Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1880-11-13


had been her fathers, and two wild boys
of 10 and IL years growth.
Jack and Dan were hard subjects for a
step-father to rule, and Jason Carter
found his hands full. Naturally he was
quiet, gentle, persistent man; i'll his
youth he ran away to sea, and for fifteen
years he had been common sailor,
which had pretty well knocked the quiet
out of and the persistence into him. In
this time he had learned to swear, as
matter of course, though he had Deen
STRICTLY brought up, and went TO church
and Sunday school always.
His father would heve used the rod,
Int he also was spared the trouble, for
both father and mother had died before
Jason came back, and when he found
thew had gone he never went back to
TOlland. but, when he got tired of sea-
going. went to peddling notions about
the country, and at last married the
widow Coe, and settled down In N0pplt.
He had stopped swearing long ago,
for under dear old Father TaylOr's teach
ings he had been converted between his
last two voyages, and though profanity
had become habit with him, he had
conquered it at last after years OF patient
endeavOr, and now he 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 Coo
from being an old shipmate with her
brother, John Wires, who had also left
seafaring, because he had injured a
knee, and became too lame to climb rig
ging; so he set up small shop In Bos-
ton, where he sold tobacco, Irvine and
oI1o ond an1S hnf no had hooD
married and had one son, called Jeni-
son.
The boy was about the age of widow
Goes Youngest son, for her brother had
married soon after she did, and when
Jason Carter began the peddling bust
ness John Wires had told him to stop
when he went through to 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 Jase" every spring and fall with
delight, for he always brought them
marbles, tops, candy, strings, and made
them bows and kites, sure passports to
boys heart.
So, when their poor drunken father
died, and the widow found herself with
out 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 fayOrably 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
as they never 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 had never
troubled that worn out 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 pre-
decessor, was as mild and pleasant
round the house as spring day after a
stormy winter. He became useful and
prominent member i'm the NOppit church,
and never was heard to utter profane
or impatient word. Jack and Dan loved
him as healthy boys loved anything but
mischief and meats, and Phebe was en-
tireIy happy.
True, they were poor; Jason had few
hundred dollars laid by, but the NOppit
farm was too sterile to produce crnno~
Us
out his little capital, or part of it, i'm
good breed of sheep, which found abund-
ant living among mullens, bareback,
and huckelberry bushes, and proved i'm
due time profitable investment.
For in those days dogs, the curse of
New England, were by no means COM
mon in the country; there was no reason
for keeping them, and farmers had
money and mutton instead of hydro
phObia and horrors.
The wool sold well always and kept
the family in socks, for Jason's wife
could spin and knit with wonderful "a
pidity; the lambs he had not room to
raise were sent to Hartford and sold to
the butchers, and now and then fat old
wether went to the meat-man' cart i'm
the shape of juicy quarters.
But the glory of the flock was bic
faced ram, who terrified maurauding
boys and intruding vagabOnds, and
asked no better fun than TO send some
body heels over head whenever he had
chance.
Jack and Dan had brought him I'D
from lambhOOd, but he was no longer a
lamb, and of his painstaking education
only one trait staid by him, a distinct
and angry recollection of the rod that
had not been spared in his early and
: somewhat stupid youth. To the day of
Billy's death, little stick shaken before
anything would send him "head on" at
that luckless object, and the boys often
amused themselves by climbing the pine
rail fence and dangling small switch
full in Billy's sight against big post;
the result was sudden and severe to Billy,
and he might have seriously injured
10 h.
JASON had not found them at this sport
one day and strictly forbidden it. Cruelty
to animals was one of the few things
that reused his chOler and made impera-
tive.
One summer Mrs. Carter received n
letter 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 Jenis0n could not go with her
for want OF room. Mr.. Wires did not
want him in the city with him at
boarding house, but was willing to pay
his board in NOppit; so he came.
JenlSOn Wires was sharp, city-bred
boy, with very little faith in anybody's
goodness. His father was a pushing.
m0ney-making, prOfane man, and his
mother meek cipher; he himself, at
the age of fourteen, could smoke and
swear and talk sailor slang glibly, for he
had run anywhere.
Mrs. Carter was troubled and disguised
to find such boy on her hands. Jason
considered that God in His wisdom had
sent the boy there for his good, and re-
solved to pray for him as his own boys,
and set him as good an example as he
Tried TO set Jack and Dan, and to IDEAL
with him.. as he expressed it, with
view to his eternal salvation