Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-08-28
NO.. 2O7.
Gales ano Skettbes.
JENISON'S BET.
EY ROSE TERRY COOKE

When the widow Coe married Jason
Carter she brought him no money at all
only Il 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 subjects for
step-father to rule and Jason Carter found
his hands full. Naturally he was quiet,
gentle, persistent man, in his youth he ran
away to sea. and for fifteen years he was a
common sailor. which had pretty well
knocked the quiet out of and the persis-
tence into him. In this time he had
learned to swear, rs a matter of course,
though he had been strictly brought up.
and went to church and Sunday school al
ways.
Ills father would have used the rod, but
he also was spared the trouble, for both
father and mother had 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 ped
ding notions about the country, and at
last married the widow Coe. and settled
down in Noppit.
He had stopped swearing long ago, for
under Gear old Father Taylor's teaching
he had been converted between his last two
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 Phebe Coe thought her last days
would be her best days.
lie had come to know the widow Coe
from being an old shipmate with her broth
cr John Wires, who had also LETT seafar-
ing. because he had injured a knee, and
became too lame to climb rigging; so he
set up a small shop in Boston where he
sold tobacco, twine and other odds and
ends. but he had been married and had
one son. called Jenson.
The boy was about the ace of widow
Goes Youngest son. for her brother had
married soon after she did, and when ia
son Carter began the peddling business,
John Wires had told him to stop when he
went through to Scranton and see his sis
ter. The children are small and their father
was living when Jason first saw them,
and they learned to look for Uncle Jase"
every spring and fall. with delight. for he
always bought the marbles. tops, candy,
strings, and made them bows and kites,
sure passports to boy 5 heart.
So when their poor drunken father died,
and the widow found herself 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 scratched scanty living, and
she found herself alone and helpless, she
listened favorably to Jason Carter's pro-
proposals. for he was tired of his wander
ing life as she was of her loneliness, and
married him.
h.N,- r1,I t,,t lzx I,
as they never loved their own father. and
Jason was as good to them as if they were
his own. though a certain thrill of emotion
shook him when his baby daughter came.
that never had troubled that worn old
heart in any emergency OF Jack and Dan.
But then Celia was Girl; of course that
made it different.
Jason, when compared with his prede-
cessor. was as mild and pleasant round
the house as a spring day after stormy
winter. He became a useful and promi-
nent member in the Noppt church, and
never was heard to utter profane or i'm
patient word Jack and Dan loved him
as much as healthy boys love anything but
mischief and meals, and Phebe was en-
tirely happy.
True. they were poor; Jason had few
hundred dollars laid by, but the Noppit
farm was too sterile to produce crop
enough to support the family. so he laid
ont his little capital, or part of it. in
good breed of sheep. which found abun-
dant living among mullens. hard-hack and
huckleberrv bushes, and proved in due
time a profitable investment
For in those days dogs. the curse of New
England were by no means common in
the country; there was no reason for keep
ing them, and farmers had money and
mutton instead of hydrophobia and hor-
rorS.
The wool sold we'll always, and kept
the family in socks, for .Jason's wife could
spin and knit with wonderful rapidity the
lambs he had not room to raise were sent
to Hartford and sold to the butchers, and
now and then a fat old wether went to the
meat-man's cart in the shape of juicy
quarters.
But the glory of the flock was a big
faced ram, who terrified marauding boys
and intruding vagabonds, and asked no
better fun than to send somebody heels
over head whenever he had a chance
Jack and Dan had brought him up from
lambhood, but he was no longer lamb,
and of his painstaking education only one
trait stayed by him, a distinct and angry
recollection of the rod that had not been
spared on his early and somewhat stupid
youth To the day of Billy's death. lit
tie stick shaken before anything. would
send him head on" at that luckless OBJ
iect, and the boys often amused them
selves by climbing the pine rail fence and
dangling a small switch full in Billy's
sight against a big post; the result was
sudden and severe to Billy, and he might
have seriously injured himself if daddy
Gas the boys called Jasom had not found
them at this sport one day and strictly for.
hidden it. Cruelty to animals was one Of
the few things that reused his choler and
made him imperative.
One summer Mrs. Carter received let
ter from her brother. asking her to take
his boy few months; his wife was SO
feeble that she was going home to her
fathers with the baby and young child,
and Jenison could not so with her for
want of room. Mr.. Wires did not want
him in the city with him, at Il boarding
house, but was willing to pay his board in
Noppit; so he came.
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