FullReads

Then the moment of parting had come, the moment toward which all the long late winter and early summer had looked. The boy was leaving his plain little home for the great adventure of his life’s fortunes. Until then he had been the charge and anxiety of his elders, and under their rule and advice. Now he was free to choose; his was the power of direction, his the responsibility; for in the world one must be ranked by his own character and ability, and doomed by his own failures. The boy lifted his burden lightly, and turned with an eager smile to say farewell. But the old people and little Lydia were speechless with grief; they could not bear to part with the pride and hope and boyish strength, that were all their slender joy. The worn-out old man, the anxious woman who had been beaten and buffeted by the waves of poverty and sorrow, the little sister with her dreaming heart, stood at the bars and hungrily watched him go away. They feared success for him almost as much as failure. The world was before him now, with its treasures and pleasures, but with those inevitable disappointments and losses which old people know and fear; those sorrows of incapacity and lack of judgment which young hearts go out to meet without foreboding. It was a world of love and favor to which little Lydia’s brother had gone; but who would know her fairy prince, in that disguise of a country boy’s bashfulness and humble raiment from the cheap counter of a country store? The household stood rapt and silent until the farm wagon had made its last rise on the hilly road and disappeared.

“Well, he’s left us now,” said the sorrowful, hopeful old grandfather. “I expect I’ve got to turn to an’ be a boy again myself. I feel to hope ‘Lisha’ll do as well as we covet for him. I seem to take it in, all my father felt when he let me go off to sea. He stood where I’m standin’ now, an’ I was just as triflin’ as pore ‘Lisha, and felt full as big as a man. But Lord! how I give up when it come night, an’ I took it in I was gone from home!”

“There, don’t ye, father,” said the pale mother gently. She was, after all, the stronger of the two. “‘Lisha’s good an’ honest-hearted. You’ll feel real proud a year from now, when he gits back. I’m so glad he’s got his watch to carry,–he did feel so grand. I expect them poor hens is sufferin’; nobody’s thought on ’em this livin’ mornin’. You’d better step an’ feed ’em right away, sir.” She could hardly speak for sorrow and excitement, but the old man was diverted at once, and hobbled away with cheerful importance on his two canes. Then she looked round at the poor, stony little farm almost angrily. “He’d no natural turn for the sea, ‘Lisha hadn’t; but I might have kept him with me if the land was good for anything.”

Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now that his great adventure was begun. He answered John Sykes’s questions mechanically, and his head was a little dull and dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow plodding of the farm horses would make him too late for the steamboat, and with sudden satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see if there were still time enough to get to the landing. He was filled with remorse because it was impossible to remember whether he had thanked Ma’am Stover for her gift. It seemed like a thing of life and consciousness as he pushed it back into his tight pocket. John Sykes looked at him curiously. “Why, that’s old Ma’am Stover’s timepiece, ain’t it? Lend it to ye, did she?”

“Gave it to me,” answered Elisha proudly.