The Story of a Country Town

born. He was five years my senior, and a stout and ambitious fellow I greatly admired; but as he was regularly flogged when I

to our house with my mother, as he was not wanted at home, and had lived there until other disposition could be made of him. He usually had a horse picked out as the one he desired, and gave

he was honest and just, and very stout, there were no appeals from his decisions. In our rough amusements, which were few enough, he used his strength to secure to the smaller ones their share, and gave way himself with the same readiness that he exacted from the others; therefore he was very popular among the younger portion of the population, and there was great joy at school when it was announced-which pleasure I usually had-that Jo Erring had fi

always did it. They seemed to hate each other in secret, for the master disliked a boy who was able to equal him in anything, as if his extra years had availed him nothing; and I confess that my sympathies were always with Jo, for the grown people picked at him because of his ambition to become a man, in all other respects than age, a few years sooner than was usual. While nobody

t a wrong impression, and steadily made matters worse. His activity kept him down, for another thing, for thereby he raised an opposition which would not have existed had he been content to walk leisurely along in the tracks made b

ngenuity he often made a poorer one seem better, if the one proposed happened to be right, as was sometimes the case-for

is own, and got along very well with it. I never heard of anything a Fairview boy could do better than Jo Erring, and he did a great many things in which he had no competition; therefore I have often wondered that the only young man there who really amounted to anything was for some reason rather unpopular. Jo was unfortunate in the particular that he seemed to have inherited all the poorer qualities of both his father and mother instead of the good qualities of either one of them, or a commendable trait from one, an

ed my father, he would like to follow milling for a business. The miller, an odd but kindly man of whom but little was known in our part of the country, admired Jo's manly way, and made friends with him by good-naturedly answering his questions, and occas

ny one spoke of an event not likely to happen, he said it would probably come about when the sky rained pitchforks on the roof of Jo Erring's mill; but Jo paid little attention to this banter, and hauled more stones for the dam whenever he had opportunity, in which work I assisted, in preference to idleness without him. He hoped to become apprenticed to his

Our plan to run away was altered by this new interest, and we agreed that it would be better to wait patiently until the mill was

ed man, for he was about the only one in the settlement who did not profess religion, and attend the gatherings at the church. The calling of shingle-making he followed winter and summer and he never seemed to raise anything on his farm except a glassy kind of corn with a great many black grains in every ear, which he planted and cultivated with a hoe. A

was; and said of him that he selected his piece of land because it was near a spring, whereas the exercise

ut, and I think only very rarely at any other time, for they seemed never to have recovered from some old trouble. There was this much charity for him, however-the people said no more than that he was an ex

ever owned a horse, but took long journeys on foot, refusing a ride if offered him by a wagon going in the same

ame mood as that in which he had started. I have heard that he had relatives living in a settlement south of us, but whether he went to visit them on his journeys, or spen

esh himself with food, but not often; and when he did he would be offended unless she took a present of money to buy something to remember him by. If she was dangerously ill-which was often the case, for she was never strong-he was never sent for. Nobody thought of him as of any use or as caring much about

d at our house, and sometimes I was lifted up behind to go home with he

f it was evening, which was usually the case, I was soon sent out to make the fire for the evening meal, but after this was eaten, we resumed our places at the hearth. Sometimes I told them what I knew was going on in the neighborhood, and caused them to ask questions, and replied to them, and tried to lure them into a conversation, but I never succeeded. If my grandmo

he middle one, as if to keep my grand-parents as far apart as possible again, for I was certain that my grandmother slept in one, and my grandfather in the other. The one which I occupied was also the company bed, for my grandmother evidently desired me to know that my mother, excellent woman

e early risers in those days; and I never knew certainly that they went to bed at all,

ring to wash my face for breakfast, which was soon thereafter ready. When this was over I was started