The Bobbin Boy.

by William M. Thayer.

PREFACE.

The design of this volume is to show the young how "odd moments" and small opportunities may be used in the acquisition of knowledge. The hero of the tale--NAT--is a living character, whose actual boyhood and youth are here delineated--an unusual example of energy, industry, perseverance, application, and enthusiasm in prosecuting a life purpose.

The conclusion of the story will convince the reader, that the group of characters which surround Nat are not creations of the fancy, and that each is the bearer of one or more important lessons to the young. While some of them forcibly ill.u.s.trate the consequences of idleness, disobedience, tippling, and kindred vices, in youth, others are bright examples of the manly virtues, that always command respect, and achieve success.

W. M. T.

CHAPTER I.

A GOOD BEGINNING.

A little patch of ground enclosed by a fence, a few adjacent trees, Nat with his hoe in hand, his father giving directions, on one of the brightest May mornings that was ever greeted by the carol of birds, are the scenes that open to our view.

"There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil for squashes."

"How many seeds shall I put into a hill?" inquired Nat.

"Seven or eight. It is well to put in enough, as some of them may not come up, and when they get to growing well, pull up all but four in a hill. You must not have your hills too near together,--they should be five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of ground."

"How many squashes do you think I shall raise, father?"

"Well," said his father, smiling, "that is hard telling. We won't count the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep out all the weeds, and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will get well paid for your labor."

"If I have fifty hills," said Nat, "and four vines in each hill, I shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each vine, there will be two hundred squashes."

"Yes; but there are so many _ifs_ about it that you may be disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines."

"I can kill the bugs," said Nat.

"Perhaps dry weather will wither them all up."

"I can water them every day if they need it."

"That is certainly having good courage, Nat," added his father, "but if you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet and blast your vines, or there may be such a hail storm as I have known several times in my life, and cut them to pieces."

"I don't think there will be such a hail storm this year; there never was one like it since I can remember."

"I hope there won't be," replied his father. "It is well to look on the bright side, and hope for the best for it keeps the courage up. It is also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought he would raise some ducks. So he obtained a dozen eggs, and put them under a hen, and then he hired a man, to make a small artificial pond in his garden, which he could fill from his well, for the young ducks to swim in. The time came for the ducks to appear, but not one of the eggs hatched, and it caused much merriment among the neighbors, and the man has never heard the last of _counting ducks before they are hatched_. I have heard people in the streets and stores say, when some one was undertaking a doubtful enterprise, 'he is counting ducks.' Now, possibly, your squashes may turn out like the gentleman's ducks, though I do not really think it will be so. I speak of it that you may think of these things."

A sly sort of smile played over Nat's expressive countenance at this mention of the ducks, but it did not shake his confidence in the art of raising squashes. He had become a thorough believer in squashes,--they were now a part of his creed. He could see them on the vines before the seeds were planted. Some of them were very large,--as big as a water-pail, and his glowing imagination set him to work already, rolling them into a wheelbarrow. He cared little for the bugs, though they should come in a great army, he could conquer them, infantry, artillery, and all.

This scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago, not a thousand miles from Boston, when Nat was about ten years old, a bright, active, energetic, efficient, hopeful little fellow. His father gave him the use of a piece of ground for raising squashes, and the boy was to have the proceeds of the crop with which to line his new purse. Nat was wont to look on the bright side of things, and it was generally fair weather with him. For this reason, he expected a good crop of squashes, notwithstanding his father's adverse hints. It was fortunate for him that he was so hopeful, for it inspired him with zeal and earnestness, and made him more successful than he otherwise would have been. All hopeful persons are not successful, but nearly all the successful ones, in the various callings of life, were hopeful from the beginning. This was true of Nathaniel Bowditch, the great mathematician, who was a poor boy when he commenced his studies. He said that whenever he undertook any thing "it never occurred to him for a moment that he could fail."

This quality thus encouraged him to press on from one success to another. Hence, in later life, his counsel to youth was, "Never undertake any thing but with the feeling that you can and will do it.

With that feeling success is certain, and without it failure is unavoidable." He once said that it had been an invariable rule with him, "to do one thing at a time, and to _finish_ whatever he began." The same was true of Sir Humphrey Davy. His biographer says that he never made any provision for failures, "that he undertook every experiment as if success were certain." This put life and soul into his acts; for when a man believes that he shall certainly succeed in a given work, his success is half secured. Grave doubts about it diminish energy, and relax the force of the will. Buxton, the distinguished English philanthropist, is another example of this quality. He was just as confident that his efforts in behalf of the oppressed would succeed, as he was of his own existence. He knew that G.o.d and truth were on his side, and therefore he expected to triumph,--and he did. We shall see that Nat was often helped by his hopefulness.

It was a happy day to Nat when he saw his squashes coming forth to seek the genial light. Frank Martin was with him when the discovery was made, and it brightened Nat's hope considerably, if it be possible to make a bright thing brighter.

"Here, Frank, they are coming. There is one--two--three--"

"Sure enough," answered Frank, "they will all show themselves soon. You will raise a lot of squashes on this patch of ground. You will have to drive a team to Boston market to carry them, likely as not."

"I hardly think father expects to see any squashes of _my_ raising,"

said Nat.

"Why not?" inquired Frank.

"Oh, he is expecting the bugs will eat them up, or that it will be too wet or too dry, or that a hail storm will cut them to pieces, or something else will destroy them; I hardly know what."

"You will fare as well as other folks, I guess," added Frank. "If anybody has squashes this year, you will have them; I am certain of that. But it will take most of your time out of school to hoe them, and keep the weeds out."

"I don't care for that, though I think I can take care of them mornings by getting up early, and then I can play after school."

"Then you mean to play some yet?"

"Of course I do. I shouldn't be a boy if I didn't play, though father says I shouldn't believe in all play and no work."

"You don't. If you work in the morning and play at night, that is believing in both, and I think it is about fair."

"Ben Drake was along here when I was planting my squashes," said Nat, "and he told me that I was a fool to worry myself over a lot of squash vines, and have no time to play. He said he wouldn't do it for a cart-load of squashes."

"And what did you tell him?" asked Frank.

"I told him that father thought it was better for boys to work some, and form the habit of being industrious, and learn how to do things; for then they would be more successful when they became men."

"What did Ben say to that?"

"'Just like an old man!' he said. 'It is time enough to work when we get to be men. I should like to see myself taking care of a garden when the other boys are playing.' By this time," continued Nat, "I thought I would put in a word, so I told him that it would be good for _him_ to work part of the time, and I had heard a number of people say so. He was quite angry at this, and said, 'it was n.o.body's business, he should work when he pleased.' 'So shall I,' I replied, 'and I please to work on these squashes part of my time, whether Ben Drake thinks well of it or not.'"

We shall see hereafter what kind of a boy this Ben was (everybody called him Ben instead of Benjamin), and what kind of a man he made.

Nat expressed his opinion rather bluntly, although he was not a forward, unmannerly boy. But he usually had an opinion of his own, and was rather distinguished for "thinking (as a person said of him since) on his own hook." When he was only four years old, and was learning to read little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite a dispute with his teacher. It was INN.

"What is that?" asked his teacher.

"I-double n," he answered.

"What does i-double n spell?"

"Tavern," was his quick reply.