CHAPTER I.THE PAGES.
“THERE’S the stage, mother! It’s coming round the Bend,—don’t you hear it? Hark! how near it sounds! I shall see it in a minute. There it is, now! And there’s somebody on the top with Mr. Peters;—yes, there are two or three persons. I’ll bet Marcus and Oscar are there; don’t you believe they are? I’d ride outside, if I were they; wouldn’t you, mother?”
“You had better not be too jubilant, Ronald,”calmly replied the lady addressed. “Have you forgotten how disappointed you were last night?”
“O, well, it isn’t likely they will disappoint us again,” replied the boy. “Iknowthey will come, this time, just as well as I want to. See! that’s Marcus himself—I know him by his straw hat, and his brown linen sack that he wore to keep the dust off his clothes. And that boy by the side of him is Cousin Oscar, isn’t it? Look! isn’t that Oscar, Aunt Fanny?”
Aunt Fanny looked towards the stage-coach, still nearly a quarter of a mile distant; but her eyes were not sharp enough to distinguish the countenance of any one upon it, and she could not relieve the impatient boy from his suspense.
“I wonder what he looks like, any way,” resumed Ronald. “I can tell, just as soon as I see him, whether I shall like him or not. Why, I should think he was as big as Sam Hapley. He looks a little like him, too, from here, doesn’t he, mother?”
“I can’t tell; he is hardly within the range of my vision, yet,” replied Mrs. Page.
“Now Marcus is pointing this way,” continued Ronald. “I’ll bet he sees me, and is telling Oscarwho I am. Why, mother, can’t you see them now? I can almost hear them talk.”
“Yes, that is Marcus, and there is Oscar, too,” said Aunt Fanny, after gazing a few moments at the approaching coach.
“Didn’t I tell you so!” exclaimed Ronald, rubbing his hands with glee, and dancing on the green sward around the door. “Speak to them, Rover!” he added, calling to a handsome spaniel that lay in the middle of the road, beneath the shade of a tree.
The dog sprang to meet the stage-coach, which was now within a few rods of the house; and, recognizing his master, he frisked around the horses, and manifested his satisfaction by a variety of significant signs.
Mr. Peters, the driver, reined up his horses at the farm house, and a young man, about eighteen years of age, jumped off, followed by a lad some three years younger. The first of these was Marcus Page, and this was his home, from which he had been absent about ten days, on a visit to Boston, and other places in Massachusetts. The other passenger was his cousin, Oscar Prestor, whose parents resided in Boston, but who had come tolive with the family for a season. He appeared a little embarrassed, as he extended his hand to his two aunts, Mrs. Page, and her maiden sister, Miss Lee; but the cordial welcome which they extended to him, instantly put him at his ease. Meanwhile, little Ronald was gazing earnestly at the new-comer, evidently settling in his mind the important question which was to be decided at first sight, when Marcus said—
“Here, Oscar, let me make you acquainted with Master Ronald, myprotégé. Ronald, this is Cousin Oscar. You will soon be good friends, if I am not greatly mistaken.”
The boys shook hands, and then Ronald, proffering his services, helped Oscar to carry his trunk into the house. By the time the travellers had removed the dust from their persons and clothing, supper was ready, and the family sat down to the table. Much of the conversation, during the meal, was addressed to Oscar, and many inquiries were made concerning his parents, sisters, and brothers. He sustained his part with the ease and freedom of one who is accustomed to society, his first shyness having quite disappeared. Ronald watchedhim with much interest, and seemed still in doubt whether to like him or not. After tea, when Oscar had gone out with Marcus to the barn, Miss Lee, remembering Ronald’s remark, inquired—
“Well, Ronald, what do you think of Oscar?”
“I think he feels pretty smart; and I never saw a city chap but what did,” replied Ronald.
“Why, what makes you think so?” inquired Miss Lee.
“I don’t know—I can’t tell,” said the boy, hesitatingly.
“But if you do really think so, you ought to be able to give a reason for it,” added Miss Lee.
“Well,” continued Ronald, “I suppose it’s because he speaks up so smart, and eats so genteelly, and wears such nice clothes, and—and is so good-looking,” he added, laughing at the idea.
“I think you are mistaken in him,” replied Miss Lee. “His dress is such as boys in the city, of his age and class, usually wear; and his manners are those of a boy who is familiar with good society. Perhaps he is a trifle too forward, for one of his age,—I think a little bashfulness becomes a boy, sometimes; but I never saw anything like pride inhim. He has been about the world a good deal, for one so young, and that, I suppose, has worn off his bashfulness.”
“Then I guess I shall like him, if he isn’t proud,” said Ronald, and away he ran, to join Marcus and Oscar, who were taking a general survey of the farm.
Mrs. Page’s farm is situated in one of the pleasant mountain towns in Vermont, which, if it does not bear the name of Highburg on the map, will not, we trust, resent the act, if we venture to give it that designation, in this volume. It is located at the foot and on the sides of the Green Mountains, and within sight of one of their highest peaks, the Camel’s Hump. Mr. Page was a sea captain, who, thinking it more pleasant to plough the land than the wave, purchased this farm in his native State, intending to make it his residence. When the new house and barns were completed, and the farm stocked with herds and flocks, and everything ready for occupancy, Capt. Page found that his money was all spent. Not having confidence enough in his agricultural skill to enter upon his new sphere of life without something in hand foran emergency, he determined to make one more voyage before he abandoned the sea. So he engaged a man to manage the farm during his absence, and, removing Mrs. Page and Marcus to their new home, he sailed on a whaling cruise, expecting to be gone about three years. It proved his last voyage in a sadder sense than he intended, for he never returned from it. Three, five, ten years passed away, but the missing ship was never heard from, and the owner of the farm never came back to enjoy the pleasant home he had prepared for himself. Mr. Burr, whom Capt. Page employed to oversee the farm, had managed its out-door affairs during all this period, although Marcus, within a few years, had taken a good share of the burden upon himself. During the winter months, indeed, Marcus now undertook the whole management of the farm. At this time the stock consisted of two horses, six or eight head of cattle, about seventy-five sheep, and a quantity of poultry.
When Oscar returned to the house, he found a boy and girl seated at the supper table, who were introduced to them as Katharine and Otis Sedgwick. They were brother and sister, and werepupils of the village academy, a mile or more distant. Katharine was about fourteen years old, and Otis some two years younger. They boarded at Mrs. Page’s, and, with the persons already named, constituted the entire family.
Ronald, who called Mrs. Page mother, was a boy about twelve years old, whom she had undertaken to bring up. His parents were French Canadians, who had emigrated to the vicinity of Highburg, where they both died within a short time, leaving the poor child without friends or money. He was then about eight years old. Some of the kind people of the town wished to prevent his becoming a pauper, and tried to find a home for him; but, although he was a bright and interesting child, he could not speak English very plain, and was, moreover, very strange and wild in his manners and appearance, so that no one was willing to take him. Pitying his friendless lot, Mrs. Page at length offered to keep him a few weeks, till other arrangements could be made in his behalf. A month sped by, and no door opened for the little orphan but that of the poor-house. Wild, ignorant, unused to restraints, full of mischief, incapable of speakingor understanding the language of the family, and, in fact, almost as uncivilized as an Indian child, Mrs. Page found the new care a burden too great, and concluded that she must give up her charge to the town authorities.
When Marcus heard of this decision, he felt very badly. There was something about the little stranger, and his pitiable condition, that won upon his heart. So he put in a plea with his mother and Aunt Fanny in his behalf, and by way of further inducement, volunteered his own assistance in educating and training the child! Such an offer, from a boy who had but just passed his fourteenth birth-day, might provoke a smile from some people, and very properly, too. But neither Mrs. Page nor her sister thought of laughing at the suggestion. Marcus was not only a good scholar and a good boy, but he was more manly and mature, both in mind and body, than many youth of his age. As Ronald was more than six years his junior, it seemed plausible that Marcus might assist very much in making a man of him, and thus relieve his mother of a portion of the care. It was decided to try the experiment, and the result was so successful,that Mr. Upton, the principal of the academy, gave Marcus the title of “The Boy-Tamer.” The boys soon became greatly attached to each other, and Marcus, by his example, influence and teachings, assisted very much in reclaiming the little savage. After a year or two, he was able to take upon himself almost the entire management of Ronald, directing his studies, imposing upon him his daily tasks about the farm, and generally exercising over him the authority and discipline of a father. Ronald, indeed, used sometimes to speak of him sportively as his “adopted father,” and no doubt he seemed somewhat like a parent to the fatherless boy. His name, originally, was Ronald Doucette; but his new friends had given him their own name of Page, retaining Doucette as a middle name.
“How do you think Oscar appears, mother?” inquired Marcus, as soon as the withdrawal of the young folks to their bed-rooms left him alone with his mother and aunt.
“Very well,” replied Mrs. Page. “He is a boy that can make a good appearance, if he chooses to. How does he seem pleased with his new home?”
“He doesn’t say much about it,” replied Marcus. “But he said, before we left Boston, that he was determined to be contented, whether or no. He is glad enough to come here, and I think he means to behave well. I told him this was probably his last chance, and that if he did not do well here, he would have to go back to the Reform School, and serve his full sentence out. But I don’t think we shall have much trouble with him. He has behaved well in the institution, and he says he is determined to reform.”
“And yet I am afraid he will find more difficulties in the way than he imagines,” interposed Mrs. Page.
“But the difficulties here are nothing to what they would be in the city,” added Marcus. “Nobody need know anything about his past life, here, and besides, he will be out of the way of his old associates and temptations.”
“I think we ought to be very careful,” said Aunt Fanny, “never to say anything about his past bad conduct, even to him. Nothing would discourage him so much as to have it known here that he had been a bad boy.”
“I told him,” replied Marcus, “that nobody here but we three knew anything about that,—not even Ronald; and I promised that it should be kept a secret, so long as he behaved well. He seemed very glad to hear it.”
“He certainly has a favorable opportunity to make a new start in life, and I hope he will improve it,” said Mrs. Page.
“We shall have to take a little time to study his character, before we can tell exactly how to manage him,” continued Marcus. “I found out everything I could about him from his mother, and I think I begin to understand his disposition. The great lesson he has got to learn, is, to govern himself. Now that he has found, by experience, that if he does not put himself under restraint, others will do it for him, I think he is in a good state to learn this lesson.”
The subject of these remarks was at this time between fifteen and sixteen years of age. He had been a headstrong, wayward boy, and had given his parents much pain. At one time, they sent him to live with an uncle in the village of Brookdale, in Maine, for the purpose of getting himaway from his evil associates; but while there, he set fire to a large quantity of cut wood, which was destroyed, and was in consequence sent to jail, from which he was released only on his father’s promise to remove him from the State. He was then sent on a short voyage to sea, but came back worse than before. His next downward step was to join a band of juvenile thieves; but his course was shortly afterward checked by his arrest, trial, and sentence to the Reform School during his minority,—that is, until he should be twenty-one years old. After he had remained in this institution about four months, his conduct having been good, and Mrs. Page, at the solicitation of Marcus, having offered to receive him into her family and endeavor to reform him, he was released by the officers, and given over to the care of his aunt and cousin; and his appearance in Highburg, at this time, was in accordance with this arrangement.[1]
1.The character and career of Oscar are more fully set forth in the first two volumes of this series, namely, “Oscar,” and “Clinton.”
1.The character and career of Oscar are more fully set forth in the first two volumes of this series, namely, “Oscar,” and “Clinton.”
1.The character and career of Oscar are more fully set forth in the first two volumes of this series, namely, “Oscar,” and “Clinton.”