The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-06-01
TENSIONS BET.

When the Widow Coe married Jason
Garter she brought him no money at
all; only a small, stony farm in Noppit,
wild boys of ten and twelve years
growth. Jack and Dan were hard SUBJ
jects for a step-father to rule, and Jason
Carter found his hands full. Naturally
he was quiet, gentle, but persistent
man; in his youth he had run away to
sea, and for fifteen years had been a
common sailor, which had pretty well
knocked the quiet out of and the per-
Sistence into him. In this time he had
learned to swear, 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
settled down in Noppit.
He had stopped swearing long ago;
for under dear old Father Taylor 5
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 Coe
from being an old shipmate of her
brother, John Wires; who had also left
seafaring because he had injured a
knee, and become too lame to climb
rigging; so he set up a small shop in
Boston, where he sold tobacco, Irvine,
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 her
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 for 'Uncle Jasen every spring and
fall with delight, for he always brought
them marbles, tops, candy, string, and
made them bows and kites, sure pass
ports to boys heart. So when their
poor drunken father died and the
widow found herself left without a
penny, she moved over to Noppit to
live with her father; and when he died
too, leaving her all he had, the farm
from which he had scratched scanty
living, and she found herself alone and
helpless, she listened favorably to Jason
Carriers proposal, for he was as tired
of his wandering life as she was of her
loneliness, and married him. The boys
were glad, for they loved him, and they
never had loved their own father; and
Jason was as good to them as if they
were his own, though certain thrill
of emotion shook him when his baby
daughter came, that never had troubled
that worn old heart in any emergency
of Jack or Dan. But then Celia was a
girl; of course that made it different!
Jason. when compared with his prede-
cessor, was as mild and pleasant about
the house as a spring day after stormy
winter. He became a useful and prom
inent member in the Noppit church,
and never was heard to utter profane
or impatient word. Jack and Dan
loved him as much as healthy boys ever
love anything but mischief and meals,
and Phoebe was entirely happy.
True, they were poor; Jason had q
few hundred dollars laid by, but the
Noppit farm was too sterile to produce
crops enough to support the family, SC
he laid out his little capital, or part OF
it, in good breed of sheep, which
found abundant living among mullens
hard-hack and huckleberry bushes, and
proved in due time profitable invest
ment. For in those days dogs, the
curse of New England, were by ne
means common in the country; there