intimate, when Oscar lived down to Brookdale.”
Mrs. Davenport readily granted the desired permission; for, although it was a rule of the house that the children should never be absent from home after dark without the consent of one of their parents, the rule was intended merely to shield them from the moral dangers to which the young are exposed in the streets of towns after nightfall, and not to debar them from any proper and innocent amusement.
Whistler and Ralph attended the same school, and, although there was a difference of two or three years between their ages,—Ralph being the younger,—they were intimate friends. There were many excellent traits in Ralph’s character. Whistler was also on terms of friendship with the other members of the family—Alice, Ella and George. Alice was a young lady of seventeen. Ella has already been introduced to the reader. George, the youngest, was about nine years old. With Oscar, who was now half way between fifteen and sixteen, Whistler had never been on very good terms. Until within a little more than a year, they had been classmates in school; but the character of Oscar, at that time, was not such as Whistler could admire; and, on the other hand, Oscar seemed, for some reason known best to himself, to take a dislike to Whistler, which more than once manifested itself in blows. For all this, however, Whistler now cherished no feeling of resentment towards his old enemy. On the contrary, the shame and suffering which Oscar had brought upon himself, and the desire and determination he had expressed to reform, warmly enlisted Whistler’s sympathies in his behalf.
Marcus Page, Oscar’s cousin, who had come to Boston with him, was about eighteen years old, and lived in the small town of Highburg, in Vermont. His mother had agreed to take Oscar into her family, where he would be under good influences, and secure from the evil associations and temptations of the city; and his release from the State Reform School was conditioned upon this arrangement. Marcus was to spend a few day in Boston, and then to return to his home, with Oscar.
When Mr. Davenport came home to tea that evening, he brought a letter for Clinton. It was from his mother, and was the first intelligence he had received from home since his departure. It contained several items of intelligence which, to him, were of considerable importance. Dick Sneider, the supposed incendiary, had at length been arrested, and after a preliminary examination, had been committed to jail, to await a trial by jury. Clinton had been summoned as a witness against him; but, as the trial could not take place for several weeks, he would have an opportunity to finish his visit before returning. Nor was Dick the only rogue that had been caught since Clinton left home. The letter stated that some creature entered Mr. Preston’s barn, one night, and killed four geese. A trap was set the next night, and the following morning it held securely by the paw of the left fore foot a wild-cat that stood seventeen inches high, measured three feet in length, and weighed thirty-three pounds. He was alive, and not in a very amiable mood, when discovered, but was despatched by two or three blows with a heavy stick. His skin had been preserved. “It is the opinion of the folks here,” continued the letter, “that this was the identical rascal that made such havoc with your fowls, just before you left home; but we shall probably never know for a certainty whether this was so or not. When we discover a rogue, we are apt to lay upon him not only his own sins, but many others for which we can find no owner.”
If Mrs. Davenport entertained any doubt as to the guilt of the wild-cat in the chicken affair, Clinton did not. It was as plain to him as day that the feline monster was the real culprit. He had suspected as much from the first, against his father’s doubts and ridicule; and now that the presence of such a creature had been demonstrated, he wanted no further proof. There was somewhat of a chasm between the two links of the argument, it is true; but although the reasoning would hardly be sufficient to hang a man, Clinton deemed it amply conclusive to condemn a wild-cat. He exulted quite as much over the conquest of this midnight marauder, as he did over the capture of the other and greater rogue mentioned in the letter.
After tea, Clinton went over to Mr. Preston’s house with his cousin. The “surprise,” when Oscar and Clinton met, was quite as great, on both sides, as had been anticipated. They were right glad to see each other face to face once more; and, although Oscar at first seemed to feel some restraint, the cordial manner with which his old comrades received him, put him at his ease again. From regard to his feelings, no allusion was made to his past career; but future plans and hopes were discussed quite freely.
“How do you think you shall like living on a farm?” inquired Clinton, addressing Oscar.
“O, I’ve made up my mind to like it, whether or no,” was the reply.
“If you stick to that, you will be contented enough,” said Marcus.
“You won’t have to work very hard this winter, I suppose,” added Clinton, who remembered that industry was not one of Oscar’s virtues, when he knew him in Brookdale.
“No,—I’m going to the academy till next spring, if not longer,” replied Oscar.
“Are you?” inquired Clinton.
“And I shouldn’t wonder if I had Cousin Marcus for a teacher, too,” added Oscar.
“Why, that would be complete!” said Whistler.
“Yes; the trustees want him to be an assistant teacher this winter, but he hasn’t given them any answer yet,” continued Oscar.
“I should admire to have you for a teacher, I know I should,” said Ella. “I should expect you would show me lots of favors.”
“Perhaps I should,” replied Marcus; “but possibly they might not be just such favors as you would like. We had a teacher in our district school, once, who had his wife’s brother for one of his pupils. He was a large boy, and quite a good sort of a fellow, too; but he got more whippings than any two boys in the school. I suppose his brother-in-law thought he must show him some favors.”
“But you wouldn’t serve me in that way?” said Ella.
“I should hope not,—nor Oscar, either,” replied Marcus; “but I must tell you what I told Ronald. He was quite tickled with the idea of my being teacher; but I told him that if I showed him any partiality, it would only be in looking after him a little sharper than I did after the other scholars.”
“Then Ronald is going to the academy this winter?” inquired Mrs. Preston.
“Yes, ma’am; he is to commence with the next term,” replied Marcus.
“Ronald,—that’s a queer name!—who is he?” inquired Whistler.
“He’s a little fellow that has lived with us several years,” replied Marcus. “He is a French Canadian by birth; but his parents are dead, and mother took him out of pity, and has brought him up, so far.”
“He thinks a great deal of you, doesn’t he?” inquired Ralph.
“He appears to,” replied Marcus.
“He certainly ought to; your cousin Marcus has been almost a father to him,” said Mrs. Preston. “He takes nearly the whole care of him, and has made him what he is; and I suppose Ronald feels towards him very much as he would towards a father.”
“You give me more credit than belongs to me,” interposed Marcus. “If it hadn’t been for mother and Aunt Fanny, I couldn’t have done anything with him. He was the queerest little fellow you ever saw when he first came to us. He was full of all sorts of pranks, and was as wild and untrained as an Indian child.”
“Did he talk English?” inquired George.
“Yes, after his fashion,” replied Marcus. “His parents spoke broken English, but French was their natural tongue.”
“Does he speak French, too?” inquired Clinton.
“No, he has lost that,” replied Marcus. “When I began to study French at school, I thought he might be of some help to me; but I soon found that his patois, as they call it, was about as bad as the English of a raw Irishman. So we thought he might as well let it go.”
“Does he speak English well now?” asked Whistler.
“O, yes,—very well,” said Marcus.
“What did you think of him, mother? You saw him this summer, didn’t you?” inquired Oscar.
“Yes, I saw him, and liked him very well,” replied Mrs. Preston. “He is a bright, intelligent, wide-awake boy, but a little roguish, I should say.”
“But, mother, he is a good-hearted and well-meaning boy,” said Alice, who also had visited Highburg that summer.
“I have no doubt of it,” added Mrs. Preston; “but for all that he is a little mischievous. I have laughed a good many times over one scrape he got himself into while we were there. There are two buildings on the farm that stand very near together, but do not touch. There is just about enough space between them for a cat to walk through. Well, Ronald took it into his head, one day, to crawl through that narrow space. So he squeezed himself in, and pretty soon we heard a great outcry in that direction. We all ran out to see what had happened, and there we found the young rogue, wedged in so closely between the two buildings that he couldn’t move an inch, and almost frightened out of his wits. Marcus got ropes and pries, and we worked over him about an hour before we got him out; and then he had to leave a good part of his clothing behind him. I shall never forget how cheap he looked when he came out of that place—his jacket in tatters, his clothes covered with mould and dirt, and his face as red as a beet.”
“He has a faculty for getting himself into such scrapes,” said Marcus. “Last spring I had some business at Montpelier, and I took him with me. The man I wanted to see was an officer of some kind,—a sheriff, I believe. He wasn’t in when I called at his place of business, and so I took a newspaper, and sat down to wait. I didn’t notice what Ronald was about; but after a few minutes he came to me, with one of his droll looks, and carrying his hands in a singular manner. He was handcuffed. I at first thought it was a good joke, and laughed at it; but I soon found it was a sorry joke to him, for he couldn’t get the handcuffs off. They had spring locks, and fastened themselves, but could not be opened without a key. Though they were too large for his wrists, I found I could not slip them off without endangering his hands. Pretty soon a man came in, and he told me that Ronald would have to wear the handcuffs until I could find their owner, if it was for a week, as no key would unlock them but the one that was made for them. This rather put a damper on Ronald; but, fortunately, the man came in after a little while. Then I thought I would carry the joke a little farther; so I pointed to Ronald, and told him I had got a prisoner for him. He wanted to know what he had done, and I told him he had put his hands where he ought not to. ‘Ah, that’s bad!—that’s bad!’ said he; ‘how much did he steal?’—‘I didn’t steal anything,’ said Ronald; ‘but I saw these things, and I thought I’d try them on, and now I can’t get them off.’ The man saw through the joke, then, and he got the key and took off the handcuffs.”
“Ronald isn’t the first boy who has handcuffed himself,” said Mr. Preston, looking up from one of several letters which he had been opening and reading during the preceding conversation. “Here’s a boy, now, who has put himself into worse handcuffs than Ronald’s, and, what is more, he doesn’t know it; but any body else can see it plainly enough.”
“Who is he, father?—what has he done?” inquired Ralph.
“He is a boy who wants a situation in my store,” replied Mr. Preston. “I put an advertisement in the papers for a boy, and these letters are all answers to it. Here is the advertisement; you may read it aloud, Ralph, and then those who wish may examine this reply to it.”
Ralph then read as follows:
“WANTED, in a W. I. Goods Store, an active, intelligent boy, about fourteen years old, who writes a fair hand, is quick at figures, and whose parents reside in the city. Address, in handwriting of applicant, ‘W. I. G.,’ at this office.”
The letter to which Mr. Preston alluded was then handed around, and read by all present, eliciting many amusing comments. The handwriting was cramped, awkward, and in some parts scarcely legible; the spelling was quite original; the sentences were run into each other with an utter contempt for marks of punctuation; capital letters were withheld and dispensed according to a system not laid down in any of the books; and the general structure of the composition indicated an entire ignorance of all rules and laws of established usage. It read as follows:
“FALL RIVER, SEP 14
“Honered sir—i see by the Boston dayly papers printed in Boston that you want a boy if you do i think i might answer perhaps i am fifteen old smart and strong have a good education have ciphered through adams arithmetic once and took a meddle at the last righting school——Perhaps you wont Think so by my righting as i have got a very bad pen i have had some experience in my unkles grocery and should staid there if was not so verry dull i think i should like Boston a great deal Better.
“As for sallary i think 50 ayear besides my board and cloathes about right the first year i can come as soon as you want please write to obedient Servant
JOHN MORROW.”
“Sure enough,” said Mrs. Preston, “that boy has put on handcuffs,—handcuffs of ignorance! If he tells the truth, he has had some opportunities of getting an education; but it is very plain that he did not profit by them. He has put the handcuffs on, and he will have to wear them, now.”
The children insisted upon seeing the letters of the other applicants, and they were accordingly handed around, read, and criticised, affording much amusement to the company. None of them were quite so faulty as John Morrow’s, though several of them did not do much credit to the writers. Two or three, however, were very well expressed, and neatly written. One of the best read as follows:
“BOSTON, Sept. 15, 185-.
“DEAR SIR: I read your advertisement for a boy, and think I might answer your purpose. I was fourteen years old last June, and have just left school, and come to Boston to earn my living. My parents live in Dracut; but I have two grown-up brothers in Boston, with whom I live, and who will look after me. I have the recommendation of my school teacher, and several other gentlemen, which I will show you if you wish. If you will try me, I will endeavor to give satisfaction. You can find me at No. —, —— Street.
“Yours, respectfully,
“HENRY E. HOYT.”
“Why, Mr. Preston, I know that boy!” exclaimed Clinton, as soon as his eye rested upon the above signature; “and I think he’s a good boy, too.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Preston; “what do you know about him?”
“I don’t really know much about him,” replied Clinton; “but I liked his appearance. I got acquainted with him on the Common, a week or two ago, and I went up to the top of the State House with him. He told me he came from Dracut, and lived with his brothers, and was trying to get a place. This must be the same boy.”
“Is that all you know about him?” inquired Mr. Preston, with a smile.
“Yes, sir,” replied Clinton; “but he looked like a good boy, and his letter reads well, too. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Preston; “and, as you were so well impressed by him, I think I will see him, at any rate, before I engage a boy.”
“And if he gets the place, he must thank you for it, Clinton,” said Whistler.
“No, it will be owing to his writing such a good letter,” replied Clinton. “If he had made such a bungling piece of work as that other boy did, I wouldn’t have owned him as an acquaintance.”
Thus the evening passed away in pleasant conversation, and all seemed sorry when the stroke of the clock announced the hour at which Whistler and his cousin were obliged to leave.