The Adventures of a Boy ReporterMorrison, Harry Steele
General
The Adventures of a Boy Reporter
Morrison, Harry Steele
Reporters and reporting -- Juvenile fiction
All this day he spent on the farm, without once going into the road.
Farmer Tinch had warned him that if he saw him making for the road at
any time, he could go and never come back, and he would forfeit what
money he had already earned. So Archie ploughed the field from daylight
till dark, with a half hour at noon for a hurried dinner. He was glad
when darkness came, and after another supper of mush and milk he was
thankful to have a corn-husk bed to sleep on, and was soon in a stupor
which was so sound as to be almost like death.
Again the next morning he was awakened at daylight, and he was made
to work even harder than on the second day. He had by this time become
somewhat used to the labour, however, and stood it better. He was more
successful in his work, too, and Farmer Tinch had less opportunity for
cursing him. But at night he seemed more tired, even, than before, and
he longed for his home again. He thought of the cosy bed he would now
be enjoying if he had only taken his mother’s advice, and he felt almost
like getting up in the night and stealing away on the road to the north.
But, always a sensible lad, Archie realised that this discouragement
could not last, and he lost himself in sleep, looking forward three
days, when his week should be up, and he would be on his way to the
city, with four dollars more to add to his slender store.
The three days passed slowly, but at length the Saturday night came, and
he prepared to be off. But good Mrs. Tinch entreated him to remain with
them over Sunday, and, as Archie wasn’t sure that it would be quite
right for him to travel on Sunday, he decided to do so. So the next day
he brushed his only suit of clothes, and drove with his late employer to
church, where Farmer Tinch sat in a front seat and passed the bread
and wine at communion. Archie’s heart rose to his throat as he saw
this paragon so devout in church. He felt like rising in his seat and
denouncing him before all the people as a tyrant and a hard-hearted
wretch. But he kept quiet, though he found it impossible to partake of
the communion under such circumstances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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