The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pocket Island, by Charles Clark Munn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Pocket Island A Story of Country Life in New England Author: Charles Clark Munn Release Date: December 8, 2006 [EBook #20057] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POCKET ISLAND *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES CLARK MUNN UNCLE TERRY. A Story of the Maine Coast. Richly bound in crimson silk cloth with gold and vignette of heroine. Illustrated by Helena Higginbotham. Gilt top. 370 pp. Price, $1.50. See description in back of book. ROCKHAVEN. The Story of a Scheme. (In preparation. To be published in the Spring of 1902.) See announcement in back of book. Pocket Island A Story of Country Life in New England By CHARLES CLARK MUNN Author of "Uncle Terry" and "Rockhaven" New York International Association of Newspapers and Authors 1901 Copyright, 1901, by Charles Clark Munn All Rights Reserved POCKET ISLAND NORTH RIVER BINDERY PRINTERS AND BINDERS NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. Contents I. POCKET ISLAND. 11 II. THE SEA FOX. 18 III. NEMESIS. 24 IV. THE BOY. 31 V. THE BOY'S FIRST PARTY. 41 VI. SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 49 VII. LIDDY. 58 VIII. THE HUSKING-BEE. 66 IX. GOOD ADVICE. 74 X. HISTORY. 82 XI. WAR CLOUDS. 91 XII. A DAY IN THE WOODS. 100 XIII. THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME. 107 XIV. BESIDE THE CAMP FIRE. 117 XV. MYSTERIES. 125 XVI. THE GRASP OF DEATH. 132 XVII. THOSE WHO WAIT. 137 XVIII. A FEW BRIGHT DAYS. 146 XIX. AMONG THE WOUNDED. 156 XX. PLANS FOR HAPPINESS. 164 XXI. BLUE HILL. 174 XXII. THE MAINE COAST. 182 XXIII. BIG SPOON ISLAND. 191 XXIV. POCKET ISLAND. 199 XXV. THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE. 208 XXVI. THE FATE OF A MISER. 216 XXVII. CONCLUSION. 224 POCKET ISLAND. CHAPTER I. POCKET ISLAND. In the year 185- a Polish Jew peddler named Wolf and a roving Micmac Indian met at a small village on Annapolis Bay, in Nova Scotia, and there and then formed a partnership. It was one of those chance meetings between two atoms tossed hither and thither in the whirligig of life; for the peddler, shrewd, calculating and unscrupulous, was wandering along the Acadian shores driving hard bargains in small wares; and the Indian, like his race, fond of a roaming life, was drifting about the bay in a small sloop he owned, fishing where he would, hunting when he chose, stopping a week in some uninhabited cove to set traps, or lounging in a village drinking or gambling. The Jew had a little money and, what was of more value, brains and audacity. He also knew the conditions then prevalent along the Maine coast, and all the risks, as well as the profit, to be obtained in smuggling liquor. Rum was cheap in Nova Scotia and dear in Maine. The Indian with his sloop formed one means to an end; his money and cunning the other. A verbal compact to join these two forces on the basis of share and share alike for mutual profit, was entered into, and Captain Wolf and the Sea Fox, as the sloop was named, with the Indian and his dog for crew, began their career. As a preliminary some fifty kegs of assorted liquors, as many empty mackerel kits, a small stock of oil clothing, sea boots, fishing gear, tobaccos, etc., were purchased and stowed away on the sloop, and then she set sail. There were along the coast of Maine in those days many uninhabited islands seldom visited. Fishermen avoided them, for the deep sea furnished safer and more profitable ground; coasters gave them a wide berth, and there were no others to disturb them. Among these, and lying midway between Monhegan and Big Spoon Islands, and distant from the Isle au Haut, the nearest inhabited one, about twenty miles, was a freak of nature known as "The Pocket," or Pocket Island, as shown on the maps. This merits a brief description. It was hollow. That is, from a general view it appeared like an attempt to inclose a small portion of the sea within high, fir-covered walls. It resembled a horseshoe with the points drawn close. Neptune beat Jove, however, leaving a narrow fissure connecting the inclosed water and the outer ocean, and through this the tides flowed fiercely; but so protected was the inner harbor that never a ripple disturbed its surface. It was this harbor that gave the island its name. Occasionally a shipwreck occurred here. In 1842 the British barque Lancaster was driven on to this island in a winter night snowstorm, and all hands perished. Five of the crew were washed ashore alive, only to freeze among the snow- covered rocks. The vessel went entirely to pieces in one night and the wreck was not discovered until two years after by a stray fisherman, who suddenly came upon the bleaching bones and grinning skulls of those unfortunate sailors. The island was a menace to coasters and bore an uncanny reputation. It was said to be haunted. During a night storm a tall man had been seen, by a flash of lightning, standing on a cliff. Strange sounds like the cries of dying men had been heard. When the waves were high, a noise like that made by a bellowing bull was noticed. The ocean and its storms play queer pranks at times, especially at night. White bursts of foam leaping over black rocks assume ghostly shape. Dark and grotesque figures appear crawling into or out of fissures, or hiding behind rocks. Hideous and devilish, snarling and snapping, sounds issue from caverns. In darkness an uninhabited coast becomes peopled with demons who sport and scream and leap in hellish glee. Such a spot was Pocket Island. Nature also played another prank here, and as if to furnish a lair for some sea monster she hollowed a cavern in the 11 12 13 14 island, with an entrance below tidewater and at the head of this harbor. Inside and above tide-level it broadened into a small room. As if to still further isolate the island all about it were countless rocks and ledges bare only at low tide and, like a serried cordon of black fangs, ready to bite and destroy any vessel that approached. It is probable that the Indians who formerly inhabited the Maine coast had explored this island and discovered the cave. An Indian is always looking for such things. It is his nature. It may be this wandering and half-civilized remnant of a nearly extinct tribe whom the Jew had compacted with, knew of this sea cavern and piloted his sloop into the safe shelter of "the pocket." And it was a secure shelter. No one came here; no one was likely to. Its uncanny reputation, added to the almost impassable barricade of rocks and ledges all about, made it what Captain Wolf needed—a veritable burrow for a sea fox. Here he brought his cargo of contraband spirits and stored them in the cave. Here he repacked kegs of rum inside of empty mackerel kits, storing them aboard the sloop with genuine ones. By this ruse he almost obliterated the chance of detection. Like a sly fox, he was always on guard. Even when the sloop was safe at anchor, he worked only in the cave. When all was ready, he and his swarthy partner would wait till low tide, then load the dozen or more rum-charged kits and set sail for the coast. In these ventures Wolf realized what his race have always wanted—the Jew's one per cent. In this island cave nature had placed a curiosity, known as a rocking stone. In was a boulder of many tons' weight near the wall of the room, and so poised that a push of the hand at one particular point would move it easily. When so moved a little niche in the rock-wall back of it was exposed. Wolf had discovered this one day while alone in the cave and utilized it as a hiding place for his money. Here he would come alone and, taking out the increasing bags of coin, empty them on a flat stone and, by the light of a lamp, count their contents again and again. Those shining coins were his god and all his religion; and in this damp and dark sea cavern and by the dim light of a lamp he came to worship. The Indian could neither read nor write, add nor subtract, and while he knew the value of coins, he was unable to compute them. Wolf knew this and, unprincipled as he was, he not only defied all law in smuggling, but he had from the first defied all justice, and cheated his partner in the division of profit. As the Indian was never present when either buying or selling took place, and had no knowledge of arithmetic, this was an easy matter. Wolf gave him a little money, of course. He needed him and his vessel; also his help in sailing her. Not only was the Indian a faithful helper, but he held his tongue as well, which was very important. When in some Nova Scotia port the money Wolf gave him as his share was usually spent in drinking and gambling, which suited Wolf, who only desired to use him as a medium. An Indian has no sense of economy, no thought of the morrow. To hunt, fish and eat to-day and let the future provide for itself is enough. If he works one day, it is that he may spend the next. Among the aborigines thrift was an unknown quantity, and the scattered remnants of those tribes existing to-day are the same. As they were hundreds of years ago, so are they now. They were satisfied with bark wigwams then; a board and a mud hovel is enough to-day. They cannot comprehend a white man's ambition to work that he may dress and live well, and all money and all thought spent in civilizing the Indian has only resulted in degrading him. He absorbs all the white man's vices and none of his virtues. Not only that, but the effort to redeem him has warped and twisted him into a cunning and revengeful creature; all malice and no honor. So true is this that the fact has crystalized itself into the universal belief that the only good Indian is a dead one. Such a one, though not comprehended by Wolf, was his partner. While that fox-like Jew was reaping rich profit and deluding himself in believing he was successfully cheating an Indian, he was only sowing the seed that soon or late was destined to end in murder. CHAPTER II. THE SEA FOX. While Neal Dow and his associates were conducting an organized crusade against the sale of liquor in Maine, and that fruitless legislation known as the Maine Law was being enforced, there entered a small coast port in that State one day a sloop called the Sea Fox, manned by a white man, an Indian and a dog. The white man had sinister black eyes; the Indian was tall and swarthy. He and the dog remained on board the sloop; the Jew, or, as he called himself, Captain Wolf, came ashore. He declared himself to be a small coast trader in search of choice lots of fish, and incidentally having for sale clothing, tobacco and various small wares. He lounged about the wharves and buildings devoted to curing fish, talking fish and fishing to all. He seemed to be in search of information, and appeared ready and willing to buy small and choice lots of cured fish at a low price; also to sell the assortment of wares he carried. He invited prospective buyers to visit his sloop, and exerted himself to interest them. While he seemed anxious to sell, he made no sales; and though willing to buy he bought nothing. He was in no hurry. He just ran in to look the market over and see if there was a chance to buy at a price that would enable him to make a fair profit. If not, 15 16 17 18 19 he might come again, or may be he could do better elsewhere. His mission appeared innocent and natural enough and he and his small craft were duly accepted for what they appeared to be. Had any one, however, examined the dozen or so kits of mackerel which appeared as part of his cargo, they would have found, not fish, but a species of bait ofttimes used by fishermen; and could they have read between the lines of Captain Wolf's innocent inquiries they would have learned that fishing information was the thing he cared least about. Though Wolf talked trade, but did no trading; was anxious to buy, and bought not; willing to sell and sold not; it need not be inferred he transacted no business. Had any of these coast residents been blessed with the occult ability to see beyond the apparent facts, and to overhear, they might have learned of certain hard, if illegal, bargains made between Wolf and one or more of their number, and they might have witnessed late at night various mysterious movements of a small boat passing from shore to the sloop empty, and returning laden with apparently harmless kits of fish. Had these good people been still more watchful they would have seen the Sea Fox spread her sails and depart before dawn. Whence Wolf came no one knew; whither he went, no one guessed. Like a strange bird of prey, like a fox at night, he stole into port on occasions wide apart and unexpected, and as mysteriously went his way. The coast of Maine was particularly well adapted to aid Captain Wolf in his peculiar enterprise. The great tide of summer travel had not then started and its countless bays, coves and inlets were unmolested. Wherever a safe harbor occurred a small village had clustered about it and the larger islands only were inhabited. The residents of these hamlets were mainly engaged in fishing or coasting, and of a guileless nature. They were honest themselves, and not easy to suspect dishonesty in others. Into these ports Wolf could sail unsuspected, and, like the cunning fox he was, easily dupe them by his rôle of innocent trader till he found some one as unscrupulous as he, who was willing to take the chance and share his illegal profit. While he played his rôle of fox by day and smuggled by night, it was not without risk. The crusaders against the liquor traffic had an organized force of spies and reformers. In every town there was one or more, and as the reformers received half of all fines or value of liquor seized it may be seen that the Sea Fox had enemies. No one knew it any better than Wolf, and, like the human fox he was, no one was any more capable of guarding against them. Well skilled in the most adroit kind of deception, in comparison to his enemies he was as the fox is to the rabbit, the hawk to the chicken. Frequently he would set traps for his pursuers, and, giving them apparent reason for suspicion, would thus invite a search. On these occasions, it is needless to say, no liquor was found on board the Sea Fox. To discover his enemies by the method of inviting pursuit and then doubling on his track as Reynard does was child's play to him. In each town he had an accomplice who dare not, if he would, betray him. Captain Wolf was also a miser. He loved gold as none but misers do. To him it was wife, child and heaven all in one, and its chink as he counted it was the sweetest of music. For four years he played his rôle and continually reaped rich reward, and then he resolved to quit. But, true to his nature, before doing so he decided to play the hyena. He had for all these years cheated the law; now he planned to cheat those who aided him. To this end he set a trap. When a fox sets a trap he sets it well. Wolf began by circulating an alluring story of a chance to share in the distribution of a large cargo of contraband spirits, provided those who could so share would buy a pro rata large amount at reduced price. Having thus set and baited his trap, he proceeded to spring it. He had, in his wanderings, obtained a formula for the manufacture of spurious brandy. All that was required was a few cheap chemicals and water. He purchased the former; on Pocket Island there was a spring that furnished the latter. Feeling sure that those whom he had duped would not dare to expose him, he yet acted cautiously and began his cheating at widely separated points. He had usually disposed of small lots at a time. He doubled and sometimes trebled these, and the hoard of silver and gold behind the rocking stone grew rapidly. Trip after trip he made to the various ports he had been accustomed to visit, never calling at the same one twice, and at each springing his well-set trap, pocketing his almost stolen money and disappearing, leaving behind him curses and threats of revenge. When all whom he could thus dupe were robbed by this wily Jew and he had secured all the profit they, as his accomplices, had made, Captain Wolf and the Sea Fox sailed away to his unknown lair at Pocket Island, and were never heard of afterward. CHAPTER III. NEMESIS. While Captain Wolf was carrying out his scheme to rob his accomplices in smuggling, he was planning a still more despicable act, and that was to take his hoard of money, stow all valuables on the sloop, sail to a Nova Scotia port, and when near it, to kill the Indian, sell the Sea Fox and cross the ocean. There were several weighty reasons for this. In the first place, those bags of coin behind the rocking stone weighed on his mind. He was a miser, and never before had he so much wealth he could call his own. A few hundred dollars at the most were all he had ever possessed. Now he had thousands. Money was his god, and to escape from danger and 20 21 22 23 24 carry it with him seemed prudent. He was aware he was suspected of being, and in fact was known to be, a smuggler. While as yet undiscovered in his island lair, he might at any time be pounced upon. His act of swindling his accomplices, he knew well, would create revengeful enemies, who would spare neither time nor money to hunt him down. Then there was the Indian whom he had also robbed from the start. He might become suspicious and betray him, or worse yet, discover the secret of the rocking stone. Wolf had discovered it by accident; why might not the Indian? With murder in his heart, Wolf for the first time began to be afraid. He put the pistols he had always carried in perfect order and ready for instant use. So far as he had discovered, the Indian possessed neither knife nor pistol; but nevertheless Wolf feared him, and the more he realized the danger he had incurred in duping his assistants in smuggling, and how much he was really in the power of his giant-framed partner, the more his fears grew. It may be thought it was conscience working in him; but it was not, for such as he have none. It was guilty fear, and that only. This so preyed upon his mind during his last trip to the coast that he could hardly sleep. Then he began to imagine that the Indian was suspicious of him. To allay that danger he doubled the small share of profit he had given his partner, knowing full well if he had no chance to spend it, it would all come back to him in the end. Then he set about deceiving him by an offer to buy the Sea Fox and pay what he believed the Indian would consider a fabulous price. It was a fatal mistake. The Indian had no real idea of the value of his sloop. It had come to him as payment for his share of a successful fishing-trip to The Banks years before, and he had become attached to that craft. It had been his home, his floating wigwam, for a long time, and for Wolf to want to buy it hurt him. "Me no sell boat," he said, when the offer was made. "Me want sloop long time." Wolf, who valued all things from a miser's standpoint, could not understand that there might lurk in the Indian a tinge of sentiment. He was mistaken, and the mistake was a little pitfall placed in his way. There was another which he was also to blame for, and yet, like the first, he was not aware of it. In the cave where he had stored his cargo and prepared it for smuggling, he kept a large can of cheap and highly inflammable oil on a rock shelf, just above the flat stone where he, by the light of two lamps, had counted his wealth time and again. True to his nature, when he bought the oil he bought the cheapest, and unknown to him the can had sprung a leak and while he had been absent for weeks at a time, the oil had run out, saturating the rock below and forming little pools on the cave floor among the loose stones. Wolf had not noticed this, or, if he had, had thought nothing of it. Neither did he realize how fate could utilize his miser's instinct in purchasing the cheap can as a means to bring together and bless two lives unknown to him. We seldom do notice the snags in life that usually trip us. By the time the last voyage of the Sea Fox had been made and she returned to The Pocket, the relations between Wolf and the Indian were in danger of rupture. Wolf distrusted his partner, and yet believed he had lulled all suspicion. He had never failed before in duping any one he had set out to; why should he in this case? Still, he was uneasy and resolved to end it all as soon as possible. But Indians have one peculiarity that will baffle even the shrewdest Jew. They never talk. Their faces are always as expressionless as a graven image. While contemplating the most cruel murder they never show the least change in expression, nor do their eyes show the faintest shadow of an emotion. They are stolid, surly and Sphinx-like always. Wolf's partner was like his race, and not even by the droop of an eyelid did he betray the slowly gathering storm of hate and rage within. He brooded over the hurt he felt when Wolf had wanted to buy his sloop, and believing the Jew meant to rob him of her, he grew suspicious and watched Wolf. Not by word or sign did he show it, and the Jew saw it not. Wolf watched the Indian as closely, only the Indian knew it, and Wolf did not. It was now Wolf against fox and fox against Wolf, and the swarthy fox was getting the best of it. Meanwhile the loading of the sloop for her final departure proceeded. Wolf had planned to use the Indian's help to the last, and when all was ready, enter the cave, secure the money about his person and sail away. The cave entrance was under water for about two hours of high tide, and Wolf waited until a day came when the tide served early. He had planned to go in just before the rising water closed the entrance, thus securing himself from intrusion; and then, when the tide fell away, to come out ready to start. The day and hour came and he entered the cave. Unknown to him the Indian followed! Wolf lighted a lamp and sat down. When the sea had closed the entrance, no sound entered. Wolf waited. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed, and all sound of the ocean ceased. He believed himself alone. He lighted the other lamp, placing both on the flat rock. Then he went to the rocking stone, and pushing it back, took from the niche, one by one, the bags of coin. These he carried to the table stone and poured their contents into a glittering pile. From behind a rock a pair of sinister eyes watched him! He felt that he had two hours of absolute seclusion and need not hurry. He began to slowly pile the coins in little stacks and count them. There was no reason for haste and he counted carefully. He enjoyed this beyond all else in his vile life, and desired to prolong the pleasure. The money was all his, and he gloated over it. No sense of awe at his separation from all things human in that damp, silent cavern, still as a tomb, came over him. No thought of the murder he was soon to commit; no feeling of remorse, no impulse of good; no thought of the future or of God—entered his soul. Only the miser's joy of possession. Not a sound entered the cavern and only the chink of the coin, as he counted it, disturbed the deathly silence. 25 26 27 28 29 Still the sinister eyes watched him from out the darkness! Stack after stack he piled till all was counted—eight of one thousand dollars each, and twelve of five hundred dollars, all in gold; and twenty of one hundred dollars each in silver. A tall, swarthy form crept noiselessly toward him! It was the supreme moment of his life, and as he gloatingly gazed on the stacks glittering in the dim light before him, a delirium of joy hushed all thought and deadened all sense, even that of hearing. Nearer and nearer drew the swarthy form! And as Wolf tasted the sublime ecstasy of a miser's joy, his heaven, his God, suddenly two cold, massive hands closed tight about his throat. But men die hard! Even while unable to breathe, and as he writhed and twisted beneath the awful menace of death bearing him down, his hand suddenly touched the pistol in his belt! The next instant it was drawn and fired full against the Indian's breast! Then a shriek of death agony, as his swarthy foe leaped upward against the rocky shelf; a crash of breaking glass; a flash of fierce flame bursting into red billows, curling and seething all about him and turning the cave into a mimic hell! Outside could be heard the sound of a bellowing bull! CHAPTER IV. THE BOY. A boy is an inverted man. Small things seem to him great and great ones small. Trifling troubles move him to tears and serious ones pass unnoticed. To snare a few worthless suckers in the meadow brook is to the country boy of more importance than the gathering of a field of grain. To play hooky and go nutting is far better than to study and fit himself for earning a livelihood. He works at his play and makes play of his work. He disdains boyhood and longs for manhood. In spite of his inverted position I would rather be a boy than a man, and a country boy than a city-bred one. The country boy has so much the greater chance for enjoyment and is not so soon warped by restrictions and tarnished by the sewers of vice. He has deep forests, wide meadows and pure brooks to play in; and if his feet grow broad from lack of shoes, he hears the song of birds, the whispers of winds in the trees, and knows the scent of new-mown hay and fresh water lilies, the beauty of flowers, green fields and shady woods. He learns how apples taste eaten under the tree, nuts cracked in the woods, sweet cider as it runs from the press, and strawberries picked in the orchard while moist with dew. All these delights are a closed book to the city boy. The country boy is surrounded by pure and wholesome influences and grows to be a better man for it. The wide range of forest and field, pure air, sweet water, plenty of sun and rain are all his, and worth ten times the chance for life, health, enjoyment and a good character than ever comes to the city boy. He may sooner learn to smoke or gather a choice selection of profane and vulgar words; he may have smaller feet and better clothes, but he often fails in attaining a healthy body and pure mind and never knows what a royal, wide-open chance for enjoying boyhood days he has missed. He never knows the delight of wading barefoot down a mountain brook where the clear water leaps over mossy ledges and where he can pull trout from every foam- flecked pool! He never realizes the charming suspense of lying upon the grassy bank of a meadow stream and snaring a sucker, or what fun it is to enter a chestnut grove just after frost and rain have covered the ground with brown nuts, or setting traps, shaking apple trees, or gathering wild grapes! He never rode to the cider-mill on a load of apples and had the chance to shy one at every bird and squirrel on the way; or when winter came, to slide down hill when the slide was a half-mile field of crusted snow! All these and many other delights he never knows; but one thing he does know, and knows it early, and that is how much smarter, better dressed and better off in every way he is than the poor, despised greeny of a country boy! He may, it is true, go early to the theatre and look at half-nude actresses loaded with diamonds, but he never sees a twenty-acre cedar pasture just after an ice storm when the morning sun shines fair upon it! True to his inverted comprehension, the country boy, and our boy especially, sees and feels all his surroundings and all the voices of nature from a boy's standpoint. He feels that his hours of work are long and hard, and that the countless chores are interspersed through his daily life on the farm for the sole purpose of preventing him from having a moment he can call his own. He has a great many pleasant hours, however, and does not realize why they pass so quickly. His little world seems large to him and all his experiences great in their importance. A ten-acre meadow appears like a boundless prairie, and a half-mile wide piece of woods an unbounded forest. On one side of the farm is a clear stream known as Ragged Brook, that, starting among the foothills of a low mountain range, laughs and chatters, leaps and tumbles, down the hills, through the gorges and over the ledges as if endowed with life. Since he is not blessed with brothers or sisters, this, together with the woods, the birds and squirrels, becomes his 30 31 32 33 34 companion. The first trout he ever catches in this brook seems a monster and never afterward does one pull quite so hard. Isolated as he is, and having none but his elders for company, he talks to the creatures of the field and forest as if they could understand him, and he watches their ways and habits and tries to make them his friends. He is a lonely boy, and seldom sees others of his age, so that perhaps when he does they make a more distinct impression on his mind. One day he is allowed to go to the mill with his father, and it is an event in his life he never forgets. The old brown mill with its big wheel splashing in the clear water; the millstones that rumble so swiftly; the dusty miller who takes the bags of grain—all interest him, and especially so does the pond above the mill that is dotted with white lilies and where there is a boat fastened to a willow by a chain. On the way back, and a mile from home, his father stops to chat with a man in front of a large house with tall pillars, and two immense maples on either side of the gate. Standing beside the man and holding onto one of his hands with her two small ones is a little girl who looks at the boy with big, wondrous eyes. He wants to tell her about the mill and ask her if she ever saw the great wheel go around, but he is afraid to. He hears the man call her "Liddy," and wonders if she ever caught a fish. Then his world grows larger as the months pass one by one, until he is sent to a little brown schoolhouse a mile away and finds a small crowd of boys and girls, only two or three of whom he ever saw before. One of them is the girl who looked wonderingly at him a year previous. He tells her he knows what her name is, and feels a little hurt because that fact does not seem to interest her. He studies his lessons because he is told he must, and plays hard because he enjoys it. He feels no special attraction toward any of his schoolmates until one winter day this same little blue-eyed girl asks him for a place on his sled. He shares it with her as a well-behaved boy should, and so begins the first faint bond of feeling that like a tiny rill on the hillside slowly gathers power, until at last, a mighty river, it sweeps all other feelings before it. How slowly that rippling rill of feeling grew during the next few years need not be specified. Like other boys of his age, he feels at times ashamed of caring whether she notices him or not, and again the incipient pangs of jealousy, because she notices other boys. In a year he begins to bring her flag-root in summer, or big apples in winter, and although her way home is different from his, he occasionally feels called upon to accompany her, heedless of the fact that it costs him an extra half-mile and fault-finding at being late home. He passes unharmed through the terrors of speaking pieces on examination day, and when St. Valentine's day comes he conquers the momentous task of inditing a verse where "bliss" rhymes with "kiss" upon one of those missives which he has purchased for five cents at the village store, and timidly leaves it where this same girl will find it, in her desk at school. On two occasions during the last summer at the district school, he—quite a big boy now—joins the older boys and girls under a large apple tree that grows near the schoolhouse, and plays a silly game, the principal feature of which consists in his having to choose some girl to kiss. As he knows very well whom he prefers, and has the courage to kiss her when his turn comes, that seems a most delightful game; and although he and other boys who were guilty of this proceeding are jeered at by the younger ones, the experience makes such an impression on him that he lies awake half the first night thinking about it. But all too soon to him comes the end of schooldays and especially the charming companionship of this particular fair- haired girl. On the last day she asks him to write in her album, and he again indulges in rhyme and inscribes therein a melancholy verse, the tenor of which is a hope that she will see that his grave is kept green, as such an unhappy duty must, in the near future, devolve upon some one. She in turn writes him a farewell note of similar tone, and encloses a lock of her hair tied with a blue ribbon. He has planned to walk home with her when the last day ends, and perhaps participate in a more tender leave-taking, but she rides home with her parents, and so that sweet scheme is foiled. With a heavy heart he watches her out of sight and then, feeling that possibly he may never see her again, takes his books and turns away from the dear old brown schoolhouse for the last time. He locks the curl of hair and her note up in a tin box where he keeps his fish-hooks, and resumes his unending round of hard work and chores. His horizon has enlarged a good deal, for he is now twelve years old—but it does not yet include Liddy. It is over a year before he sees her again, though once, when given a rainy half-day to fish in Ragged Brook, he, like a silly boy, deserts that enticing stream for an hour and cuts across lots near her home in hopes that he may see her again, but fails. Then one summer day a surprise comes to him. Half a mile from his home, and in the direction his thoughts often turn, is a cedar pasture where blackberries grow in plenty, and here he is sent to pick them. It is here, and while unconscious what Fate has in store for him, that he suddenly hears a scream, and running toward him, down the path comes a girl in a short dress with a calico sun-bonnet flying behind her, until almost at his feet she stumbles and falls and there, sprawling on the grass, is—Liddy. In an instant he is at her side, and how glad he is of the chance to help her up and soothe her fears no one but himself ever knows. She, too, has been picking berries, and has come suddenly upon a monster snake just gliding from a cedar bough almost over her head. When her fright subsides he at once hunts for and kills that reptile with far more satisfaction than he ever felt in killing one before. It is an ungrateful return, for although the boy knew it not, the snake has done him a greater kindness than he ever realized. Then when all danger is removed, how sweet it is to sit beside her in the shade and talk over schooldays while he looks into her tender blue eyes. And how glad he is to fill her pail with berries which he has picked, and when the sun is almost down how charming it is to walk home with her along the maple-shaded lane! He even hopes that he will see another snake so that he can kill that also, and show her how brave 35 36 37 38 39 a boy is. But no more snakes come to his aid that day and only the gentlest of breezes rustles the spreading boughs that shade their pathway. When she thanks him at parting, a little look of gratitude makes her blue eyes seem more tender than ever to him and her voice sound like sweetest music. His world has enlarged wonderfully now, for Liddy has entered into it. CHAPTER V. THE BOY'S FIRST PARTY. The Stillman girls were going to give a party, and the boy was invited. It was the first social recognition he had ever received, and it disturbed his equilibrium. It also made him feel that he was almost a man. He had for some time longed to be a man, and for a year past had felt hurt when called a boy. When the little note of invitation, requesting "the pleasure of your company," etc., reached him, he felt he had suddenly grown taller. He realized it more fully that night when he tried on his best clothes to see how they would look. The sleeves of his jacket were too short and his pants missed connections with his boots by full two inches. The gap seemed to swell the size of his feet, also. When he looked in his little mirror he noticed a plainly defined growth of down on his lip, and his hair needed cutting. Then the invitation filled him with mingled fear, surprise and pleasure. He hardly knew, after thinking it all over, whether he wanted to go or not. The one fact that turned the scale was Liddy. He was sure she would be there. But then, that painful gap between his pants and boots! He had thought a good deal about her ever since school was over. Now that he was invited to a party where she would be, he began to feel just a little afraid of her. When the important evening came and he presented himself at the Stillmans' house, and lifted the big iron knocker on the front door, its clang sounded loud enough to wake the dead, and his heart was going like a trip-hammer. Mary Stillman met him at the door, and her welcome was so cordial he couldn't understand it. He wasn't much used to society. All his schoolmates were there—boys that he had played ball, snared suckers, and gone in swimming with scores of times, and girls that seemed a good deal taller than when they went to school. Most of them were dressed in white, and with their rosy cheeks and bright eyes made a pretty picture. They were nearly all in one of the big front rooms, and among them was Liddy, in pink muslin with a broad sash, and bows of blue ribbon at the ends of her two braids of hair. She looked so sweet he was more afraid of her than ever. His first thought was to go into the room where some of the boys were, but Mary Stillman almost pushed him into the other room and he felt that he was in for it. When he sat down next to another boy and looked at the girls whispering and giggling together, he almost wished he had not come. Then when he thought of that unfriendly separation of his pants and boots he was sure of it. But he caught a pleasant smile and nod from Liddy, and that gave him a world of courage. Then he began to talk to the boy next to him, and was just beginning to forget that he was at a party, in an exchange of experiences about bee hunting and finding wild honey, when the oldest Stillman girl proposed they play button. He had never played button and wasn't anxious to, for it might necessitate his walking about the room and expose that gap still more. He preferred to talk bee-hunting with Jim Pratt. He was soon made to realize, however, that there was a different sort of wild honey to be gathered at a party, and "Button, button, who's got the button?" was the method. When it came his turn to pay a forfeit, he was directed to measure three yards of tape with Liddy. As this consisted in kneeling face to face with her on a cushion in the center of the room, joining hands, expanding arms to the limit, and back again, punctuating each outward stretch with a kiss, it wasn't so bad. He was sorry it wasn't six yards instead of three. He could stand it if Liddy could—only he hoped that no one had noticed that gap. On the next round, Jim Pratt was ordered to stand in a well four feet deep and choose a girl to pull him out. As four feet meant four kisses, and Jim knew a good thing when he saw it, he chose Liddy. And then the boy felt like licking him. After button came post office, and the boy had a letter from Nellie Barnes, with five cents postage due, which called for his catching Nellie and kissing her five times. By this time he had forgotten he was at a party with abbreviated pants, and was having no end of a good time. Then some one started the good old frolic of run 'round chimney, and as the Stillman house was admirably adapted for that, the fun waxed fast and furious. It was catch any girl you wanted to, and kiss her if you did. In the romp the boy's collar came off, and he asked Liddy to pin it on, and when she purposely pricked him a little, he grabbed her and kissed her a few times extra, just for luck. He was rapidly realizing why he was there, and what for. And that gap had passed entirely out of his mind. Then the boys, all rather warm and excited, were requested to go into the kitchen and carry refreshments to the girls, and our boy and Liddy were soon ensconced in a cosy corner with two plates filled with a medley of frosted cake, mince pie, tarts and the like, and as happy as two birds in a nest. It was the first time he had ever eaten with her, and an 40 41 42 43 44 45 event in his life of no small importance. They also talked as fast as they ate. She told him all her little plans about going to the village academy the next term, and what she liked to study, and all about a little white rabbit that her father had given her on her last birthday and how cunning it was. The boy decided at once that he would have a white rabbit if he had to steal one. He also told her that he had found a nest of young foxes that summer and had kept them ever since in a pen, and he offered to give her one. He also assured her he, too, meant to go to the academy if his parents would let him. It was a charming visit, and the boy's heart warmed in a wonderful way, and Liddy's blue eyes looked into his brown ones so sweetly that he felt as if heaven was just ahead. Like a wise boy he asked her then and there if he could go home with her, which, of course, he could, and so all was well. Almost before any one realized it, the time for the party to break up came, and with a chorus of "good-nights" the happy gathering ended. When the boy, with Liddy's soft hand curled confidingly around his arm, started for her home, a mile away, he was proud as a king, and far happier. And that long walk in the moonlight, while "On his arm a soft hand rested; rested light as ocean's foam,"— could he, or would he, ever forget it? I think not. It was a poem of blue eyes like spring violets, of tender, loving words, of mellow moonlight on the fields where the corn-shocks stood in spectral rows, and the brook they crossed looked like a rippling stream of silver; where the maples along the lane, still clad in yellow foliage, cast mottled shadows in their pathway, and the fallen leaves rustled beneath their feet. They did not talk much—their hearts were too full of love's young dream—although he told her of his visit to a deserted house a year before, and how he heard ghostly footsteps in the house, and saw a closet door swing half open in a shadowy room, and he was sure there was a ghost in that closet; at which Liddy's arm clasped his a little closer. Maybe he enlarged a trifle upon that spook. Almost any boy with a fertile imagination and his sweetheart clinging to his arm, on a moonlit maple lane, with no one near, would. I am sure I would if I were a boy. When her home was reached he was revolving a serious problem in his mind. To kiss Liddy in the games at the party was easy enough. It was a part of the play, and expected. He had even ventured a few independent ones when she pricked him, and though he got his ears boxed, she didn't seem angry. But to deliberately kiss her now at parting was an entirely different matter. No doubt Liddy knew what he was thinking about, for when the gate was reached she paused and did not enter. She thanked him sweetly for his company home, and declared she had had a delightful time. He assured her he had, and then there was a pause. It was a critical moment. He looked at the moon, high overhead. The man in it—as all men would—seemed to say: "Now's your chance, my boy; kiss her quick!" And yet he hesitated. Then he looked at the near-by brook where the ripples were like dancing silver coin, and then at Liddy. Maybe the laughter of those ripples gave him courage, for he hesitated no longer, but full upon her rosy lips he kissed her. Then he walked home, and all the long mile, though his feet trod the earth, he knew it not. Rather was he floating on ripples of moonlight, with a fairy-like face and tender blue eyes ever hovering over him, and a soft white hand clinging to his arm. And so ended the boy's first party. CHAPTER VI. SERIOUS THOUGHTS. When the boy reached home a new and surprising change had come to him. For the first time in his life he began to think—and what was more to the point, to faintly see himself as he was, and the picture was not pleasant. He had longed to be a man. He began to feel that he was almost one, and a poorly clad and ignorant one at that. He lay awake nearly all that night, and not only lived the party over, but more especially the walk home with Liddy. All he had cared for before was boyish sports, to do his work, and escape wearing his best clothes. Now he began to think about those same clothes and how ill they fitted him and how awkward they made him look, and the more he thought about it the more he wondered how Liddy could have been so nice to him. He vowed he would never be seen in public again with them on. He had seen boys in the village who wore neat and well-fitting garments, a starched shirt and collar that buttoned to it, instead of being pinned to the top of a roundabout, as his was, and thinking of them made him ashamed of himself. And then that awful gap between his pants and boots! Then he thought of how the girls were laughing when he came into the room at the party, and now he felt sure they must have been making fun of him, and that made him feel worse than ever. His coarse boots, in comparison with the nice, thin ones worn by some of the other boys there, also haunted him. In short, he took a mental inventory of himself, and the sum total was not pleasing. All the next day he was glum and thoughtful and for a week he acted the same. It was the birth of the man in him; the step from the happy, care-free boy to young manhood. It was also, be it said, the beginning of a woman's refining influence that has slowly and for countless ages gradually lifted man from savagery to enlightenment. An evolution of good conduct, garb and cleanliness made necessary by woman's favor, and to win her admiration. The cynics call it 46 47 48 49 50 vanity. So then, must they call the evolution of the species vanity. It may be so, but call it what you will, it's the influence that has wrought the naked savage, decorated with paint and feathers, and courting his wife by knocking her senseless with a club and carrying her to a cave, into the well-dressed, gallant, kindly, thoughtful and refined gentleman of to-day. Just a little of this realizing sense of what he should be, and why, came to the boy, and as ever will be it was a woman's face and a woman's smiles, albeit a very young and blue-eyed one, that inspired the thought. His parents rallied him a little about the party, but to him it was—especially its ending, a sacred secret. Then one day he astonished them by asking if he might have a new suit and go to the academy that coming winter. He had never before shown any unusual eagerness for study, and this request was surprising. For several weeks the question was held in abeyance, though duly considered in the family councils; and then one day at the supper-table the answer came. "If the boy wants more learnin'," his father said, "by gosh, he can have it. I never had much chance at books myself, but that ain't no reason why he shouldn't. We'll fix ye up," he said cheerfully, with a twinkle in his eye, "so ye won't be ashamed to go to a party again;" from which it may be inferred that the old gentleman had divined some things which the boy little suspected he had. When the winter term at the village academy opened, the boy was there, his courage a good deal strengthened by a new suit that fitted and a pair of boots that did not give the impression that he was falling downstairs at every step. But his entry into the new school was not a thornless path. Most of the faces were new to him, and many a good deal older. He still felt himself what he was—a big, awkward boy, though a boy with a determined will to study hard and make the most of his opportunity. He soon learned a good many things; one of which was that earnestness in study did not always win the favor of either teacher or schoolmates; that in school, as in the world, pleasant manners and flattering words counted for more than devotion to duty. He also learned that such a thing as favoritism between master and pupil existed, and that the poorest scholar often stood nearest the teacher's heart. The master, Mr. Webber, he discovered, had a monstrous bump of self- esteem. He was a small man, not larger than the boy, who was sixteen, and large for his age, and who, as big boys will, cherished a sort of contempt for small men. It is possible that the boy was entirely wrong in his estimate of the principal. No doubt that worthy, judged from an adult standpoint, was the most courtly and diplomatic pedagogue that ever let his favorite pupils whisper all they pleased, and banged the floor with the other sinners; but, to the boy, he seemed a little, arrogant bit of bumptiousness, who strutted about the schoolroom and was especially fond of hearing himself read aloud. "The Raven" was his favorite selection, and he read it no less than thirteen times during one term. The boy did not feel at home at the academy. It was so unlike the dear old district school. But he felt it was a good training for him, and he watched the older scholars and studied hard. The girls all wore long dresses, and, as a rule, were ju...