I
will not pause at present to give you any further particulars regarding
my own early years, as the story I am about to relate is concerning one
of my schoolmates who was a few years older than myself. The pastor of
the Church in the small village where my parents resided had but one
son; and, when quite a little girl, I remember him as one of the elder
pupils in the school I attended. I was too young at that time to pay
much attention to passing events, but I afterward learned that, even
then his conduct was a source of much anxiety and sorrow to his parents;
his ready talent, great vivacity, and love of amusement continually led
him into mischief and caused him to be disliked by many of their
neighbors. It was in vain that the villagers complained, in vain that
his father admonished and his mother wept; still the orchards were
robbed, the turkeys chased into the woods, and the logs of wood in the
fireplaces often burst into fragments by concealed powder. Time passed
on, till he reached the age of sixteen years, when spurning the
restraints of home, the erring boy left his father's house and became a
wanderer, no one knew whither; but it was rumored that reaching a
seaport town he had entered a merchant vessel bound upon a whaling
voyage for three years.
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