Samuel the Seeker

Samuel the Seeker

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samuel the Seeker, by Upton Sinclair
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Title: Samuel the Seeker
Author: Upton Sinclair
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5961] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 1, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SAMUEL
THE SEEKER ***

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SAMUEL THE SEEKER
BY Upton Sinclair
CHAPTER I
"Samuel," said old Ephraim, "Seek, and ye shall find."
He had written these words upon the little picture of Samuel's mother,
which hung in that corner of the old attic which served as the boy's
bedroom; and so Samuel grew up with the knowledge that he, too, was
one of the Seekers. Just what he was to seek, and just how he was to
seek it, were matters of uncertainty--they were part of the search. Old
Ephraim could not tell him very much about it, for the Seekers had
moved away to the West before he had come to the farm; and Samuel's
mother had died very young, before her husband had a chance to learn
more than the rudiments of her faith. So all that Samuel knew was that
the Seekers were men and women of fervor, who had broken with the
churches because they would not believe what was taught--holding that
it was every man's duty to read the Word of God for himself and to
follow where it led him.
Thus the boy learned to think of life, not as something settled, but as a

place for adventure. One must seek and seek; and in the end the way of
truth would be revealed to him. He could see this zeal in his mother's
face, beautiful and delicate, even in the crude picture; and Samuel did
not know that the picture was crude, and wove his dreams about it.
Sometimes at twilight old Ephraim would talk about her, and the tears
would steal down his cheeks. The one year that he had known her had
sufficed to change the course of his life; and he had been a man past
middle life, too, a widower with two children. He had come into the
country as the foreman of a lumber camp back on the mountain.
Samuel had always thought of his father as an old man; Ephraim had
been hurt by a vicious horse, and had aged rapidly after that. He had
given up lumbering; it had not taken long to clear out that part of the
mountains. Now the hills were swept bare, and the population had
found a new way of living.
Samuel's childhood life had been grim and stern. The winter fell early
upon the mountain wilderness; the lake would freeze over, and the
roads block up with snow, and after that they would live upon what
they had raised in the summer, with what Dan and Adam--Samuel's
half- brothers--might bring in from the chase. But now all this was
changed and forgotten; for there was a hotel at the end of the lake, and
money was free in the country. It was no longer worth while to reap the
hay from the mountain meadows; it was better to move the family into
the attic, and "take boarders." Some of the neighbors even turned their
old corncribs into sleeping shacks, and advertised in the city papers,
and were soon blossoming forth in white paint and new buildings, and
were on the way to having "hotels" of their own.
Old Ephraim lacked the cunning for that kind of success. He was lame
and slow, tending toward stoutness, and having a film over one eye;
and Samuel knew that the boarders made fun of him, even while they
devoured his food and took advantage of him. This was the first
bitterness of