Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-01-30

in her husbands professional life; to
feel that miles and miles stretched be-
tween her and the clang OF the fac
tory bell and the overwhelming noise
Of the restless machinery.
She only saw Rupert at few odd
times during the years that stretched
between his birth and his fathers
death. And she was abroad when
John Haverford died.
BY his fathers will the boy was
left to the joint care of his mother
and of a man called Matthew Wool
gar
No one knew where to find Mrs.
Haverford, SO the charge Of the lal
passed into the hands of this Wool
gar, who accepted the trust in very
grudging spirit.
He was an ignorant, churlish man,
who had worked his way up from the
gutter to the command of enormous
wealth; man whose very name was
a curse in the ears of the men who
served him; man who was both
feared and hated and credited truly
with being the hardest taskmaster in
the world. 1t was asserted by many
that the foundation of Woolgar's for
tune lay in usury-money lent to his
fellow-workers at an enormous rate
of interest-but whether this was so
or not no one knew. All that was
certain was that he owned more than
| half the town and ruled with the hand
of a tyrant.
| John Haverford had written down
| his wishes as to his boys education
| and profession, but Matthew Woolgar
sneered these wishes into thin air.
A pauper had no right to the train
| ing of prince. he decreed, and so
| without waiting to consult Octavia
Haverford, he took matters into his
| own hands, and sent the boy into the
| factory.
Rupert Haverford wore common
| clothes as the others did, he ate the
same common food he lived and
! moved and slept among these people
who had adored his father. and for
whose children his father had lost his
| life. There was nothing outwardly to
mark any difference between Rupert
Haverford and the others. except
when Matthew Woolgar paid one of
his surprise visitations Gas he was
fond Of doing) to the works, when He
would be certain to single out 't'
poor doctors lad for some sharp re-
proof or snarling word.
Then the mother had flashed into
existence again.
| She wrote from America, announc
| ing that she was married a second
time, and peremptorily commanding
Rupert to join her
Matthew Woolgar quietly and grim
ly refused to permit this.
| In truth, Rupert himself had no de-
| et,.N 10 ~,
to him, hardly name. The passion,
the intense love, of his childhood and
| boyhood had been given to his father;
even to live in the place where his
| father had lived and died signifled
sort Of happiness to Rupert. 1t was
| because he felt he was doing what
John Haverford had wished him to do
that he gave his strange guardian
such unquestioning obedience, and It
was certainly the loved memory of his
father which sustained him. and made
his dreary life possible. Every day
he toiled eight to nine hou-~ in the
factory every night he sat for hours
studying, teaching himself. He had
dreams of his own He would get
and even yet follow that career which
his father had desired for him.
1t was task of incredible difficulty,
but he was his mothers child, and
the will which spurred her on to such
questionable lengths ran like steady
fire in Rupert's veins The very
work which to some would have seem
ed so paralysing, so harmful served
to urge the boy on; it gave him grit;
it taught him more than books can
teach.
And he got on.
Against all odds he advanced.