Crowded Out o Crofield

Out o' Crofield, by William O.
Stoddard

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Title: Crowded Out o' Crofield or, The Boy who made his Way
Author: William O. Stoddard
Release Date: June 16, 2007 [EBook #21846]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROWDED
OUT O' CROFIELD ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: The Sorrel Mare was tugging hard at the Rein.]

CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD

OR
THE BOY WHO MADE HIS WAY
BY
WILLIAM O. STODDARD

SIXTH EDITION

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1897

COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

PREFACE.
Only a few of the kindly reviewers of the earlier editions of Crowded
Out o' Crofield have suggested that it has at all exaggerated the possible
career of its boy and girl actors. If any others have silently agreed with
them, it may be worth while to say that the pictures of places and the
doings of older and younger people are pretty accurately historical. The
story and the writing of it were suggested in a conversation with an
energetic American boy who was crowded out of his own village into a
career which led to something much more surprising than a profitable
junior partnership.
W. O. S.

NEW YORK, 1893.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.
--THE BLACKSMITH'S BOY II.--THE FISH WERE THERE III.--I
AM ONLY A GIRL IV.--CAPTAIN MARY V.--JACK OGDEN'S
RIDE VI.--OUT INTO THE WORLD VII.--MARY AND THE
EAGLE VIII.--CAUGHT FOR A BURGLAR IX.--NEARER THE
CITY X.--THE STATE-HOUSE AND THE STEAMBOAT
XI.--DOWN THE HUDSON XII.--IN A NEW WORLD XIII.--A
WONDERFUL SUNDAY XIV.--FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
XV.--NO BOY WANTED XVI.--JACK'S FAMINE
XVII.--JACK-AT-ALL-TRADES XVIII.--THE DRUMMER BOY
XIX.--COMPLETE SUCCESS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Sorrel Mare was tugging hard at the Rein . . . Frontispiece
The Runaway
Along the Water's Edge
Fighting the Fire
"Run for Home"
He listened in silence
"There won't be any Eagle this week"
Just out

"I'm the Editor, sir"
"There," said Mr. Murdoch, "jump right in"
"Your map's all wrong," said Jack
The hotel clerk looked at Jack
His traveler friend was sound asleep
On Broadway, at last!
"How would he get in?"
Coffee and clams
Jack is homesick
"I've lost my pocket-book"
"Ten cents left"
Jack dines with Mr. Keifelheimer
Buying a new hat
Jack speaks to the General
The return home

CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD.
CHAPTER I.
THE BLACKSMITH'S BOY.
"I'm going to the city!"

He stood in the wide door of the blacksmith-shop, with his hands in his
pockets, looking down the street, toward the rickety old bridge over the
Cocahutchie. He was a sandy-haired, freckled-faced boy, and if he was
really only about fifteen, he was tall for his age. Across the top of the
door, over his head, stretched a cracked and faded sign, with a
horseshoe painted on one end and a hammer on the other, and the name
"John Ogden," almost faded out, between them.
The blacksmith-shop was a great, rusty, grimy clutter of work-benches,
vises, tools, iron in bars and rods, and all sorts of old iron scraps and
things that looked as if they needed making over.
The forge was in the middle, on one side, and near it was hitched a
horse, pawing the ground with a hoof that bore a new shoe. On the
anvil was a brilliant, yellow-red loop of iron, that was not quite yet a
new shoe, and it was sending out bright sparks as a hammer fell upon
it--"thud, thud, thud," and a clatter. Over the anvil leaned a tall,
muscular, dark-haired, grimy man. His face wore a disturbed and
anxious look, and it was covered with charcoal dust. There was
altogether too much charcoal along the high bridge of his Roman nose
and over his jutting eyebrows.
The boy in the door also had some charcoal on his cheeks and forehead,
but none upon his nose. His nose was not precisely like the
blacksmith's. It was high and Roman half-way down, but just there was
a little dent, and the rest of the nose was straight. His complexion,
excepting the freckles and charcoal, was chiefly sunburn, down to the
neckband of his blue checked shirt. He was a tough, wiry-looking boy,
and there was a kind of smiling, self-confident expression in his
blue-gray eyes and around his firm mouth.
"I'm going to the city!" he said, again, in a low but positive voice. "I'll
get there, somehow."
Just then a short, thick-set man came hurrying past him into