St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-07-19
JeniSon's Bet.

When the widow COe married Jason
Carter she brought him no money al
all only small, stony farm in NOppit
that had been her fathers, and two
wild boys of ten and twelve years
growth. Jack and Dan were hard sub
.iects for step-father to rule, and Jason
Carter found his hands full. Naturally
he was quiet, but yet persistent man
in his youth he had run away to sea
and for fifteen years had been a com
mon sailor, which had pretty well
knocked the quiet out of and the pa
tience into him. In this time he had
learned to sweaI, as a matter of course,
though he had been strictly brought up,
and went to church and Sunday school
always. His mother would have cried
her eyes out to hear him talk in this
fashion, but she never did /; his father
would have used the rod, but he also
was spared the trouble, for both father
and mother died before Jason came
back and when he found they were
gone he never went back to Tolland,
but after he got tired of sea going took
to peddling notions about the country
and at last married the widow COe and
|
He had stopped swearing long ago
for under dear old Father Taylor's
preaching he had been converted be-
tween his two last voyages, and though
profanity had become a habit with him
he had conquered it at last, after years
of patient endeavOr, and now was So
gentle, and pleasant, and pious. that
Phoebe Coe thought her last days would
be her best days.
He had come to know the widow COt
from being an old shipmate of hel
brother, John Wires who had also left
sea fanng hrcause he had injured {:
knee, and because too lame to climb
rigging; so he sci up small shop in
Boston, where he sold tobacco, twine
and other odds and ends but he had
been married and had one son, called
Jenison. This boy was about the age
of widow Goes youngest son, for hel
brother had married soon after she did
while he was still sailor; and when
Jason Carter began the peddling bust
ness, John Wires had told him to stop
when he went through Scranton and see
his sister. The children were small
and their father living, when Jason first
saw them, and they learned to look fOl
"Uncle Jase" every spring and fall with
delight, for he always brought them
marbles, tops, candy, strings, and made
them bows and kites, sure passports tC
IL boys heart. So when their pooi
drunken father died and the widow
found herself without penny, she NOV
ed over to Noppit to live with hel
father and when he died too, leaving
her all he had, the farm from which he
had scratched a scanty living, and she
found herself alone and helpless, she
listened favOrably TO Jason Carter's pro-
posal, for he was as tired of his wan
dering life as she of her loneliness, and
married him. The boys were glad, fol
they loved him, and they never had
loved their father; and Jason was ii,
good to them us if they were his own
though certain thrill of emotion shook
him when his baby daughter came, thai
had never troubled that worn out OLD
heart in any emergency of Jack OF Dan
But then, Celia was girl of course
that made it different Jason, whcr
compared with his predecessor, was as
mild and pleasant about the house as /
spring day after stormy winter. He
became useful and prominent member
in the NOppit church, and never was
heard to utter prOfane or impatient
word. Jack and Dan loved him a,
much as healthy boys ever love any.
thing but mischief and meals, ant
Phoebe was entirely happy.
True, they were poor Jason had /
few hundred dollars laid by, but the
Noppit farm was too sterile to produce
crops enough to support the family, 81
he laid out his little capital, or part o
1t, in good breed of sheep, which fount
abundant living among mullens, hard
hack and huckleberry bushes, and prov
ed in due time profitable investment
For in those days, dogs, the curse o
New England, were by no means com
mon in the country; there was no rea
son for keeping them, and farmers ha,
money and mutton instead of hydro
phobia and horrors. The wool sole
well always and kept the family il
stockings, for Jason's wife could spil
and knit with wonderful rapidity; th,
lambs he had no room to raise wer,
sent to Hartford and sold to the butch
ers, and now and then fat old wethe
went to the meat-man's cart in til,
shape of juicy quarters. But the glOr,
of the flock was big black faced ram
who terrified marauding boys and in
truding vagabOnds, and asked no bette
fun than to send somebody heels owe
head whenever he had chance. Jacl
and Dan had brought him up from
lambhoOd, but he was no longer a laml
and of his painstaking education onl,
one trait stayed by him, distinct an,
angry recollection of the rod that ha,
not been spared in his early and some
what stupid youth. To the day O
! Billy's death little stick shaken be
fore anything, would send him shea,
on" at the luckless object; and th
, boys often amused themselves by climb
ing the pine rail fence and dangling
small switch full in Billy's sight agains
a big post; the result was sudden an,
severe to Billy, and he might have seri
Ously injured himself if Daddy, as tn
boys called Jason, had not found the1
at this work and strictly forbidden il
Cruelty to animals was one of the fe,