THE READING LESSON.
GUY DID not know how to begin the conversation. He wanted to approach
the subject gradually, for he believed that some little strategy would
be necessary in order to bring Henry to his way of thinking, but somehow
the words he wanted would not come, and seeing that his friend was
getting impatient, he plunged into it blindly:
“How would you like to be a hunter and trapper?” he asked.
“I don’t know anything about trapping, but I like hunting as well as any
boy in the world,” said Henry.
“I mean how would you like to make a business of it, and spend your life
in the woods or on the prairie?”
“I don’t know, but I am going to try it a little while this fall. Father
owns some land in Michigan that he has never seen, and about the first
of September he and I are going up to take a look at it. His agent
writes that game is abundant, and I am going to buy a rifle before we
start.”
“Well, if I had a chance like that I’d never come back again. I’d stay
in the woods.”
“Oh, my father wouldn’t let me.”
“I don’t suppose he would, but you could do as I intend to do—run away.”
Henry straightened up and looked at his companion without speaking.
“Oh, I mean it,” said Guy with a decided nod of his head. “I am tired of
staying here. I am weary of this continual scolding and fault-finding,
and am going to get away where I can take a little comfort. I have
always wanted to be a hunter. I have got my plans all laid, and I want
some good fellow for a companion, for I should be lonely if I were to go
by myself. I’d rather have you than anybody else, and if you will go
we’ll take the ‘Boy Trappers’ with us. That book will tell us just what
we will have to do. It tells how to build wigwams, how to trap beaver
and otter, and catch fish through the ice; how to make moccasins,
leggings and hunting-shirts; how to catch wild horses; how to preserve
the skins of wild animals—in fact, everything we want to know we will
find there.”
“Where do you want to go?” asked Henry.
“Out to the Rocky Mountains.”
“What will you do when you get there?”
“We’ll hunt and trap during the spring and fall, and when summer comes
we’ll jump on our horses, take our furs to the trading-posts and sell
them.”
“And what will we do during the winter?”
“We’ll have a nice little cabin in some pleasant valley among the
mountains, such as the boy trapper had, and we’ll pass the time in
curing our furs and fighting the Indians. That is what they did, you
know. I tell you, Hank,” said Guy with great enthusiasm, “it wouldn’t be
long before we would become as famous as either Kit Carson or Captain
Bridges! What’s the matter with you?” he added, looking suspiciously at
his friend, who seemed on the point of strangling.
Henry, who had listened in utter amazement to what Guy had to say, could
control himself no longer. Clinging to the fence with both hands he
threw back his head and broke out into a shout of laughter that was
heard full a block away.
“I don’t see anything so funny about it,” said Guy indignantly. “I am in
earnest.”
“Oh, dear!” said Henry, after he had laughed until his jaws and sides
ached. “I know this will be the death of me. Why, Guy, what in the world
put such a ridiculous notion into your head?”
“I don’t call it a ridiculous notion. If the boy trappers could live
that way I don’t see why we couldn’t. I guess we are as smart and as
brave as they were.”
This set Henry to going again. It was some minutes before he could
speak.
“Do you believe that book is true?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
“Why, Guy, I didn’t think you were such a dunce. The idea that three
boys, the oldest of them only seventeen years of age, could live as they
did, surrounded by savage beasts and hostile Indians, and get into such
scrapes as they did, and come out without a scratch. Common sense ought
to teach you better than that. Those boy trappers never had an existence
except in the brain of the man who wrote the book.”
“Then why did he write it?” demanded Guy.
“What makes you play base-ball and cricket, and why do you go fishing
and boat-riding every chance you get? Such sports are not necessary to
your existence—you could live without them—but they serve to fill up the
time when you don’t feel like doing anything else. That’s one reason why
books like ‘Boy Trappers’ are written—to keep you in the house and help
you while away a leisure hour that you might otherwise spend in the
streets with bad boys. Oh, Guy! Guy!”
“Now, don’t you begin your laughing again,” said his companion.
At this moment a door opened and the boys heard Mr. Harris calling.
“Guy!” he shouted.
“Sir!” was the response.
“Come in now.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Henry.
“Oh, we have a reading lesson every night, and I have to help,” replied
Guy with great disgust. “We’re reading Bancroft’s History of the United
States, and I despise it. I can’t understand half of it, but father
makes me read aloud twenty minutes every night, and scolds because I
can’t tell him the meaning of all the hard words. Now, Hank, are you
going with me or not?”
“Of course I am not. I’ll not give up such a home, and such a father and
mother as I’ve got for the sake of living in a wilderness all my life.”
“Well, you won’t repeat what I have said to you, will you?”
“No, indeed; but you must promise me that you will give up that idea.”
“All right, I will.”
“You’ll never speak of running away from home again, or even think of
it?”
“No, I never will—honor bright.”
“Then you may rely upon me to keep your secret. Now I have a plan to
propose: Let’s go fishing on the pier to-morrow—it’s Saturday, you
know—and talk the matter over. I can convince you in five minutes that
you had better stay at home. Come over early—say five o’clock.”
“I’ll see what father says about it; good-night. I might have known
better than to ask him to go with me,” added Guy mentally, as he walked
slowly toward the house. “If I had as pleasant a home as he has I
wouldn’t go either. Why don’t my father and mother take some interest in
me, and talk to me as Mr. and Mrs. Stewart talk to Hank? I haven’t
changed my mind, and I never shall. I promised that I would never again
think of running away from home, but I did it just to keep Hank’s mouth
shut. As long as he thinks I have given up the idea, he won’t say a word
to anybody. He’ll be astonished some fine morning, for I shall leave
here as soon as I can scrape the money together. I wish I could find a
pocket-book with a hundred dollars in it. I’d never return it to the
owner, even if I found him. I must try Bob Walker now.”
When Guy entered the sitting-room he found his father and mother waiting
for him. The former handed him an open volume of Bancroft’s History and
Guy, seating himself, began reading the author’s elaborate description
of the passage of the Stamp Act and the manner in which it was received
by the colonists—a subject in which he was not in the least interested.
His father often took him to task for his bad reading and pronunciation,
but he managed to get through with the required twenty minutes at last,
and with a great feeling of relief handed the book to his mother and
moved his chair into one corner of the room. In forty minutes more the
lesson was ended and Mr. Harris turned to question Guy on what had just
been read. To his surprise and indignation he saw him sitting with his
feet stretched out before him, his chin resting on his breast and his
eyes closed. The boy was fast asleep.
“Guy!” Mr. Harris almost shouted.
“Sir!” replied his son, starting up quickly and rubbing his eyes.
“This is the way you give attention to what is going on, and repay the
pains I am taking to teach you something, is it?” demanded his father.
“Do you think ignorance is bliss? You don’t know anything a boy of your
age ought to know. Tell me how many distinct forms of government this
country has passed through.”
“I can’t,” replied Guy.
“Who was the third President of the United States?”
“I don’t know.”
“What were the names of the two men who were hanged in effigy by the
Massachusetts colonists when the news of the passage of the Stamp Act
was received?”
“I don’t know,” said Guy again.
“And yet that is just what we have been reading about to-night. I saw a
picture in that paper you had in your possession a little while ago,”
continued Mr. Harris with suppressed fury. “It was a man dressed in
furs, who stood leaning against a horse, holding a gun in one hand and
stretching the other out toward a dog in front of him. Who was that man
intended to represent?”
“Nick Whiffles,” said Guy promptly.
“What was the name of his dog?”
“Calamity.”
“Did his horse have a name?”
“Yes, sir—Firebug; and he called his rifle Humbug.”
“There you have it!” exclaimed Mr. Harris with a sneer. “You know all
about that, and you’ve no business to know it either, for it will do you
more harm than good. If we had been reading that trash to-night you
would have been wide-awake and listening with all your ears; but because
we were reading something worth knowing—something that would be of
benefit to you in after life, if you would take the trouble to remember
it—you must needs settle yourself and go to sleep. Now, then, draw up
beside this table and read five pages in that history; and read them so
carefully, too, that you can answer any question I may ask you about
them to-morrow.”
Guy, so sleepy that he could scarcely keep his eyes open, staggered to
the chair pointed out to him and sat down, while his father once more
picked up the evening paper and his mother resumed her needle.
When he had read the required number of pages and looked them over two
or three times to fix the names and dates in his memory, he arose and
put the book away in the library.
“Father,” said he.
“Don’t you know that it is very rude to interrupt a person who is
reading?” replied Mr. Harris, looking up from his paper. “What do you
want?”
“May I go fishing with Henry Stewart on the pier to-morrow?”
“No, sir, you may stay at home. A boy who behaves as you do deserves no
privileges. I have learned that I cannot trust you out of my sight.”
Knowing that it would not be safe to show any signs of anger or
disappointment, Guy kept his face as straight as possible and turned to
leave the room. But when he put his hand on the door-knob his father
called to him.
“Guy,” said he, “where are you going?”
“I am going to bed.”
“And do you intend to leave us with that frown on your face and without
bidding us good-night? One or the other of us might die before morning
and then you would be sorry you parted from us in anger. I’ve a good
mind to whip you soundly, for if ever a boy deserved it you do. Come
back here and kiss your mother.”
Almost ready to yell with rage, Guy returned and kissed his mother, who
presented her cheek without raising her eyes from her novel, bid his
father good-night, and this time succeeded in leaving the room without
being called back.
When he was safe out of his father’s sight he turned and shook his fist
at him, at the same time muttering something between his clenched teeth
that would have struck Mr. Harris motionless with horror could he have
heard it. He went to bed with his heart full of hate, and not until his
mind wandered off to other matters, and he begun to dream of the wild,
free and glorious life he expected to lead in the mountains and on the
prairies of the Far West, did he recover his usual spirits. He fell
asleep while he was building his air-castles, and awoke to hear the
breakfast bell ringing and to see the morning sun shining in at his
window.
When he descended to the dining-room he was met by Ned, who was dressed
in his best, and who informed him, with evident satisfaction, that Henry
Stewart had been over to see if he was going fishing, and that his
father had said that he couldn’t go to the pier or do anything else he
wanted to do until he had learned to behave himself. Ned added that he
and his father and mother were going to ride out to visit Uncle David,
who lived nine miles in the country, and that he, Guy, was to be left at
home because there was no room in the buggy for him, and that he was not
to stir one step outside the gate until their return.
“I’ll show you whether I will or not,” said Guy to himself. “It’s a
pretty piece of business, indeed, that I am to be shut up here at home
while the rest of you go off on a visit. I won’t stand it. I’ll see as
much fun to-day as any of you, and if I only had all the money I need,
you wouldn’t find me here when you return.”
Breakfast over, the buggy was brought to the door, and Mr. Harris, after
assisting his wife and son to get in, turned to say a parting word to
Guy.
He was to remain in the yard all day, bring no boys in there to play
with him, and be very careful not to get into any mischief. If these
commands were not obeyed to the very letter there would be a settlement
between them when Mr. Harris came back.
Guy drew on a very long face as he listened to his father’s words,
meekly promised obedience and opened the gate for his father to drive
out. He watched the buggy as long as it remained in sight and then,
closing the gate, jumped up and knocked his heels together, danced a few
steps of a hornpipe, and in various other ways testified to the
satisfaction he felt at being left alone.
“I shouldn’t feel sorry if I should never see them again,” said he. “I
am my own master to-day, and I am going to enjoy my liberty, too. But
before I begin operations I must put Bertha and Jack on the wrong scent.
They would blow on me in a minute.”
Guy once more assumed a very sober expression of countenance, and walked
into the kitchen where the servant-girl was at work.
“Bertha,” said he, “I am going up to my curiosity shop, and I don’t want
to be disturbed. You needn’t get dinner for me, for I sha’n’t want any.”
“I am glad of it,” replied the girl, “I am going visiting myself
to-day.”
Guy strolled out to the carriage-house, and here he found Jack, the
hostler and man-of-all-work, to whom he gave nearly the same
instructions, adding the request that if any of his young friends called
to see him, Jack would say to them that Guy had gone off somewhere,
which, by the way, had Jack had occasion to tell it, would have been
nothing but the truth.
The hostler promised compliance, and Guy, having thus opened the way for
the carrying out of the plans he had determined upon, went up to his
curiosity shop, locking the door behind him, and putting the key into
his pocket. He lumbered about the room for a while, making as much noise
as he conveniently could, to let Bertha and Jack know that he was there,
and then stepped to the window that overlooked the garden and peeped
cautiously out. Having made sure that there was no one in sight, he
crawled out of the window, feet first, and hanging by his hands, dropped
to the ground. As soon as he touched it he broke into a run, and making
his way across the garden, scaled a high board-fence, dropped into an
alley on the opposite side, and in a few minutes more was two blocks
away.
“There!” he exclaimed, as he slackened his pace and wiped his dripping
forehead with his handkerchief; “that much is done, and no one is the
wiser for it. Now, the first thing is to go down to Stillman’s and buy a
copy of the _Journal_. I wrote to the editors of that paper three weeks
ago, telling them that I am going to be a hunter, and asking what sort
of an outfit I shall need, and how much it will cost, and I ought to get
an answer to-day.
“The second thing is to hunt up Bob Walker and feel his pulse. He once
told me that he would run away and go to sea if his father ever laid a
hand on him again, so I know I shall have easy work with him. He won’t
be as pleasant a companion, though, as Henry Stewart, for he swears, and
is an awful overbearing, quarrelsome fellow. But I can’t help it; I must
have somebody with me.”
A walk of a quarter of an hour brought Guy to Stillman’s news-depot,
where he stopped and purchased a copy of the paper of which he had
spoken. Seeing a vacant chair in one corner of the store, he seated
himself upon it, and with trembling hands unfolded the sheet, looking
for the column containing the answers to correspondents. When he found
it he ran his eye over it until it rested on the following paragraph:
“AN ABUSED DOG.—If you are going to become a hunter you will need an
expensive outfit. A good rifle will cost from $25 to $75; a brace of
revolvers, from $16 to $50; a hunting-knife, $1.25 to $3.50. Then
you will need a hatchet or two, an abundance of ammunition,
blankets, durable clothing, horse, etc., which, together with your
fare by rail and steamer to St. Joseph, will cost you at least $200
more. We know of no hunter or trapper to whom we could recommend
you, and neither can we say whether or not you will be able to find
a wagon train that you could join. Now that we have answered your
questions, we want to offer you a word of advice. Give up your wild
idea, and never think of it again. As sure as you are a live boy, it
will end in nothing but disappointment and misery. We are inclined
to believe that the story of your grievances is greatly exaggerated;
but even if it is not, you cannot better your condition by running
away from home. Your parents have your welfare at heart, and if you
are wise you will remain with them, even though their requirements
do sometimes seem harsh and unnecessary. It may be that you will
some day be left to fight your way through the world with no father
or mother to advise or befriend you, and then you will find how hard
it is. Take our word for it, if you live to be five years older, you
will laugh at yourself whenever you reflect that you ever thought
seriously of becoming a professional hunter.”
Guy read this paragraph over twice, and then folded the paper and walked
slowly out of the store.
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