CHAPTER I

IN WHICH HARRY WEST AND SQUIRE WALKER DISAGREE ON AN IMPORTANT POINT

"Boy, come here!"

Squire Walker was a very pompous man; one of the most notable persons in the little town of Redfield, which, the inquiring young reader will need to be informed, as it is not laid down on any map of Massachusetts that I am acquainted with, is situated thirty-one miles southwest of Boston.

I am not aware that Redfield was noted for anything in particular, unless it was noted for Squire Walker, as Mount Vernon was noted for Washington, and Monticello for Jefferson. No doubt the squire thought he was as great a man as either of these, and that the world was strangely stupid because it did not find out how great a man he really was. It was his misfortune that he was born in the midst of stirring times, when great energy, great genius, and the most determined patriotism are understood and appreciated.

Squire Walker, then, was a great man--in his own estimation. It is true, the rest of the world, including many of the people of Redfield, had not found it out; but, as the matter concerned himself more nearly than any one else, he seemed to be resigned to the circumstances of his lot. He had represented the town in the legislature of the state, was a member of the school committee, one of the selectmen, and an overseer of the poor. Some men would have considered all these offices as glory enough for a lifetime; and I dare say the squire would have been satisfied, if he had not been ambitious to become one of the county commissioners.

The squire had a very high and proper regard for his own dignity. It was not only his duty to be a great man, but to impress other people, especially paupers and children, with a just sense of his importance. Consequently, when he visited the poorhouse, he always spoke in the imperative mood. It was not becoming a man of his magnificent pretensions to speak gently and kindly to the unfortunate, the friendless, and the forsaken; and the men and women hated him, and the children feared him, as much as they would have feared a roaring lion.

"Boy, come here!" said Squire Walker, as he raised his arm majestically towards a youth who was picking up "windfalls" under the apple trees in front of the poorhouse.

The boy was dressed in a suit of blue cotton clothes, extensively, but not very skillfully patched. At last two-thirds of the brim of his old straw hat was gone, leaving nothing but a snarly fringe of straws to protect his face from the heat of the sun. But this was the least of the boy's trials. Sun or rain, heat or cold, were all the same to him, if he only got enough to eat, and time enough to sleep.

He straightened his back when Squire Walker spoke to him, and stood gazing with evident astonishment that the distinguished gentleman should condescend to speak to him.

"Come here, you sir! Do you hear?" continued Squire Walker, upon whom the boy's look of wonder and perturbation was not wholly lost.

"This way, Harry," added Mr. Nason, the keeper of the poorhouse, who was doing the honors of the occasion to the representative of the people of Redfield.

Harry West was evidently a modest youth, and appeared to be averse to pushing himself irreverently into the presence of a man whom his vivid imagination classed with Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, whose great deeds he had read about in the spelling book.

Harry slowly sidled along till he came within about a rod of the great man, where he paused, apparently too much overawed to proceed any farther.

"Come here, I say," repeated Squire Walker. "Why don't you take your hat off, and make your manners?"

Harry took his hat off, and made his manners, not very gracefully, it is true; but considering the boy's perturbation, the squire was graciously pleased to let his "manners" pass muster.

"How old are you, boy?" asked the overseer.

"Most twelve," replied Harry, with deference.

"High time you were put to work."

"I do work," answered Harry.

"Not much; you look as fat and lazy as one of my fat hogs."

Mr. Nason ventured to suggest that Harry was a smart, active boy, willing to work, and that he more than paid his keeping by the labor he performed in the field, and the chores he did about the house--an interference which the squire silently rebuked, by turning up his nose at the keeper.

"I do all they want me to do," added the boy, whose tongue seemed to grow wonderfully glib under the gratuitous censure of the notable gentleman.

"Don't be saucy, Master West."

"Bless you, squire! Harry never spoke a saucy word in his life," interposed the friendly keeper.

"He should know his place, and learn how to treat his superiors. You give these boys too much meat, Mr. Nason. They can't bear it. Mush and molasses is the best thing in the world for them."

If any one had looked closely at Harry while the functionary was delivering himself of this speech, he might have seen his eye snap and his chest heave with indignation. He had evidently conquered his timidity, and, maugre his youth, was disposed to stand forth and say, "I, too, am a man." His head was erect, and he gazed unflinchingly into the eye of the squire.

"Boy," said the great man, who did not like to have a pauper boy look him in the eye without trembling--"boy, I have got a place for you, and the sooner you are sent to it, the better it will be for you and for the town."

"Where is it, sir?"

"Where is it? What is that to you, you young puppy?" growled the squire, shocked at the boy's presumption in daring to question him.

"If I am going to a place, I would like to know where it is," replied Harry.

"You will go where you are sent!" roared the squire.

"I suppose I must; but I should like to know where."

"Well, then, you shall know," added the overseer maliciously; for he had good reason to know that the intelligence would give the boy the greatest pain he could possibly inflict. "You are going to Jacob Wire's."

"Where, sir?" asked the keeper, looking at the squire with astonishment and indignation.

"To Jacob Wire's," repeated the overseer.

"Jacob Wire's!" exclaimed Mr. Nason.

"I said so."

"Do you think that will be a good place for the boy?" asked the keeper, trying to smile to cover the indignation that was boiling in his bosom.

"Certainly I do."

"Excuse me, Squire Walker, but I don't."

The overseer stood aghast. Such a reply was little better than rebellion in one of the town's servants, and his blood boiled at such unheard-of plainness of speech to him, late representative to the general court, member of the school committee, one of the selectmen, and an overseer of the poor.

Besides, there was another reason why the temerity of the keeper was peculiarly aggravated. Jacob Wire was the squire's brother-in-law; and though the squire despised him quite as much and as heartily as the rest of the people of Redfield, it was not fitting that any of his connections should be assailed by another. It was not so much the fact, as the source from which it came, that was objectionable.

"How dare you speak to me in that manner, Mr. Nason?" exclaimed the squire. "Do you know who I am?"

Mr. Nason did know who he was, but at that moment, and under those circumstances, he so far forgot himself as to inform the important functionary that he didn't care who he was; Jacob Wire's was not a fit place for a heathen, much less a Christian.

"What do you mean, sir?" gasped the overseer in his rage.

"I mean just what I say, Squire Walker. Jacob Wire is the meanest man in the county. He half starves his wife and children; and no hired man ever stayed there more than a week--he always starved them out in that time."

"If you please, sir, I would rather not go to Mr. Wire's," put in Harry, to whom the county jail seemed a more preferable place.

"There, shut up! I say you shall go there!" replied the squire.

"Really, squire, this is too bad. You know Wire as well as any man in town, and--"

"Not another word, Mr. Nason! Have the boy ready to go to Jacob Wire's to-morrow!" and the overseer, not very well satisfied with the interview, hastened away to avoid further argument upon so delicate a topic.

Harry stood watching the retreating form of the great man of Redfield. The mandate he had spoken was the knell of hope to him. It made the future black and desolate. As he gazed the tears flooded his eyes, and his feelings completely overcame him.

"Don't cry, Harry," said the kind-hearted keeper, taking him by the hand.

"I can't help it," sobbed Harry. "He will whip me, and starve me to death. Don't let him put me there."

"I don't know as I can help it, Harry."

"I am willing to work, and work hard, too; but I don't want to be starved to death."

"I will do what I can for you; but the other overseers do pretty much as Squire Walker tells them to do."

"I can't go to Jacob Wire's," burst from Harry's lips, as he seated himself on a rock, and gave way to the violence of his emotions.

"I will see the other overseers; don't cry, Harry. Hope for the best."

"No use of hoping against such a man as Jacob Wire. If he don't starve me, he will work me to death. I would rather die than go there."

"Well, well; don't take on so. Perhaps something can be done."

"Something shall be done," added the boy, as he rose from his seat, with an air of determination in keeping with the strong words he uttered.

The keeper's presence was required in the barn, and he left Harry musing and very unhappy about his future prospects. The thought of becoming a member of Jacob Wire's family was not to be entertained. The boy was a pauper, and had been brought up at the expense of the town; but he seemed to feel that, though fortune and friends had forsaken him, he was still a member of the great human family.

Jacob Wire, with whom it was proposed to apprentice him, had the reputation of being a hard master. He loved money, and did not love anything else. His heart was barren of affection, as his soul was of good principles; and though he did not literally starve his family and his help, he fed them upon the poorest and meanest fare that would support human life. The paupers in the poorhouse lived sumptuously, compared with those who gathered around the board of Jacob Wire.

The keeper knew this from experience, for years ago, before he had been appointed to his present situation, he had worked for Wire; and age and prosperity had not improved him. The more he got, the more he wanted; the fuller his barn and storehouse, the more stingy he became to those who were dependent upon him.

Harry West was a good boy, and a great favorite with the keeper of the poorhouse. He was always good-natured, willing to work, and never grumbled about his food. He was not only willing to take care of the baby washing days, but seemed to derive pleasure from the occupation. For all these reasons, Mr. Nason liked Harry, and had a deep interest in his welfare; something more than a merely selfish interest, for he had suggested to the overseers the propriety of binding him out to learn some good trade.

Harry was sad and disheartened; but he had unlimited confidence in the keeper, and felt sure that he would protect him from such a calamity as being sent to Jacob Wire's. After he had carried the windfalls into the shed, he asked Mr. Nason if he might go down to the river for a little while. The permission given, he jumped over the cow yard wall, and with his eyes fixed in deep thought upon the ground, made his way over the hill to Pine Pleasant, as the beautiful grove by the river's side was called.

The grove extended to the brink of the stream, which in this place widened into a pond. Near the shore was a large flat rock, which was connected with the mainland by a log, for the convenience of anglers and bathers. This was a favorite spot with Harry; and upon the rock he seated himself, to sigh over the hard lot which was in store for him. It was not a good way to contend with the trials to which all are subjected; but he had not yet learned that sorrow and adversity are as necessary for man as joy and prosperity. Besides, it was a turning point in his life, and it seemed to him that Jacob Wire's house would be the tomb of all his hopes.