Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1888 — WHAT JOHN FOUND. [ARTICLE]

WHAT JOHN FOUND.

Recess wais neirly over. The boys and girls gathered in ‘he playground outside of the log school-house, but no play was going on. Most of the boys had their books in their hands, and were poring over them as if to make up for all the idle time of their lives; the girls sat on the wood pile, whispering and looking at th < boys with a kind of awe. The school-house was built just outside of a mountain village in North Carolina. The boys were dressed in butternut, or blue cloth, the girls in a kind of linsef, all of which their mothers had spun and woven. - Outside of the fence was a gang of little negroes wh om the white children ordered about with an air of authority, for, poor as they were, their fathers were ail slave owners. There was a row of shiny black faces at the top of the fence.

“G -rryl Look at Mas’ Willi I tink he get it” '‘Pshaw! Glotig, yods Victory! Our Mas’ Bob’s twist as good a scholar. See how he’s pokin’ into dat book.” The others volunteered no opinions but shouted: “Hooray! Which of ye gwine to be desojer? Mas’ Bob Bavier he gwine! Cunnepßob Sevier! Hooray!” Never had there been SUch a day known in Uncle Job’s school. Bob Sevier, a fair, thin boy, with round blue eyes, sat on the steps, turning over the leaves of his “Historse Sacre.” He knew every word and line; but he turned leaf after leaf with his cold, shaking fingers.

When the little negroes shouted for “Cnnnel Bob!” he felt a lump in his throat choking him. If he should not win! Bob had always been head boy in the school, but during the last month he had worked harder than ever. The cause was this: J udge Peters, who was now congressman from this district, had paid a visit to the village a few weeks before, and had dropped into the s hool one morning and made the boys a little speech. ‘ It was a pupil here,” he said. “There is the very desk at which I eat. Uncle Job taught me pretty much all I kuow. My father could not afford to send me to college, and I anr sure neither can your lathers afford to send you there. But I want to give some boy here a chance such as I did not have. I have the appointment of a cadet to West Point, and I prooose instead of giving it to some rich man’s son, that the boy in this school who passes the beet examination a month from now shall have it” This was the speech. It made the boys as wild as if he had pat fire into their brains. Not a boy there who did not see himself a colonel in full regimentals, preceded by a brass band, riding np the street of the village in triumph. They fell to studying, most of them for the first time in their livee. They never had done anything bnt lounge about tire sunny, hilly highland hamlet, list ening to the interminable stories of the hunter?, who came in with peltry, or 1 “sisty out” with the little negroes, v John Fremoy, the shabbiest of them all, eat apart from the other boys with his sister Louise. “Noifct Lon, jpst hear me this page,” and he began: “ ‘Charlemagne, otherwise Charles the Great, was the son of Pepin the Skort. the ftret of the Carlovihgian—Car lovingian’—oh,what comes next?” 4 “ ‘Dynasty,’'” prompted Lou. “And what’A the meaning ofdynasty,’ I’d like to know? Such rubbish! I don’t naderstawi a word of itl There’s no use Lett’s eyes filled mid the tears rolled down her flushed cheeks; but John only at his jaws a little firmer, and fixed

his dark eyes on the (round. They were honest, kind eyes, bat doll; very different from Bob 8e trier’s, which glowed ’ike lamps. ,

“I might as well give np, Lon. Unele Job saye patience and hard work will take any boy through. Bat there’s a difference in bays. . Now, Bob Sevier don’t work half as hard over his books as 1 do;, but just look at him. 1 reckon he coaid, go over the Car.ovingiaaß, or any other Yingian,like a trottin’ horse.” “Oh, yes, I reckon he could,” groaned Lou. “But only think oi West Point, Jack! Yon’d be a gentleman and a soldier, and sep the world. An’ es you don’t get it, why, then ” “Then Uncle Bill will set me to plowing in the fall. He said only this morning he’d wasted enough money on oar schoolin’, and you and I be to go to work to earn our salt.”

John took up the book and went at the lesson with a desperate energy, while Lon sat crying silently. The children were orphans and lived with their uncle, a farmer, on Mount Craggy. He was wretchedly poor, like all the other mountaineers, and waa, beside, a coarse, hard-natured man. The school-bell rang. “It’s coming now,” said John, as he got up and shut the book. “You’re powerful on ’rithmetic, Johnny, mind that. Jest yon keep up,” eagerly whispered Lou, running along beside him.

The boys crowded into the hot little school-room, and the girls followed, excepting Lon, who hung back,and finally went to the woodpile again. She knew she should not be missed, and she could not bear to hear John’s examination. The poor little girl had but one friend in the world, her brother. She sat down, her hands shaking as if in a chill. “He’ll fail—l know he’ll fail!” she said, looking up to the sky and talking out loud. “I can’t stand it! Oh, Heavenly Father! I can’t!” As with most southern children, “Heavenly Father” was very real to Lou. Then she began to pray, fast and hard, to this far-away Friend in the sky to help John.

“Oh, dear, only get him over the Latin, and them Vingianß! He’ll manage the arithmetic himself.” She sat there an hour or more, hear ing only a droning voice now and then from the open window. At last there was a hash. Uncle Job was going to give his decision. The little negroes crowded up to the schoolhouse steps.

Lon stood up aud threw her calico sun bonnet off her head. She did not know what she did. She was stifling with sudden and terrible heat. Her strained eyes were on the door. Presently she heard Uncle Job’s voice in a few brief words. But she did not catch them. They Bounded to her like: “John has won—John Fremoy.” Suddenly there was a cheer inside. Then the negroes took it up. “Bob Sevier! Cunnel Bob! Hooray for Bob!” Lon sat down and covered her face with her hands. Her brother came to ■ her in a moment. “Get up and come along home,” he said, roughly.

She caught his arm and patted it. “Don’t you mind it, Johnny,” she said. “Yot kin do lots of things Bob ’Sevier knows nothin’ about,” she cried, fiercely. “No, Bob won it f*ir,” he said, sturr - dily. “I m a dunce; I didn’t deserve it; that’a the worst of it” His face was colorless, even to the lipe7TjutTm showed his disappointment in no other way. . J udge Peters came to the village the next, day, heard the report of the examination sent for Sevier, and promised him the appointment He then went out to the farm which ne owned,near to Caleb Fremoy’s,John’s uncle. The boy crept over, toward night, to catch a glimpse of the great man who might have made him happy for life, but had not done it. He hang miserably about the place nntil evening, and then set out homeward.

Coming to the edge of Craggy Creek, just where it turned from the mountain, he sat down on the bank, and pat his hot feet into the water. To morrow he was to be set to (flowing with the negroes. “It’s all yer fit for,” his ancle said. “Ye’d a chance for West Point, an’ ye didn’t take it. So ye ken kennel with the darkeys tor the rest of yer life. I’ll feed ye no more.” John sat moodily flinging pebbles into the wsrter, untfl dusk came on, and an owl began to hoot. Buddenly the hoy stood up, trembling with excitement, holding a stone in hia hand np to the light. It shone with a brilliant luster, like a great drop of dew in the morning eon.* As

■he moved it, it flashed a blood red star in hiß dirty.palm. John ’had heard of the rubv which had once been found in the next gorge. “It was worth thousands of dollars!” he sobbed rather than spoke. “I heard Jadge Peters tell my ancle there was a corundum on hia farm, and a ruby ia a kind of corundum. I am rich for life.” He sat down breathleea, carefully rubbing tlie brilliant Jump in his hand, as Aladdin might have done hia lamp. What waa West Point to this? Money,

beautiful houses a glimpse of the world, an easy, happy life for hinu&f and Lou. “Poor Lon! I was so cron to her today! I’ll go and tell her.” ' Then he stopped aa if some one bad struck him. The ruby was not his; he was on Judge Peter’s land. , The boy eat down again, and for one whole boor the tempter strove with him. If there was one quality strong and dominant in John Fremoy, it was his honesty; bat this was a temptation each as seldom comes in the way of any man.

The next morning Jndge Peters was mounting his horse to go into the village, when a boy came across the yard. He walked quickly aa if driven from behind. The jndge waited, one foot in the stirrup. As long as John Fremoy lived he remembered, like a sudden, terrible picture, the glaring light of the little mtiddy yard,the staring negro boy holding the horse, the portly, kind-looking old man awaiting his approach. When John reached the Judge he stopped and was silent. He had his little speech all ready, but his tongue was stiff and his throat parched. “Well, my boy, what is its” asked the Judge, kindly. John thrust oat his hand.

“A ruby, sir. It’s worth a great many thousand dollars. I found it on yonr land.” Judge Peters took the stone and examined it eagerly; then he turned to John, and looked at him as curiously. “Why didn’t you keepit, if it is worth so much?” “I had a mind to, but it’s yours.” He turned away. “Stop, my boy! Who are you?” “John Fremoy, sir.” “Oho! Uncle Job spoke of you to me. Yon are uncommonly quick at figures, eh?” •

“If I am, I’m a dunce at everything else. If I had not been I might have gone to West Point.” “Ye-es,” looking very thoughtfully at John. “Very well, F emoy, I’m very much pleased with youj/honeßty. Good morning!” And the./Judge rode abruptly away. J He rode directlyJo Uncle Job’s house, and was eloseteefywith him for an hour. The next day pfe village was electrified by hearing J udge Peters was going to take Jobp Fremoy to Annapolis to pass an examination in the engineer’s departqj&nt of the Naval Academy, and that liDU was to he put to school in Raleigh by the" samp kind friend. * * * * * * * Jonh Fremoy is now a middle-aged man, ranking high in his profession. He met Judge Peters about a year ago, at his sister’s hqjase, for Lou married a planter in Virginia, and is a happy wife And mother. “I have oftenpd wondered, judge,” ha

said, “Why you befriended me as you did. I certainly was a dunce as far as Latin was concerned, and I am not at all sure if I am accurate about the Carlovingian dynasty yet.” “Honesty is a rarer quality than good scholarship, and more useful in the world, Fremoy.” “And another question. Is not that the rnby I found, which you wear on your watch-chain?” “Yes.’ “May I look closely at it?” The judge hesitated, then laughed, and gave it to him. “ Why, it is only colored quartz!” exclaimed Fremov. “Yes, but it is more valuable to me than any jewel, for it gave me an honest man for a friend.” - -