OUT INTO THE WORLD.
Monday morning came, bright and sunshiny; and it hardly reached
Crofield before the people began to get up and look about them.
Jack went down to the river and did not get back very soon. His mind
was full of something besides the flood, and he did not linger long at
the mill.
But he looked long and hard at all the pieces of land below the mill,
down to Deacon Hawkins's line. He knew where that was, although the
fence was gone.
"The freshet didn't wash away a foot of it," he said. "I'll tell
father what Mr. Hammond said about selling it."
A pair of well-dressed men drove down from Main Street in a buggy and
halted near him.
"Brady," said one of these men, "the engineer is right. We can't
change the railroad line. We can say to the Crofield people that if
they'll give us the right of way through the village we'll build them a
new bridge. They'll do it. Right here's the spot for the station."
"Exactly," said the other man, "and the less we say about it the
better. Keep mum."
"That's just what I'll do, too," said Jack to himself, as they drove
away. "I don't know what they mean, but it'll come out some day."
Jack went home at once, and found the family at breakfast. After
breakfast his father went to the shop, and Jack followed him to speak
about the land purchase.
When Jack explained the miller's offer, Mr. Ogden went with him to see
Mr. Hammond. After a short interview, Mr. Ogden and Jack secured the
land in settlement of the amount already promised Jack, and of an old
debt owed by the miller to the blacksmith, and also in consideration of
their consenting to a previous sale of the trees for cash to the
Bannermans, who had made their offer that morning. Mr. Hammond seemed
very glad to make the sale upon these terms, as he was in need of ready
money.
When Jack returned to his father's shop, he remembered the men he had
seen at the river, and he told his father what they had said.
"Station?--right of way?" exclaimed Mr. Ogden. "That's the new
railroad through Mertonville. They'll use up that land, and we won't
get a cent. Well, it didn't cost anything. I'd about given up
collecting that bill."
Later that day, Jack came in to dinner with a smile on his face. It
was the old smile, too; a smile of good-humored self-confidence, which
flickered over his lips from side to side, and twisted them, and shut
his mouth tight. Just as he was about to speak, his father took a
long, neatly folded paper out of his coat pocket and laid it on the
table.
"Look at that, Jack," he said; "and show it to your mother."
"Warranty deed!" exclaimed Jack, reading the print on the outside.
"Father! you didn't turn it over to me, did you? Mother, it's to John
Ogden, Jr.!"
"Oh, John--" she began and stopped.
"Why, my dear," laughed the blacksmith, cheerfully, "it's his gravel,
not mine. I'll hold it for him, for a while, but it is Jack's whenever
I chose to record that deed."
"I'm afraid I couldn't farm it there," said Jack; and then the smile on
his face flickered fast. "But I knew Father wanted that land."
"It isn't worth much, but it's a beginning," said Mary. "I'd like to
own something or other, or to go somewhere."
"Well, Molly," answered Jack, smiling, "you can go to Mertonville.
Livermore says there's a team here, horses and open carriage. It came
over on Friday. The driver has cleared out, and somebody must take
them home, and he wants me to drive over. Can't I take Molly, Mother?"
"You'd have to walk back," said his father, "but that's nothing much.
It's less than nine miles--"
"Father," said Jack, "you said, last night, I needn't come back to
Crofield, right away. And Mertonville's nine miles nearer the city--"
"And a good many times nine miles yet to go," exclaimed the blacksmith;
but then he added, smiling: "Go ahead, Jack. I do believe that if any
boy can get there, you can."
"I'll do it somehow," said Jack, with a determined nod.
"Of course you will," said Mary.
Jack felt as if circumstances were changing pretty fast, so far as he
was concerned; and so did Mary, for she had about given up all hope of
seeing her friends in Mertonville.
"We'll get you ready, right away," said Aunt Melinda. "You can give
Jack your traveling bag,--he won't mind the key's being lost,--and I'll
let you take my trunk, and we'll fit you out so you can enjoy it."
"Jack," said his father, "tell Livermore you can go, and then I want to
see you at the shop."
Jack was so glad he could hardly speak; for he felt it was the first
step. But a part of his feeling was that he had never before loved
Crofield and all the people in it, especially his own family, so much
as at that minute.
He went over to the ruined hotel, where he found the landlord at work
saving all sorts of things and seeming to feel reasonably cheerful over
his misfortunes.
"Jack," he said, as soon as he was told that Jack was ready to go, "you
and Molly will have company. Miss Glidden sent to know how she could
best get over to Mertonville, and I said she could go with you.
There's a visitor, too, who must go back with her.
"I'll take 'em," said Jack.
Upon going to the shop he found his father shoeing a horse. The
blacksmith beckoned his son to the further end of the shop. He heard
about Miss Glidden, and listened in silence to several hopeful things
Jack had to say about what he meant to do sooner or later.
[Illustration: _He listened in silence_.]
"Well," he said, at last, "I was right not to let you go before, and
I've doubts about it now, but something must be done. I'm making less
and less, and not much of it's cash, and it costs more to live, and
they're all growing up. I don't want you to make me any promises.
They are broken too easily. You needn't form good resolutions. They
won't hold water. There's one thing I want you to do, though. Your
mother and I have brought you up as straight as a string, and you know
what's right and what's wrong."
"That's true," said Jack.
"Well, then, don't you promise nor form any resolutions, but if you're
tempted to do wrong, or to be a fool in any kind of way, just don't do
it that's all."
"I won't, Father," said Jack earnestly.
"There," said his father, "I feel better satisfied than I should feel
if you'd promised a hundred things. It's a great deal better not to do
anything that you know to be wrong or foolish."
"I think so," said Jack, "and I won't."
"Go home now and get ready," said his father; "and I'll see you off."
"This is very sudden, Jack,", said his mother, with much feeling, when
he made his appearance.
"Why, Mother," said Jack, "Molly'll be back soon, and the city isn't so
far away after all."
Jack felt as if he had only about enough head left to change his
clothes and drive the team.
"It's just as Mother says," he thought; "I've been wishing and hoping
for it, but it's come very suddenly."
His black traveling-bag was quickly ready. He had closed it and was
walking to the door when his mother came in.
"Jack," she said, "you'll send me a postal card every day or two?"
"Of course I will," said he bravely.
"And I know you'll be back in a few weeks, at most," she went on; "but
I feel as sad as if you were really going away from home. Why, you're
almost a child! You can't really be going away!"
That was where the talk stopped for a while, except some last words
that Jack could never forget. Then she dried her eyes, and he dried
his, and they went down-stairs together. It was hard to say good-by to
all the family, and he was glad his father was not there. He got away
from them as soon as he could, and went over to the stables after his
team. It was a bay team, with a fine harness, and the open carriage
was almost new.
"Stylish!" said Jack. "I'll take Molly on the front seat with me,--no,
the trunk,--and Miss Glidden's trunk,--well, I'll get 'em all in
somehow!"
When he drove up in front of the house his father was there to put the
baggage in and to help Mary into the carriage and to shake hands with
Jack.
The blacksmith's grimy face looked less gloomy for a moment.
"Jack," he said, "good-by. May be you'll really get to the city after
all."
"I think I shall," said Jack, with an effort to speak calmly.
"Well," said the blacksmith, slowly, "I hope you will, somehow; but
don't you forget that there's another city."
Jack knew what he meant. They shook hands, and in another moment the
bays were trotting briskly on their way to Miss Glidden's. Her house
was one of the finest in Crofield, with lawn and shrubbery. Mary Ogden
had never been inside of it, but she had heard that it was beautifully
furnished. There was Miss Glidden and her friend on the piazza, and
out at the sidewalk, by the gate, was a pile of baggage, at the sight
of which Jack exclaimed:
"Trunks! They're young houses! How'll I get 'em all in? I can strap
and rope one on the back of the carriage, but then--!"
Miss Glidden frowned at first, when the carriage pulled up, but she
came out to the gate, smiling, and so did the other lady.
"Why, Mary Ogden, my dear," she said, "Mrs. Potter and I did not know
you were going with us. It's quite a surprise."
"So it is to Jack and me," replied Mary quietly. "We were very glad to
have you come, though, if we can find room for your trunks."
"I can manage 'em," said Jack. "Miss Glidden, you and Mrs. Potter get
in, and Pat and I'll pack the trunks on somehow."
Pat was the man who had brought out the luggage, and he was waiting to
help. He was needed. It was a very full carriage when he and Jack
finished their work. There was room made for the passengers by putting
Mary's small trunk down in front, so that Jack's feet sprawled over it
from the nook where he sat.
"I can manage the team," Jack said to himself. "They won't run away
with this load."
Mary sat behind him, the other two on the back seat, and all the rest
of the carriage was trunks; not to speak of what Jack called a "young
house," moored behind.
It all helped Jack to recover his usual composure, nevertheless, and he
drove out of Crofield, on the Mertonville road, confidently.
"We shall discern traces of the devastation occasioned by the recent
inundation, as we progress," remarked Mrs. Potter.
Jack replied: "Oh, no! The creek takes a great swoop, below Crofield,
and the road's a short cut. There'll be some mud, though."
He was right and wrong. There was mud that forced the heavily laden
carriage to travel slowly, here and there, but there was nothing seen
of the Cocahutchie for several miles.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Jack suddenly. "It looks like a kind of lake. It
doesn't come up over the road, though. I wonder what dam has given out
now!"
There was the road, safe enough, but all the country to the right of it
seemed to have been turned into water. On rolled the carriage, the
horses now and then allowing signs of fear and distrust, and the two
older passengers expressing ten times as much.
"Now, Molly," said Jack, at last, "there's a bridge across the creek, a
little ahead of this. I'd forgotten about that. Hope it's there yet."
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Glidden.
"Don't prognosticate disaster," said Mrs. Potter earnestly; and it
occurred to Jack that he had heard more long words during that drive
than any one boy could hope to remember.
"Hurrah!" he shouted, a few minutes later. "Link's bridge is there!
There's water on both sides of the road, though."
It was an old bridge, like that at Crofield, and it was narrow, and it
trembled and shook while the snorting bays pranced and shied their
frightened way across it. They went down the slope on the other side
with a dash that would have been a bolt if Jack had not been ready for
them. Jack was holding them with a hard pull upon the reins, but he
was also looking up the Cocahutchie.
"I see what's the matter," he said. "The logs got stuck in a narrow
place, and made a dam of their own, and set the water back over the
flat. The freshet hasn't reached Mertonville yet. Jingo!"
Bang, crack, crash!--came a sharp sound behind him.
"The bridge is down!" he shouted. "We were only just in time. Some of
the logs have been carried down, and one of them knocked it endwise."
That was precisely the truth of the matter; and away went the bays, as
if they meant to race with the freshet to see which would first arrive
in Mertonville.
"I'm on my way to the city, any how," thought Jack, with deep
satisfaction.