Outward Bound Or, Young America Afloat: A Story of Travel and Adventure, Optic [best non fiction books of all time txt] 📗

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"There are no such peaches this side of New Jersey; and you can't get them, for love or money, at the stores. All we have to do is, to fill our pockets, and keep our mouths closed—till the peaches are ripe enough to eat," said Robert Shuffles, the older and the larger of two boys, who had just climbed over the high fence that surrounded the fine garden of Mr. Lowington.

"What will Baird say if he finds it out?" replied Isaac Monroe, his companion.

"Baird," the gentleman thus irreverently alluded to, was the principal of the Brockway Academy, of which Shuffles and Monroe were pupils in the boarding department.

"What will he say when he finds out that the King of the Tonga Islands picks his teeth with a pitch {12}fork?" added Shuffles, contemptuously. "I don't intend that he shall find it out? and he won't, unless you tell him."

"Of course, I shall not tell him."

"Come along, then? it is nearly dark, and no one will see us."

Shuffles led the way down the gravelled walk, till he came to a brook, on the bank of which stood the peach tree whose rich fruit had tempted the young gentlemen to invade the territory of Mr. Lowington with intent to plunder.

"There they are," said the chief of the young marauders, as he paused behind a clump of quince bushes, and pointed at the coveted fruit. "There's no discount on them, and they are worth coming after."

"Hark!" whispered Monroe. "I heard a noise."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid we shall be caught."

"No danger; no one can see us from the house."

"But I'm sure there's some one near. I heard something."

"Nonsense! It was only a dagger of the mind, such as Baird talks about," answered Shuffles, as he crawled towards the peach tree. "Come, Monroe, be quick, and fill your pockets."

This peach tree was a choice variety, in whose cultivation the owner had been making an elaborate experiment. Mr. Lowington had watched it and nursed it with the most assiduous care, and now it bore about a dozen remarkably large and beautiful peaches. They were not quite ripe enough to be {13} gathered, but Shuffles was confident that they would "mellow" in his trunk as well as on the tree. The experiment of the cultivator had been a success, and he had already prepared, with much care and labor, a paper explanatory of the process, which he intended to read before the Pomological Society, exhibiting the fruit as the evidence of the practicability of his method. To Mr. Lowington, therefore, the peaches had a value far beyond their intrinsic worth.

Shuffles gathered a couple of the peaches, and urged his companion to use all possible haste in stripping the tree of its rich burden.

"Hallo, there! What are you about?" shouted some one, who hastened to make his presence known to the plunderers.

Monroe began to retreat.

"Hold on!" interposed Shuffles. "It's no one but Harry Martyn."

"He can tell of us just as well as anybody else."

"If he does, he will catch it."

"What are you doing?" demanded Harry Martyn,—who was a nephew of Mr. Lowington, and lived with him,—as he crossed the rustic bridge that spanned the brook.

"Don't you see what I'm doing?" replied Shuffles, with an impudent coolness which confounded Harry.

"Stop that, Shuffles!" cried Harry, indignantly. "My uncle wouldn't take ten dollars apiece for those peaches."

"That's more than he'll get for them," added Shuffles, as he reached up and gathered another peach.

"Stop that, I tell you!" said Harry, angrily, as he {14} stepped up, in a menacing attitude, before the reckless marauder.

"Shut up, Harry! You know me, and when I get all these peaches, I've got something to say to you."

Shuffles was about to gather another of the peaches, when Harry, his indignation overcoming his prudence, grasped his arm, and pulled him away from the tree.

"What do you mean, Harry Martyn?" exclaimed Shuffles, apparently astonished at the temerity of the youth. "I can't stop to lick you now; but I'll do it within twenty-four hours."

"Well, don't you touch those peaches, then."

"Yes, I will touch them. I intend to have the whole of them; and if you say a word to your uncle or any one else about it, I'll pulverize that head of yours."

"No, you won't! You shall not have those peaches, anyhow," replied the resolute little fellow, who was no match, physically, for Shuffles.

"If you open your mouth——"

"Hallo! Uncle Robert! Help, help! Thieves in the garden!" shouted Harry, who certainly had no defect of the lungs.

"Take that, you little monkey!" said Shuffles, angrily, as he struck the little fellow a heavy blow on the side of the head with his fist, which knocked him down. "I'll fix you the next, time I see you."

Shuffles consulted his discretion rather than his valor, now that the alarm had been given, and retreated towards the place where he had entered garden.

"What's the matter, Harry?" asked Mr. Lowington, {15} as he rushed over the bridge, followed by the gardener and his assistants, just as Harry was picking himself up and rubbing his head.

"They were stealing your peaches, and I tried to stop them," replied Harry. "They have taken some of them now."

Mr. Lowington glanced at the favorite tree, and his brow lowered with anger and vexation. His paper before the "Pomological" could be illustrated by only nine peaches, instead of thirteen.

"Who stole them, Harry?" demanded the disappointed fruit-grower.

The nephew hesitated a moment, and the question was repeated with more sternness.

"Robert Shuffles; Isaac Monroe was with him, but he didn't take any of the peaches."

"What is the matter with your head, Harry?" asked his uncle, when he observed him rubbing the place where the blow had fallen.

"Shuffles struck me and knocked me down, when I called out for you."

"Did he? Where is he now?"

"He and Monroe ran up the walk to the back of the garden."

"That boy shall be taken care of," continued Mr. Lowington, as he walked up the path towards the point where the marauders had entered. "The Academy is fast becoming a nuisance to the neighborhood, because there is neither order nor discipline among the students."

The thieves had escaped, and as it would be useless to follow them, Mr. Lowington went back to the {16} house; but he was too much annoyed at the loss of his splendid peaches, which were to figure so prominently before the "Pomological," to permit the matter to drop without further notice.

"Did he hurt you much, Harry?" asked Mr. Lowington as they entered the house.

"Not much, sir, though he gave me a pretty hard crack," answered Harry.

"Did you see them when they came into the garden?"

"No, sir? I was fixing my water-wheel in the brook, when I heard them at the tree. I went up, and tried to prevent Shuffles from taking the peaches. I caught hold of him, and pulled him away. He said he couldn't stop to lick me then, but he'd do it within twenty-four hours. Then he hit me when I called for help."

"The young scoundrel! That boy is worse than a pestilence in any neighborhood. Mr. Baird seems to have no control over him."

Suddenly, and without any apparent reason, Mr. Lowington's compressed lips and contracted brow relaxed, and his face wore its usual expression of dignified serenity. Harry could not understand the cause of this sudden change; but his uncle's anger had passed away. The fact was, that Mr. Lowington happened to think, while his indignation prompted him to resort to the severest punishment for Shuffles, that he himself had been just such a boy as the plunderer of his cherished fruit. At the age of fifteen he had been the pest of the town in which he resided. His father was a very wealthy man, and resorted {17} to many expedients to cure the boy of his vicious propensities.

Young Lowington had a taste for the sea, and his father finally procured a midshipman's warrant for him to enter the navy. The strict discipline of a ship of war proved to be the "one thing needful" for the reformation of the wild youth; and