A Chance for Himself; or, Jack Hazard and His Treasure

JACK—no longer the bright and cheerful lad whom we so lately saw picking up stones in the hilly pasture—went home, brooding darkly over his wrongs, and refused to be comforted b...

FEARING a raid upon his melon-patch, which bad boys in the neighborhood were beginning to molest, the squire had stayed at home to watch it that Sunday afternoon. He had seen Ja...

“I S’POSE my nag is gitting a little mite impatient,” remarked the constable. “Shall we be driving along? Put on your shoes, sonny; not your Sunday-go-to-meeting pair; these and...

“Has no one told you? I didn’t know but he himself—O Jack!” exclaimed Annie, joyfully, taking a quick step towards the door through which the youngster at that moment advanced i...

TAKING a circuitous route, in order that, if he was seen emerging from the woods, it might be at a distance from the spot where his treasure was concealed, Jack came out upon th...

“HOW strange it seems,” said Mrs. Pipkin that morning, “not to have Jack around! I don’t believe I should have missed any one of you so much. Somehow I can’t get used to his bei...

ALONE in her lonely little house, in the closing twilight, Aunt Patsy had put up the leaf of her rickety pine table, and, having placed upon it a pewter plate and a cracked teac...

WHEN at length the squire stood upon the legs he had been drawn out by, and found himself in the presence of the Huswick boys, the recognition and pleasure were mutual.

CONSTABLE SELLICK was not a man devoid of feeling, for all his merry disposition. He stood gazing anxiously at the water, shading his eyes from the sun reflected in it; then, as...

WEAK-EYED Judge Garty, having sanded the warrant by which Jack was to have been conveyed to jail, and winked hard over it for about fifteen seconds (giving at least six winks to...

It was not until the moment when, pretending to fall, he threw himself from the masonry of the culvert, that the idea occurred to him of resorting to a little trick which he had...

SO Jack left the home and friends that for a brief season had been so pleasant and dear to him, and went out to take leave of another and older friend. This was Lion. He hugged...

SELLICK drove down the main street of the village, past the blacksmith-shop, the meeting-house, and the tavern, and turned up to a hitching-post near the canal. Just beyond was...

AFTER dismissing the Huswick boys, Squire Peternot carried his bag of coin into the room which served him as an office, where he had scarcely time to place it in a corner beside...

SOON Jack heard the gun in another part of the field; then a quarter of a mile off; then faintly in the far distance. Then the blackbirds came back again.

ABOUT an hour later several dark figures might have been seen creeping stealthily along, behind Squire Peternot’s garden wall, in the direction of the house. A dim light shone a...

He had heard footsteps and the rattling of a milk-pail behind him, but had not looked around, thinking it was Billy the farm-boy coming to help him. Now he looked, however, and...

Mrs. Chatford had just been saying, “I’m glad you didn’t urge him, Annie. He don’t often make up his mind in this way, but when he does it’s no use arguing with him. I had said...

IN the forenoon of the following day Annie Felton dismissed her little school half an hour earlier than she was accustomed to do, and went to her Aunt Chatford’s house, to dine...

MRS. CHATFORD met her husband at the door, her kind face full of motherly solicitude. “Do tell me, what is the matter! _He_ is in the sitting-room. O Jack! I hope you haven’t be...

JACK was up very early the next morning; and having put fresh stockings and a pair of old shoes on his scratched and bruised feet, he went out, determined at the first opportuni...

The man—noticeable for his round shoulders, round puckered mouth, and two large, shining front teeth—wielded a stout iron bar called a “crow,” with which he pried up the turf-bo...

JACK’S first thought was, that the creature, whatever it might be, was in the log when he placed his clothes there, and that it had afterwards seized them and perhaps torn them...

SELLICK had a better horse than his neighbors, and he too had been using the whip a little since Jack respectfully declined working for him, preferring to go to jail. The merry...

PASSING the corner of the block, where he dropped Judge Garty’s key into the hogshead of water, Jack slipped into a short, narrow alley, and turned down a back street which brou...

THE deacon’s folks had not got home from meeting when Jack reached the house; but he saw them coming,—Mr. Chatford, Mr. and Mrs. Pipkin, and Phin, in the old one-horse wagon. He...

THEY found Judge Garty in his office; and soon after the deacon and Squire Peternot arrived. Once more Jack, but now with a lighter heart than before, stood before the weak-eyed...

A LITTLE calm reflection opened the squire’s mind to a ray of light which would certainly have dawned upon it before, had not his wits been clouded by passion. “Boy!” he suddenl...

“Out of his reach,—that’s all I know. He didn’t foller us but a few rods; the old chap’s so lame he can’t run wuth a cent. The idee of your takin’ me for him!”

THE crowd came streaming out of the back streets of the village, not less than twenty or thirty men and boys, some intent on joining in the chase, while the rest were actuated o...

FIERCELY the squire was limping to and fro, between his office-room and Mrs. Peternot’s kitchen, compressing his lips, and striking the floor every now and then with his cane, a...

“Say, Dock!” said Hank (nickname for Henry), skulking behind some bushes, “le’s put for Chatford’s orchard, and scatter rines by the way, so if we’re tracked the old man’ll thin...

AT every sound of wheels Jack started; and more than once he imagined he heard a wagon stop at the gate. Still no deacon; would he never return? Jack watched the clock, and thou...

“I’ve no hope of his relenting. But I don’t feel as I did yesterday,” said Jack. He glanced at the backs of the books. “I think I shall have a pretty good time to read and study...

WANDERING to and fro among the dark and silent trees, Jack mastered his grief at length; then, remembering that he had still one faithful friend, he went to find Lion.

PETERNOT and his nephew took their departure, after making a short call. Then the family sat down to the supper-table, and the merits and prospects of the candidate for the wint...

THE milk was carried to the pantry and strained; the candles were lighted, and the family sat in a pleasant circle about the kitchen table, while, without, the twilight darkened...

IN a moment all was still in the kitchen; then, after a brief silence, Peternot began to pray, in a low, solemn tone of voice. Jack, waiting and listening in his corner, was dis...

HANK leaned over the log,—his lank frame and astonishing length of limb favoring the execution of his stratagem,—and seized Lion by one of his hind legs while his attention was...

GREAT was the joy at the farm-house over Jack’s return. Mrs. Chatford shed motherly tears on his neck; little Kate hugged him as high up as she could reach; while Mrs. Pipkin, a...

“Can’t I have something to drink with it?” he asked. “They have milk in the grocery; I can pay for a cupful.” And he took from his pocket the solitary half-dollar, which was all...