WORK AND PLAY.
The days were now perceptibly longer, and the sun had begun to make
quite an impression on the huge snow-banks in which Brookdale had been
nearly buried up all winter. “Bare ground,” that looks so pleasant to
the boy in a northern climate, after a long winter, began to appear in
little brown patches, in particularly sunny and sheltered spots. The
ice upon the pond was still quite thick, but it was too soft and rough
for skating. The sled runners cut in so deeply, that there was little
fun in sliding down hill. Besides, skating and coasting had got to
be old stories, and the boys were heartily tired of all their winter
sports. The sleighing was about spoiled, the roads were sloppy, the
fields and meadows impassable, and the woods uncomfortable. In fact,
while all the outdoor amusements of winter were at an end, it was
too early for the various summer games and sports that supply their
places. This brief season, which usually attends the breaking up of
winter in northern latitudes, is generally the dullest of all the year
to boys in the country, unless they are so fortunate as to be able to
amuse themselves indoors, a part of the time at least.
Clinton’s favorite place of resort, at such seasons, was the shop in
the rear of the house. Here, surrounded with tools, and patterns, and
plans, and specimens of his own work, and perhaps absorbed by some
object upon which he was engaged, he was never at a loss for amusement.
A day or two after his return from the logging camp, he went to work
on the “settle,” which he had determined to make, in imitation of the
one he had seen at Uncle Tim’s. This was a job that would require some
little thinking and planning, as well as skill at handling tools,—for
his mother had promised to give it a place in the kitchen, if it was
well made,—and he felt anxious to do his best on this occasion. He
first sawed out from a plank the two end pieces, rounding off one
corner of each, in a sort of long scroll pattern. Having planed these
smooth, he next made the seat, which was also of stiff plank, and
fastened it firmly in its place. Nothing remained to be done but to
make the back, which was of boards, planed and matched, and screwed
into the end pieces. In the course of a week the settle was finished;
and it was not only neat and well-finished, but really substantial.
It looked as though it might do service full as long as Uncle Tim’s.
Clinton was quite satisfied with his success, and his mother was so
well pleased with the settle, that she not only decided to place it in
the kitchen, but promised to make a handsome cushion for it.
As Clinton was looking admiringly upon his piece of work, soon after
it was finished, and thinking whether he could improve it in any
respect, the conversation at Uncle Tim’s recurred to his mind, and a
happy thought suggested itself, by which he might associate his settle
with that interview, and thus have constantly before him a memorial of
his trip to the loggers. The next time he had occasion to go to the
store, he bought a small package of brass-headed tacks, and with these
he carried out his new design, which was to inscribe his initials “C.
D.” upon one end of the settle, and the motto, “I’LL TRY,” upon the
other. He had seen nails arranged in the form of letters upon trunks,
and he found no difficulty in making his inscriptions look very well.
He surrounded each of them by a single line of tacks, placed in the
form of an oval, which gave the whole quite a finished look. This
improvement elicited from his parents many additional compliments for
the new article of furniture.
[Illustration: The settle]
The snow was rapidly disappearing, and the sunny sides of the hills
were quite bare. The welcome song of the robin was heard around the
house, proclaiming the arrival of spring. The brook which flowed
through Mr. Davenport’s land was swelled to a miniature torrent, and
Clinton’s ducks,—whose water privileges had been restricted through
the winter to a small space kept clear of ice by an axe,—now sailed
about in all their glory. The frost soon left the ground,—for it
penetrates but slightly, when the earth is covered with snow all
winter,—the moisture rapidly dried up, and the fields were ready for
the plough. For a few weeks Clinton was employed, much of the time, in
the various labors of the farm. He usually drove the ploughing team,
but he sometimes turned the furrow, by way of change, while his father
guided the oxen. Then came harrowing, manuring, planting, setting out
trees, making beds in the kitchen-garden, and the various other farm
operations of spring, in all of which Clinton assisted his father. He
also attended to his own patch of ground, of which he had the sole care
every year. As they were at work in the kitchen-garden one day, Mr.
Davenport asked Clinton how he should like to take the whole charge of
it for the season.
“Why, I should think I might take care of it, just as well as you,
after it’s all planted,” replied Clinton.
“And should you be willing to assume all the trouble and
responsibility?” inquired his father.
“Yes, sir, I’ll take it and do the best I can,—only, I may want your
advice sometimes.”
“Well, Clinty,” resumed his father, “I’ll make you an offer, and you
may accept it or not, just as you please. After the garden is planted,
I will surrender it entirely into your hands, and you shall do the
best you can with it. You shall keep account of everything that is
raised in it, and at the end of the season we will calculate the value
of the various crops, and I will give you one-fourth of the whole sum,
as your share of the profits. For instance, if the vegetables you
raise come to twenty-five dollars, you shall have six dollars and a
quarter for your services. If, by your good management and the aid of a
favorable season, you raise forty dollars’ worth, you will receive ten
dollars,—and so on in proportion.”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it,”—said Clinton, eagerly.
“Wait a moment,” continued Mr. Davenport,—“there are one or two
conditions that must be plainly understood, before we close the
bargain; one is, that you are not to neglect _my_ work, for the sake
of your own. I shall call on you, when I want your assistance in the
field, just as I did last year, and you mustn’t think that what you do
in your garden is to exempt you from all further labor. And you must
understand, too, that if I find you are neglecting the garden at any
time, I shall take it back into my own hands, and you will receive
nothing for your labor. Do you agree to this?”
“Yes, sir; but you’ll allow me time enough to take care of the garden,
wont you?”
“Certainly, you shall have time enough for that, besides some hours
every day, to devote to study and play.”
“Well,” said Clinton, “I’ll agree to all that, and if the garden
doesn’t do well, it shan’t be my fault.”
In a few days the garden was all planted. It was nearly an acre in
extent, and was thickly sowed with vegetables, such as peas, beans,
lettuce, radishes, turnips, cabbages, onions, early potatoes, sweet
corn, cucumbers, squashes, melons, etc. Having done all that he was
to do with it, Mr. Davenport now surrendered it into the keeping of
Clinton. For a few weeks the garden required little care; but by-and-by
the weeds began to spring up, and the various insect tribes commenced
their operations among the tender plants. Clinton now found plenty to
do. He was wise enough, however, not let his work get behind hand; for
had he suffered the bugs and weeds to get a few days’ start of him,
I doubt whether he would have overtaken them. This was one secret of
his success; another was, his perseverance,—for he generally carried
through whatever he undertook, simply because he was determined to do
so. Mr. Davenport was very well satisfied with the way he managed the
garden; and to encourage him, he was careful not to call him away to
other parts of the farm any more than was necessary.
Clinton generally rode over to the post-office, at the Cross-Roads,
every Saturday afternoon, to get the weekly newspapers to which his
father was a subscriber. One pleasant afternoon, in May, he drove over
as usual, and as the mail had not arrived, he hitched Fanny to a post,
and went away, a short distance, to where a group of small boys of his
acquaintance were collected. They were earnestly and loudly discussing
some point, and when they saw Clinton, one of them said:—
“There’s Clinton Davenport coming, let’s leave it to him.”
“Yes,” cried one and another,—and the proposition appeared to be
unanimously accepted.
“Well, what is the trouble?” inquired Clinton.
Half a dozen different voices began to answer at once, when Clinton cut
them all short, and told Frank, one of the oldest boys, to explain the
difficulty.
“Why,” said Frank, “you know when we play ‘I spy,’ we tell off the
boy, that’s to lead in the game, in this way:—
‘One-ary, youery, ickery C,
Hackaback, crackaback, titobolee,
Hon-pon, muscadon,
Twiddledum, twaddledum, twenty-one.’”
“‘Tweedledum, twaddledum!’ you goose!” exclaimed one of the boys; “who
ever heard such lingo as that? This is the right way, isn’t it, Clinton?
‘One-ary, youery, ickery, Ann,
Phillacy, follacy, ticular John;
Queeby, quaby, Irish Mary,
Stinklam, stanklam, buck.’
There, now, isn’t that right?”
“That’s the way we have it here,” replied Clinton,—“but I suppose they
say it different where Frank came from. When Oscar Preston was here, he
used to rattle it off different from both of these; I believe this is
the way he said he learned it:—
‘One-ary, youery, ickery and,
Phillacy, follacy, Nicholas Jones;
Queeby, quaby, Irish Mary,
Huldee, guldee, loo.’”
“Ho! I never heard of that way before,” said one of the boys; “I guess
that’s the latest Boston edition.”
“If you can’t agree on any of these,” said Clinton, “I’ll tell you what
you can do,—you can ‘tell off’ with:—
‘One-zall, zu-zall, zicker-all zan,
Bobtail, vinegar, titter-all, tan,
Harum, scarum, back-out.’
Or, if that doesn’t suit, then take:—
‘Eeny, meeny, mony mite;
Peskalana, bona, strike;
Parago, walk.’”
“Pooh!” said Frank; “that aint right, nor anywhere near it. This is the
way I learned that one:—
‘Eeny, meeny, mony, my;
Pistolanee, bony, sly;
Argy, dargy, walk.’”
The other boys all objected to this version of the saying, but Frank
insisted that if it was not the right one, it was certainly the best.
“I wonder who first made up all these poetries,” said one of the
smaller boys.
“‘These poetries!’ what grammar do you study, Ned?” said Frank, with a
laugh.
“Well, you know what I mean,” replied Ned; “I knew ’t wasn’t right,—I
only said it just in fun.”
“I don’t know when these rhymes were made,” said Clinton, “but my
father says they used to have them when he was young, and I suppose the
boys have always had something of the kind. Shouldn’t you like to see
all the different kinds printed in a book, Ned?”
“I guess I should,” replied Ned; “what a funny book it would make!”
The mail-stage had now arrived, and Clinton went over to the
post-office. In addition to the usual newspapers, the post-master
handed him two letters. One of them was for Mrs. Preston, for Clinton
often took her letters and papers from the post-office, and delivered
them on his way home. The other letter was addressed to himself. It
was stamped at Boston, and was in the hand-writing of his uncle. The
letter for Mrs. Preston had two or three different post-marks upon it,
and was somewhat dingy, as though it had travelled a great distance.
This, together with the fact that the address was written in a cramped
and awkward hand, led Clinton to suspect, or at least hope, it was from
Jerry. He hurried back as fast as possible, and when he reached Mrs.
Preston’s, his curiosity was so much excited that he determined to stop
and hear who the letter was from. He watched Mrs. Preston as she first
glanced at the address, and then hastily broke the seal, and before
she had read half its contents, he felt so certain that he had guessed
right, that he inquired:—
“Isn’t it from Jerry, Mrs. Preston?”
But Mrs. Preston was too eagerly engaged, to heed his question, and she
continued reading until she had finished the letter, when she replied:—
“Yes, it is from Jerry, and I’m very much obliged to you for bringing
it. Poor boy! he’s having a hard time of it, but it’s a great
satisfaction to know where he is.”
“Where is he?” inquired Clinton, whose curiosity was now thoroughly
awakened.
“You may read the letter, if you wish,” said Mrs. Preston, handing it
to Clinton. “Read it aloud, if you please, so that Emily and Harriet
may hear.”
Clinton complied with her request. Correcting the grammar, spelling,
and punctuation, the letter read as follows:—
“RIO JANEIRO, MARCH 30.
“DEAR MOTHER,
I write these few lines to let you know I am alive and well, and
I hope this will find you so. You will see from the date I am a
good ways from home. I came here in the brig Susan, which sailed
from Boston in February. We have had a very rough time. Last week
we encountered a terrible gale, and I thought it was a gone case
with us. We had to put in here to repair damages, and as there is a
chance to send letters home I thought I would write. We are bound for
Valparaiso, and have got to go round Cape Horn. It is a long voyage,
and I guess I shall go to California before I come home. I don’t like
going to sea so well as I expected, and I don’t mean to go another
voyage. It’s a hard life, I can tell you. I am sorry I took that
money, but I had to have some. I didn’t spend but little of it, but
somebody has stolen the rest—some of the sailors, I suppose, but
I don’t know who. I mean to pay you back again, out of my wages. I
suppose father hasn’t got through logging yet. I should like to see
you all, but I must wait a spell. Tell Mary I am going to fetch her
home a pretty present, and I shall bring something for the others,
too. I can’t see to write any longer, so good-bye to you all.
JEREMIAH PRESTON.”
“Mother,” said Harriet, as soon as Clinton had finished reading the
letter, “what does Jerry mean about taking money?”
“Don’t ask me any questions now,” replied Mrs. Preston, in a tone that
cut off all further inquiries. Jerry’s theft had been a secret in her
own breast, until now; but as he had alluded to it in his letter, and
as his letter must be read by all the family, she knew it could no
longer be concealed. Still, she was provoked that Harriet should be so
thoughtless as to allude to the subject in the presence of Clinton.
“Emily,” continued Mrs. Preston, “you run and get your atlas, and let
Clinton show us where Jerry is, before he goes.”
The atlas was soon produced, and Clinton, turning to the map of South
America, pointed out to the family the location of Rio Janeiro, in
Brazil, on the Atlantic coast, and Valparaiso, the chief sea-port of
Chili, on the Pacific side of the continent. Then, remembering his own
unopened letter, he bade them good-night, and started for home.