Chiquita, an American Novel. Merrill Tileston

cared for by a spinster aunt, who undertook the responsibility at the earnest solicitation of "Thad."

      The awakening from sin was that of genuine remorse and sorrow. With the characteristic determination of those rugged ancestors, "Thad" broke off all his former boon companionships, started on entirely new lines of life and succeeded in living down the awful past. In a few years he remarried, giving Jack a mother who learned to love her stepson as her own. Jack was not the ever industrious boy in school, but he was quick to learn both kinds of knowledge, useful and mischievous. That is the reason why the old red school-house, at the top of the hill, held pleasant recollections for him in after life. Of course, "J-A-C-K" was carved into the top of every desk at which he sat and, as the first row of desks was the "baby" or A, B, C row, the next one a little larger, and so on, the four rows of "boxes" represented four classes, and Jack managed to stay in each class long enough to carve his name where future generations would find it.

      "He's the most trying pupil in the school," was what the teacher told everybody in the little village.

      When the snow was deep, Jack took his dinner in a little basket, just the same as the other scholars, and at the noon recess he was always in the games in which the girls liked to have a few of the nice boys to help out. Two chairs, facing each other, with a little gap between them, then a ring of boys and girls holding hands to circle around between the chairs, while a boy and a girl stood on the chairs, hands clasped across the gap, all joining in singing the little couplet:

      "The needle's eye that does supply

       The thread that runs so true,

       I've caught many a smiling lass,

       And now I have caught you."

      It was the boy's turn to choose the girl he wanted for a partner, and she had to submit to the penalty of a kiss before she could mount the chair. The desks were arranged in horseshoe form, and of course the favorite seats were in the back row, farthest away from the teacher, but Jack generally managed to be on a line with the first nail hole in the horseshoe by the time the first third of the term was reached. This, so the teacher could better keep her eye on him.

      It was near the end of the summer term that a little event occurred which made a lasting impression on Jack. His seat-mate was an ungainly little urchin who had the faculty of being cunning without being smart. His name was "Ted" Smith, but he was better known as "Ted Weaver," for he had a habit of rocking to and fro from one hand to another while he studied. Jack happened to be busy with lessons when some one shot a paper wad at one of the scholars, which missed the scholar but hit the teacher on the cheek.

      Miss Freeman was spare and angular, with a pointed rose-colored nose, hard, cold-gray eyes, and long neck circled with a severe white linen collar, which lay flat over the prominent collar bones. The black waist of her dress was severely plain, with, seemingly, a gross of buttons made of wooden molds covered with the dress fabric. The skirt covered an area of floor space that was in keeping with the period before the Civil War, when hoop skirts ruled the fashion, and, as the "tilter" tilted, it could be seen the school ma'am enumerated among her personal belongings a pair of white hose and cloth gaiters. A head of luxurious hair was parted exactly in the middle and divided into three portions, two side and back strands, the side strands twisted to the temples, then the smooth flat surface gracefully looped over the tops of the ears until the curve of the hair reached the eyebrows; the ends of the strands were then formed into a foundation, around which the back hair was wound, after a sufficient quantity had been properly separated for curls—long ones for the side, or short ones to dangle idly behind.

      When the paper wad struck Miss Freeman a rap immediately brought the school to order. With a searching gaze she tried to locate the evil doer, and her well-trained eye rested on Jack, who innocently looked up to see the cause of the unusual summons "to order." Jack knew who shot the wad, for he had noticed the culprit shoot others earlier in the day, a performance which had escaped the teacher's notice and cheek.

      "Jack, did you throw that paper wad?" she asked, her voice as cold and hard as that of the second mate of a three-masted brig.

      "No, ma'am."

      "Do you know who did throw it?"

      Jack would not tell a lie about the wad, so he answered slowly, "Yes, ma'am."

      "Who did it?"

      There was no reply.

      "Who threw the wad?"

      She had flushed to her hair at the commencement of the inquisition, but now the color slowly receded and the lines in her severe face became like those in stone.

      "Unless you tell me who threw the wad I shall punish you."

      Jack remained silent. His little bosom filled with wrath because the culprit would not speak up; but his honor was so strong that he would not be "telltale." The teacher reached for her switch and told Jack to step forward. Like a little man he marched up to her desk and stood, not defiant, but humble and submissive, awaiting his punishment. Miss Freeman stepped down from the platform with switch in hand, and again demanded the name of the guilty one.

      "I'll never tell," said Jack in a whisper.

      There was a swish in the air and a sharp cracking noise as the rod smote Jack around the fleshy part of his legs.

      "Will you tell now?" asked the teacher again.

      Jack made no answer, but shook his head and stifled a sob. He knew if he relaxed his firmly shut teeth he would cry, so he gritted them and prepared to receive the following blows without flinching. Thoroughly maddened, the school ma'am finally threw off all endeavor of restraint and showered blow after blow upon poor Jack's arms, legs and bare feet, for it was summer and Jack followed the custom of other boys. But, it is needless to say, that was the last day he went barefooted. The switch was broken, but not the spirit in the boy. He had given way to tears, which gushed forth because of bodily pain. He sought to protect his feet and grabbed the infuriated school ma'am's skirt, and as the blows descended he swung under the protecting expanse of hoops. This piece of strategy perplexed the teacher, and as she had broken all her switches she had to suspend hostilities until a new supply was gathered. Leaving Jack and the school room, she hastened to the willows, which grew in abundance just back of the building, and brought in a stick as big as a cane, just in time to see Jack disappearing through the window and his sturdy little legs, all striped with red marks, making tracks for home.

      Episodes of this character followed Jack all through his school life. He had a stern father, who always punished his children if they were punished at school, no matter what the excuse, and on this occasion there was no exception, only in place of another "birching" the filial duty was limited to sending the boy to bed without anything to eat, so he could reflect upon the awful crime of disobedience to his teacher.

      Nature has ever been prodigal in the distribution of her favors and disfavors, limiting her generosity in the picturesque to certain localities, and giving in abundance to the arid regions, as well as to the fertile valleys. But in her selfish allotments no upheavals in the vast chaos of creation furnished man an abiding place so compatible with his Puritanical doctrines as the forbidding rock-walled coast of New England and the everlasting hills extending back to the Hudson River, with their beautiful slopes, sinuous streams and forest-scented dales. And it was among these hills that Jack found, even in his younger days, that pleasure and freedom which afterward was intensified by his associations with the forest-born red man.

      Old Bozrah, where he first saw the light of day, was the Mecca to which his longing gaze was ever turned, even as he studied, worked or played, and no greater treat was in store for him than the one looked forward to when his father hitched up "Old Jerry" to drive that long twenty miles, through villages and past cross-road stores, to the old farm house. "Old Jerry" was known even better than "Thad" Sheppard. Every factory hand on Mill River from where it emptied into the Connecticut to the great reservoirs in the Goshen hills, and every farmer, merchant and preacher knew "Thad" and "Old Jerry."

      "Thad" was well aware of the danger that lurked in the old reservoirs and knew the day would come when the torrent would burst forth and sweep all the industries away,