Norman Vallery; or, How to Overcome Evil with GoodKingston, William Henry Giles
General
Norman Vallery; or, How to Overcome Evil with Good
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
"Times went hard with Jennie and her husband, for Morrison's
constitution was shattered, and he could not work as hard as he wished.
They had one son, Alec, who grew up a fine manly boy. The sailor was
fond of spinning yarns, to which his son listened with rapt attention,
and longed to meet with the same adventures as his father.
"The boy was little more than twelve years old when his sailor father
died from the wounds he had received fighting his country's battles.
"Though his thoughts often wandered away over the wide ocean which he
had never yet seen, young Alec dutifully did his best to assist his
mother, but she did not long survive her husband, and he was left an
orphan.
"It would have been a hard matter for him living all alone to have made
a livelihood, so he sold two of his heifers to obtain an outfit, and
leaving the remainder as well as his cottage in charge of a relative of
his father's, he started off to the nearest seaport. He had no
difficulty in finding a ship, for he was as likely a lad as a captain
could wish to have on board.
"He sailed away to foreign lands, to the East and West Indies,
Australia, and the wide Pacific, and though he may have visited English
ports in the meantime, many a long year passed before he again saw the
home of his youth.
"He at length came back with a young wife, and some money in his pocket.
He had undoubtedly pictured in his imagination his cottage on the wild
moor as an earthly paradise, and had described it as such to his wife.
When she saw it, she expressed a very different opinion, and complained
of the wretched hovel and savage region to which he had brought her.
Poor Alec told her with all sincerity that he had believed it to be very
different to what he owned it really was. He promised to take her back
to the town where her father lived, although in order to support her he
must again go to sea. His relation was an honest man and promised to
take charge of his property as before, for Alec would not sell it, and
leaving his young wife he once more went to sea.
"On his return from his first voyage, he found that she was dead, and
had left behind her a daughter. He had still the little damsel to work
for, and so the brave sailor placed her under charge of her grandmother,
and again sailed away over the ocean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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