efully for the responsibility. He could not make boots,
nor build houses, nor shoe horses, nor lay stone wall, nor bake bread,
nor bind books. Men must be educated to be shoemakers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, bakers, masons, or book-binders. What _could_ be done?
Nobody suggested an insurance office, or an agency for diamond mines
on Newport beach; for, although it was the era of good feeling, those
ingenious infirmaries for commercial invalids were not yet invented.
"I have it!" cried Jowlson, one day, rushing in, out of breath, among
several gentlemen who were holding a council about their friend
Gray--that is, who had met in a bank parlor, and were talking about
his prospects--"I have it! and how dull we all are! What shall he do?
Why, keep a school, to be sure!--a school!--a school! Take children,
and be a parent to them!"
"How dull we all were!" cried the gentlemen in chorus. "A school is the
very thing! A school it shall be!" And a school it was.
Upon the main street of the pleasant village of Delafield Savory Gray,
Esq., hired a large house, with an avenue of young lindens in front, a
garden on one side, and a spacious play-ground in the rear. The pretty
pond was not far away, with its sloping shores and neat villas, and a
distant spire upon the opposite bank--the whole like the vignette of an
English pastoral poem. Here the merchant turned from importing pongees to
inculcating principles. His old friends sent some of their children to
the new school, and persuaded their friends to send others. Some of his
former correspondents in other parts of the world, not entirely satisfied
with the Asian and East Indian systems of education, shipped their sons
to Mr. Gray. The good man was glad to see them. He was not very learned,
and therefore could not communicate knowledge. But he did his best, and
tried very hard to be respected. The boys did not learn any thing; but
they had plenty of good beef, and Mr. Gray played practical jokes upon
them; and on Sundays they all went to hear Dr. Peewee preach.
CHAPTER II.
HOPE WAYNE.
When there was a report that Mr. Savory Gray was coming to Delafield to
establish a school for boys, Dr. Peewee, the minister of the village,
called to communicate the news to Mr. Christopher Burt, his oldest and
richest parishioner, at Pine wood, his country seat. When Mr. Burt heard
the news, he foresaw trouble without end; for his orphan grand-daughter,
Hope Wayne, who lived with h
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