Produced by Glenn Wilson and his class
BOUND TO RISE
Or, UP THE LADDER
By Horatio Alger, Jr.
AUTHOR OF
"PAUL, THE PEDDLER," "PHIL, THE FIDDLER," "STRIVE AND SUCCEED,"
"HERRERT CARTER'S LEGACY," "JACK'S WARD," "SHIFTING FOR HIMSELF,"
ETC.
BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Horatio Alger, Jr., an author who lived among and for boys and himself
remained a boy in heart and association till death, was born at Revere,
Mass., January 18, 1884. He was the son of a clergyman; was graduated
at Harvard College in 1852, and at its Divinity School in 1860; and was
pastor of the Unitarian Church at Brewster, Mass., in 1862-66. In the
latter year he settled in New York and began drawing public attention
to the condition and needs of street boys. He mingled with them, gained
their confidence, showed a personal concern in their affairs, and
stimulated them to honest and useful living. With his first story he won
the hearts of all red-blooded boys every-where, and of the seventy or
more that followed over a million copies were sold during the author's
lifetime.
In his later life he was in appearance a short, stout, bald-headed man,
with cordial manners and whimsical views of things that amused all who
met him. He died at Natick, Mass., July 18, 1899.
Mr. Alger's stories are as popular now as when first published, because
they treat of real live boys who were always up and about--just like
the boys found everywhere to-day. They are pure in tone and inspiring
in influence, and many reforms in the juvenile life of New York may be
traced to them. Among the best known are:
Strong and Steady; Strive and Succeed; Try and Trust: Bound to Rise;
Risen from the Ranks; Herbert Carter's Legacy; Brave and Bold; Jack's
Ward; Shifting for Himself; Wait and Hope; Paul the Peddler; Phil
the Fiddler: Slow and Sure: Julius the Street Boy; Tom the Bootblack;
Struggling Upward; Facing the World; The Cash Boy; Making His Way; Tony
the Tramp; Joe's Luck; Do and Dare: Only an Irish Boy; Sink or Swim;
A Cousin's Conspiracy; Andy Gordon; Bob Burton; Harry Vane; Hector's
Inheritance; Mark Manson's Triumph; Sam's Chance; The Telegraph Boy;
The Young Adventurer; The Young Outlaw; The Young Salesman, and Luke
Walton..
CHAPTER I
"Sit up to the table, children, breakfast's ready."
The speaker was a woman of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary
acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was
dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the
dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying
in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present
story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, open face,
resolute, though good-natured.
"Father isn't here," said Fanny, the second child.
"He'll be in directly. He went to the store, and he may stop as he comes
back to milk."
The table was set in the center of the room, covered with a coarse
tablecloth. The breakfast provided was hardly of a kind to tempt an
epicure. There was a loaf of bread cut into slices, and a dish of boiled
potatoes. There was no butter and no meat, for the family were very
poor.
The children sat up to the table and began to eat. They were blessed
with good appetites, and did not grumble, as the majority of my readers
would have done, at the scanty fare. They had not been accustomed to
anything better, and their appetites were not pampered by indulgence.
They had scarcely commenced the meal when the father entered. Like his
wife, he was coarsely dressed. In personal appearance he resembled his
oldest boy. His wife looking up as he entered perceived that he looked
troubled.
"What is the matter, Hiram?" she asked. "You look as if something had
happened."
"Nothing has happened yet," he answered; "but I am afraid we are going
to lose the cow."
"Going to lose the cow!" repeated Mrs. Walton in dismay.
"She is sick. I don't know what's the matter with her."
"Perhaps it is only a trifle. She may get over it during the day."
"She may, but I'm afraid she won't. Farmer Henderson's cow was taken
just that way last fall, and he couldn't save her."
"What are you going to do?"
"I have been to Elihu Perkins, and he's coming over to see what he can
do for her. He can save her if anybody can."
The children listened to this conversation, and, young as they were, the
elder ones understood the calamity involved in the possible loss of the
cow. They had but one, and that was relied upon to furnish milk for the
family, and, besides a small amount of butter and cheese, not for
home consumption, but for sale at the store in exchange for necessary
groceries. The Waltons were too poor to indulge in these luxuries.
The father was a farmer on a small scale; that is, he cultivated ten
acres of poor land, out of which he extorted a living for his family, or
rather a partial living. Besides this he worked for his neighbors by
the day, sometimes as a farm laborer, sometimes at odd jobs of different
kinds, for he was a sort of Jack at all trades. But his income, all
told, was miserably small, and required the utmost economy and good
management on the part of his wife to make it equal to the necessity of
a growing family of children.
Hiram Walton was a man of good natural abilities, though of not much
education, and after half an hour's conversation with him one would say,
unhesitatingly, that he deserved a better fate than his hand-to-hand
struggle with poverty. But he was one of those men who, for some
unaccountable reason, never get on in the world. They can do a great
many things creditably, but do not have the knack of conquering fortune.
So Hiram had always been a poor man, and probably always would be poor.
He was discontented at times, and often felt the disadvantages of his
lot, but he was lacking in energy and ambition, and perhaps this was the
chief reason why he did not succeed better.
After breakfast Elihu Perkins, the "cow doctor," came to the door.
He was an old man with iron-gray hair, and always wore steel-bowed
spectacles; at least for twenty years nobody in the town could remember
ever having seen him without them. It was the general opinion that he
wore them during the night. Once when questioned on the subject, he
laughingly said that he "couldn't see to go to sleep without his specs".
"Well, neighbor Walton, so the cow's sick?" he said, opening the outer
door without ceremony.
"Yes, Elihu, she looks down in the mouth. I hope you can save her."
"I kin tell better when I've seen the critter. When you've got through
breakfast, we'll go out to the barn."
"I've got through now," said Mr. Walton, whose anxiety for the cow had
diminished his appetite.
"May I go too, father?" asked Harry, rising from the table.
"Yes, if you want to."
The three went out to the small, weather-beaten building which served as
a barn for the want of a better. It was small, but still large enough
to contain all the crops which Mr. Walton could raise. Probably he
could have got more out of the land if he had had means to develop its
resources; but it was naturally barren, and needed much more manure than
he was able to spread over it.
So the yield to an acre was correspondingly small, and likely, from year
to year, to grow smaller rather than larger.
They opened the small barn door, which led to the part occupied by the
cow's stall. The cow was lying down, breathing with difficulty. Elihu
Perkins looked at her sharply through his "specs."
"What do you think of her, neighbor Perkins?" asked the owner,
anxiously.
The cow doctor shifted a piece of tobacco from one cheek to the other,
and looked wise.
"I think the critter's nigh her end," he said, at last.
"Is she so bad as that?"
"Pears like it. She looks like Farmer Henderson's that died a while ago.
I couldn't save her."
"Save my cow, if you can. I don't know what I should do without her."
"I'll do my best, but you mustn't blame me if I can't bring her round.
You see there's this about dumb critters that makes 'em harder to cure
than human bein's. They can't tell their symptoms, nor how they feel;
and that's why it's harder to be a cow doctor than a doctor for humans.
You've got to go by the looks, and looks is deceivin'. If I could only
ask the critter how she feels, and where she feels worst, I might have
some guide to go by. Not but I've had my luck. There's more'n one of 'em
I've saved, if I do say it myself."
"I know you can save her if anyone can, Elihu," said Mr. Walton, who
appreciated the danger of the cow, and was anxious to have the doctor
begin.
"Yes, I guess I know about as much about them critters as anybody," said
the garrulous old man, who had a proper appreciation of his dignity and
attainments as a cow doctor. "I've had as good success as anyone I know
on. If I can't cure her, you may call her a gone case. Have you got any
hot water in the house?"
"I'll go in and see."
"I'll go, father," said Harry.
"Well, come right back. We have no time to lose."
Harry appreciated the need of haste as well as his father, and speedily
reappeared with a pail of hot water.
"That's right, Harry," said his father. "Now you'd better go into the
house and do your chores, so as not to be late for school."
Harry would have liked to remain and watch the steps which were being
taken for the recovery of the cow; but he knew he had barely time to do
the "chores" referred to before school, and he was far from wishing to
be late there. He had an ardent thirst for learning, and, young as he
was, ranked first in the district school which he attended. I am not
about to present my young hero as a marvel of learning, for he was not
so. He had improved what opportunities he had enjoyed, but these were
very limited. Since he was nine years of age, his schooling had been for
the most part limited to eleven weeks in the year. There was a summer as
well as a winter school; but in the summer he only attended irregularly,
being needed to work at home. His father could not afford to hire help,
and there were many ways in which Harry, though young, could help
him. So it happened that Harry, though a tolerably good scholar, was
deficient in many respects, on account of the limited nature of his
opportunities.
He set to work at once at the chores. First he went to the woodpile and
sawed and split a quantity of wood, enough to keep the kitchen stove
supplied till he came home again from school in the afternoon. This duty
was regularly required of him. His father never touched the saw or the
ax, but placed upon Harry the general charge of the fuel department.
After sawing and splitting what he thought to be sufficient, he carried
it into the house by armfuls, and piled it up near the kitchen stove.
He next drew several buckets of water from the well, for it was washing
day, brought up some vegetables from the cellar to boil for dinner, and
then got ready for school.