The Garies and Their Friends | Page 8

solely because he belonged to
an oppressed race.

CHAPTER II
.
A Glance at the Ellis Family.
"I wish Charlie would come with that tea," exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, who
sat finishing off some work, which had to go home that evening. "I
wonder what can keep him so long away. He has been gone over an
hour; it surely cannot take him that time to go to Watson's."
"It is a great distance, mother," said Esther Ellis, who was busily plying
her needle; "and I don't think he has been quite so long as you
suppose."
"Yes; he has been gone a good hour," repeated Mrs. Ellis. "It is now six
o'clock, and it wanted three minutes to five when he left. I do hope he
won't forget that I told him half black and half green--he is so
forgetful!" And Mrs. Ellis rubbed her spectacles and looked peevishly
out of the window as she concluded.--"Where can he be?" she resumed,
looking in the direction in which he might be expected. "Oh, here he
comes, and Caddy with him. They have just turned the corner--open the
door and let them in."
Esther arose, and on opening the door was almost knocked down by
Charlie's abrupt entrance into the apartment, he being rather forcibly
shoved in by his sister Caroline, who appeared to be in a high state of
indignation.
"Where do you think he was, mother? Where do you think I found
him?"
"Well, I can't say--I really don't know; in some mischief, I'll be bound."
"He was on the lot playing marbles--and I've had such a time to get him
home. Just look at his knees; they are worn through. And only think,
mother, the tea was lying on the ground, and might have been carried
off, if I had not happened to come that way. And then he has been
fighting and struggling with me all the way home. See," continued she,

baring her arm, "just look how he has scratched me," and as she spoke
she held out the injured member for her mother's inspection.
"Mother," said Charlie, in his justification, "she began to beat me
before all the boys, before I had said a word to her, and I wasn't going
to stand that. She is always storming at me. She don't give me any
peace of my life."
"Oh yes, mother," here interposed Esther; "Cad is too cross to him. I
must say, that he would not be as bad as he is, if she would only let him
alone."
"Esther, please hush now; you have nothing to do with their quarrels.
I'll settle all their differences. You always take his part whether he be
right or wrong. I shall send him to bed without his tea, and to-morrow I
will take his marbles from him; and if I see his knees showing through
his pants again, I'll put a red patch on them--that's what I'll do. Now, sir,
go to bed, and don't let me hear of you until morning."
Mr. and Mrs. Ellis were at the head of a highly respectable and
industrious coloured family. They had three children. Esther, the eldest,
was a girl of considerable beauty, and amiable temper. Caroline, the
second child, was plain in person, and of rather shrewish disposition;
she was a most indefatigable housewife, and was never so happy as
when in possession of a dust or scrubbing brush; she would have
regarded a place where she could have lived in a perpetual state of
house cleaning, as an earthly paradise. Between her and Master Charlie
continued warfare existed, interrupted only by brief truces brought
about by her necessity for his services as water-carrier. When a service
of this character had been duly rewarded by a slice of bread and
preserves, or some other dainty, hostilities would most probably be
recommenced by Charlie's making an inroad upon the newly cleaned
floor, and leaving the prints of his muddy boots thereon.
The fact must here be candidly stated, that Charlie was not a tidy boy.
He despised mats, and seldom or never wiped his feet on entering the
house; he was happiest when he could don his most dilapidated
unmentionables, as he could then sit down where he pleased without
the fear of his mother before his eyes, and enter upon a game of
marbles with his mind perfectly free from all harassing cares growing
out of any possible accident to the aforesaid garments, so that he might
give that attention to the game that its importance demanded.

He was a bright-faced pretty boy, clever at his lessons, and a favourite
both with tutors and scholars. He had withal a thorough boy's fondness
for play, and was also characterised by all the thoughtlessness
consequent thereon. He possessed a lively,