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Transcriber's note:
The Table of Contents, not in the original book, has been
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TRY AGAIN
Or
The Trials and Triumphs of Harry West
A Story for Young Folks
by
OLIVER OPTIC
Author of
"The Boat Club," "All Aboard," "Poor and Proud,"
"Hope and Have," "Now or Never," Etc.
[Illustration: "Harry was Startled by the Discovery of
a Bright Light."]
New York
The New York Book Company
1911
Contents
Chapter Page
BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 4
I IN WHICH HARRY WEST AND SQUIRE WALKER DISAGREE ON AN
IMPORTANT POINT 5
II IN WHICH HARRY FINDS A FRIEND, AND A PRACTICABLE
SCHEME FOR RESISTANCE 11
III IN WHICH HARRY LEAVES THE POORHOUSE, AND TAKES TO
THE RIVER 19
IV IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT THE NAVIGATION OF THE
RIVER IS DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS 26
V IN WHICH HARRY FIGHTS A HARD BATTLE, AND IS
DEFEATED 33
VI IN WHICH HARRY CONCLUDES THAT A DEFEAT IS SOMETIMES
BETTER THAN A VICTORY 41
VII IN WHICH HARRY FINDS HIMSELF IN A TIGHT PLACE AND
EXECUTES A COUNTER MOVEMENT 48
VIII IN WHICH HARRY KILLS A BIG SNAKE, AND MAKES A NEW
FRIEND 55
IX IN WHICH HARRY BREAKFASTS ON DOUGHNUTS, AND FINDS
THAT ANGELS DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE WINGS 62
X IN WHICH HARRY FARES SUMPTUOUSLY, AND TAKES LEAVE
OF THE LITTLE ANGEL 69
XI IN WHICH HARRY REACHES THE CITY, AND THOUGH OFTEN
DISAPPOINTED, TRIES AGAIN 76
XII IN WHICH HARRY SUDDENLY GETS RICH AND HAS A
CONVERSATION WITH ANOTHER HARRY 83
XIII IN WHICH HARRY BECOMES A STABLE BOY, AND HEARS
BAD NEWS FROM ROCKVILLE 90
XIV IN WHICH HARRY DOES A GOOD DEED, AND DETERMINES
TO "FACE THE MUSIC" 97
XV IN WHICH HARRY MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A VERY
IMPORTANT PERSONAGE 104
XVI IN WHICH HARRY GOES INTO THE DRYGOODS BUSINESS 111
XVII IN WHICH HARRY REVISITS ROCKVILLE, AND MEETS WITH
A SERIOUS LOSS 117
XVIII IN WHICH HARRY MEETS WITH AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND
GETS A HARD KNOCK ON THE HEAD 124
XIX IN WHICH HARRY FINDS THAT EVEN A BROKEN HEAD MAY
BE OF SOME USE TO A PERSON 131
XX IN WHICH HARRY PASSES THROUGH HIS SEVEREST TRIAL,
AND ACHIEVES HIS GREATEST TRIUMPH 137
XXI IN WHICH HARRY IS VERY PLEASANTLY SITUATED, AND
THE STORY COMES TO AN END 147
BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
William Taylor Adams, American author, better known and loved by boys
and girls through his pseudonym "Oliver Optic," was born July 30,
1822, in the town of Medway, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, about
twenty-five miles from Boston. For twenty years he was a teacher in
the Public Schools of Boston, where he came in close contact with boy
life. These twenty years taught him how to reach the boy's heart and
interest as the popularity of his books attest.
His story writing began in 1850 when he was twenty-eight years old and
his first book was published in 1853. He also edited "The Oliver Optic
Magazine," "The Student and Schoolmate," "Our Little Ones."
Mr. Adams died at the age of seventy-five years, in Boston, March 27,
1897.
He was a prolific writer and his stories are most attractive and
unobjectionable. Most of his books were published in series. Probably
the most famous of these is "The Boat Club Series" which comprises the
following titles:
"The Boat Club," "All Aboard," "Now or Never," "Try Again," "Poor and
Proud," "Little by Little." All of these titles will be found in this
edition.
Other well-known series are his "Soldier Boy Series," "Sailor Boy
Series," "Woodville Stories." The "Woodville Stories" will also be
found in this edition.
TRY AGAIN
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 Caesar, 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.