The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1920-03-18
CHAPTER II.

A young nalf-breed Digger woman
who had suffered the loss of the latest
of her numerous progeny two days
prior to Mrs. Cardigan's death, was
installed in the house as nurse to John
Cardigan's son, whom he called Bryce.
the family meme of his mothers peo-
pie. A Mrs. Tully, widow of Cardi-
CAMS first engineer in the mill, was
engaged as housekeeper and cook; and
with his domestic establishment re-
organized along these simple lines,
John Cardigan turned with added
eagerness to his business affairs, hop
ing between them and his boy to
salvage as much as possible from
what seemed to him, in the first pangs
of his loneliness and desolation, the
wreckage of his life.
While Bryce was in swaddling
clothes he was known only to those
females of Sequoia to whom his half
breed foster mother proudly exhibited
him when taking him abroad for an
airing in his perambulator. With his
advent into rompers, however and the
assumption of his American preroga-
tive of free speech, his father develop
ed the habit of bringing the child
down to the mill office, to which he
added playroom that connected with
his private office. Hence, prior to his
second birthday, Bryce OWNED that
his father was closer to him than
mil hn bol
girl. Moreover. his father took him on
wonderful journeys which no other
meiuior Of the household had even
suggested.
OF all their adventures together,
however, those which occurred on their
frequent excursions up to the Valley
Ct the Giants impressed themselves
imperishably upon Bryce's memory.
How well he remembered their first
trip. when, seated astride his fathers
shoulders with his sturdy little legs
around Cardigan's neck and his chubby
little hands clasping the old mans
ears, they had gone up the abandon
ed ~kid-road and into the semi-darll-
denly in shower of sunshine that
fell in an open space where a boy
could roll and play and never get
dirty Bryce looked forward with
eagpIncss to those frequent trips with
his father ito the place where Mother
dear went to heaven
When Bryce was six years old, his
father sent him to the public school
in Sequoia with the children of his
loggers and mill-hands, thus laying
the foundation for a democratic edu-
cation all too infrequent with the sons
of men rated as millionaires Bryce's
boyhood was much the same as that
of other lads in Sequ0ia, save that in
the matter of toys and later guns,
fishing-rods dogs and ponies he was
source of envy to his fellows. After
his tenth year his father placed him
on the mill payroll, and on payday
he was wont to line up with the mill
crew to receive his modest stipend of
ten dollars for carrying in kindling to
the cook in the mill kitchen each day
after school.
This otherwise needless arrangement
was old CATdigan's way of teaching
his hoy financial responsibility.
Whom prvre Cardigan was about
fourteen years old there occurred an
important event in his life In a com
mendable effort to increase his income
he had laid out a small vegetable
garden in the rear of his fathers
house, and here on a Saturday morn
ing, while down on his knees wedding
carrots, he CHANGED to look up and
discovered young lady gazing at him
through the picket fence She was
few years his junior and a stranger