Breaking Away | Page 4

with him; but I could make the opportunity. He took no notice of me; he avoided me; he seemed hardly to be conscious of my existence. Yet he was not a hard man, in the common sense of the word. He clothed me as well as the best boys in the Institute. If I wanted anything for the table, old Jerry was ordered to procure it. When I was ten years old a little row-boat was furnished for me; but before I was fourteen I wanted something better, and told my uncle so. He made me no reply; but on my next birthday a splendid sail-boat floated on the lake before the house, which Jerry said had been built for me. I told my silent lord that I was much obliged to him for his very acceptable present, when I happened to catch him on the lawn. He turned on his heel, and fled as though I had stung him with the sting of ingratitude.
If I wanted anything, I had only to mention it; and no one criticised my conduct, whatever I did. I was free to go and come when I pleased; and though in vacation I was absent three days at once in my boat, no one asked me where I had been, or what I had done. Neither my uncle nor his silent satellites ever expressed a fear that I might be drowned in my voyages in night and storm on the lake; and I came to the conclusion that no one would care if I were lost.
I do not know how, under such a home government, I ever became a decent fellow. I do not know why I am not now a pirate, a freebooter, a pickpocket, or a nuisance to myself and the world in some other capacity. I have come to believe since that my inherited good qualities saved me under such an utter neglect of all home influences. It is a marvel to me that I was not ruined before I was twenty-one; and from the deepest depths of my heart I thank God for his mercy in sparing me from the fate which generally and naturally overtakes such a neglected child.
At the age of twelve, after I had passed through the common school of the town, I was admitted to the Parkville Liberal Institute, which I wished to attend because a friend of mine in the town was there. My uncle did not object--he never objected to anything. Without pride or vanity I may say that I was a good scholar, and I took the highest rank at the academy. When I was about twelve years old, some instructions which I received in the Sunday school produced a strong impression on my mind, and led me to take my stand for life. I tried to be true to God and myself, to be just and manly in all things. Whatever the world may sneeringly say of goodness and truth, I am sure that I owe my popularity among the boys of the Parkville Liberal Institute to these endeavors--not always successful--to do right.
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH THERE IS TROUBLE IN THE PARKVILLE LIBERAL INSTITUTE.
I wish to say in the beginning, and once for all, that I did not set myself up as a saint, or even as a model boy. I made no pretensions, but I did try to be good and true. I felt that I had no one in this world to rely upon for my future; everything depended upon myself alone, and I realized the responsibility of building up my own character. I do not mean to assert that I had all these ideas and purposes clearly defined in my own mind; only that I had a simple abstract desire to be good, and to do good, without knowing precisely in what the being and the doing consisted. My notions, many of them, I am now aware, were crude and undefined.
I have observed that I was a favorite among the boys of the Institute, a kind of leader and oracle among them, though I was not fully conscious of the fact at the time. While I now think I owe the greater portion of the esteem and regard in which I was held by my companions to my desire to be good and true, I must acknowledge that other circumstances had their influence upon them. I was the owner of the best boat on Lake Adieno, and to the boys this was a matter of no small consequence. There were half a dozen row-boats belonging to the academy, but nothing that carried a sail.
I always had money. I had only to ask my uncle for any sum I wanted, and it was given me, without a question as to its intended