Stories and Sketches

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Stories and Sketches, by Harriet S. Caswell

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Title: Stories and Sketches
Author: Harriet S. Caswell
Release Date: January 31, 2007 [EBook #20493]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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STORIES AND SKETCHES
BY
H.S. CASWELL,
AUTHOR OF ERNEST HARWOOD, CLARA ROSCOM, OR THE PATH OF DUTY, &C.
MONTREAL: PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST. NICHOLAS STREET.
1872

CONTENTS.
TERRY DOLAN 5
THE FAITHFUL WIFE 15
EMMA ASHTON 24
THOUGHTS ON AUTUMN 47
WANDERING DAVY 50
LOOKING ON THE DARK SIDE 57
EDWARD BARTON 62
THE WEARY AT REST 71
THE RAINY AFTERNOON 75
THE STUDENT'S DREAM 85
UNCLE EPHRAIM 88
STORY OF A LOG CABIN 93
HAZEL-BROOK FARM 106
OLD RUFUS 127
THE DIAMOND RING 135
THE UNFORTUNATE MAN 146
THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE 150
ARTHUR SINCLAIR 154
THE SNOW STORM 173
THE NEW YEAR 177

TERRY DOLAN.
Some years since circumstances caused me to spend the summer months in a farming district, a few miles from the village of E., and it was there I met with Terry Dolan. He had a short time previous come over from Ireland, and was engaged as a sort of chore boy by Mr. L., in whose family I resided during my stay in the neighborhood. This Terry was the oddest being with whom I ever chanced to meet. Would that I could describe him!--but most of us, I believe, occasionally meet with people, whom we find to be indescribable, and Terry was one of those. He called himself sixteen years of age; but, excepting that he was low of stature, you would about as soon have taken him for sixty, as sixteen. His countenance looked anything but youthful, and there was altogether a sort of queer, ancient look about him which caused him to appear very remarkable. When he first came to reside with Mr. L. the boys in the neighborhood nicknamed him "The little Old Man," but they soon learned by experience that their wisest plan was to place a safe distance between Terry and themselves before applying that name to him, for the implied taunt regarding his peculiar appearance enraged him beyond measure. Whenever he entered the room, specially if he ventured a remark--and no matter how serious you might have been a moment before--the laugh would come, do your best to repress it. When I first became an inmate with the family, I was too often inclined to laugh at the oddities of Terry--and I believe a much graver person than I was at that time would have done the same--but after a time, when I learned something of his past life, I regarded him with a feeling of pity, although to avoid laughing at him, at times, were next to impossible.
One evening in midsummer I found him seated alone upon the piazza, with a most dejected countenance. Taking a seat by his side I enquired why he looked so sad;--his eyes filled with tears as he replied--"its of ould Ireland I'm thinkin' to-night, sure." I had never before seen Terry look sober, and I felt a deep sympathy for the homesick boy. I asked him how it happened that he left all his friends in Ireland and came to this country alone. From his reply I learned that his mother died when he was only ten years old, and, also, that his father soon after married a second wife, who, to use Terry's own words, "bate him unmercifully." "It's a wonder," said he, "that iver I lived to grow up, at all, at all, wid all the batins I got from that cruel woman, and all the times she sint me to bed widout iver a bite uv supper, bad luck to her and the like uv her!" He did live, however, but he certainly did not grow up to be very tall. "Times grew worse an' worse for me at home," continued he, "and a quare time I had of it till I was fourteen years of age, when one day says I to mesilf, 'flesh and blood can bear it no longer,' and I ran away to the city uv Dublin where an aunt by me mother's side lived. Me aunt was a poor woman, but she gave a warm welcim to her sister's motherless boy; she trated me kindly and allowed me to share her home, although she could ill afford it, till I got a place as sarvant in a gintleman's family. As for my father, he niver throubled