THE EXPLOIT OF A HOMESICK YANKEE BOY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XV, 15 April 1899, Page 504

THE EXPLOIT OF A HOMESICK YANKEE BOY.

(A True Story.)

Among my neighbours in a rural Maine town, was a family which bore the name of Junkins. It was not a prosperous household. The shadow of a crime rested upon the father. "Old Jack,’ as ,he was commonly called, was a man of ferocious temper. As years went by he became so malevolent as to be an object of dread to the people of the locality. Children would run away at sight of him. His ordinary garb was an old fur coat, made from woodchuck skins, sewn together, with a cap of skunk-skin, and this garb helped to make him more terrible to the children. I well remember the panic which his sudden appearance at the district schoolhouse, with a large stick in his hand, once caused among us youngsters. On this occasion he was in pursuit of his oldest boy, Noel, who had come to school contrary’ to his wishes. The old man not only’ hated his fellow-men, but detested the public schools. For several years he was in constant conflict with the school committee and the selectmen of the town, because he would not allow his six children to attend school. Despite numerous legal processes, he usually succeeded in keeping- them at home. His threats and oaths on the day he came after Noel left on our youthful brains memories which were almost scars.

Old Jack died very miserably on one bleak December night. He had built a kind of retreat or den for himself at one end of his house, where none of his family dared enter; for he had weapons at hand, and also missiles, to hurl at those who intruded, unbidden. He had been sick for many days, but refused the overtures of neighbours to have a physician summoned, and at length was found dead like a wild beast in his lair, having perished as much from cold and lack of proper food as from disease.

This man was a pitiable example of how low a human being may fall who allows himself, habitually, to cherish enmity towards his fellow creatures. After Old Jack’s death, his widow, an illiterate woman, and the children lived on at their place, a squalid old house and barn at the end of a local road, somewhat remote from neighbours. They were very poor. Noel, the oldest child, was thirteen or fourteen years old at this time; next in point of age were two or three girls, and then another boy named Caspar. They subsisted after an odd. semi-civilised manner. It was said that the family’ was at times so dis-

tressed for want of food as to eat the green sprouts of raspberry shrubs, brake roots, and the boiled green leaves of the beech and oirch. At

sight of anyone approaching the house the younger children would hide in the hedges, or take refuge in the loft of the house or in the barn, and remain secreted till the visitor had gone.

The selectmen of the town renewed their efforts to have the children go to school. The farmers’ wives of the vicinity gave them old clothing, and during the cold season sometimes took the older children into their own families for a while; but none of the Junkinses attended school for more than a few weeks at a time. They were shy, suspicious, and odd as it may seem, excessively proud, sensitive, and high-spirited. In temper they were easily excitable. After a few years the two older boys, when hard pressed for food at home, began to go out to work among the farmers. Sometimes they would engage to work for a month, or for the entire season, but they rarely remained in one place for more than two or three days at a time.

They had never been taught to be good workmen, and were so excitable and suspiciously* proud that if a word of instruction were given them they were apt to take it amiss and run home. Of the world at large outside the locality where they were born they knew nothing at all. Tt happened one summer, that the second boy, Caspar Junkins, now in his twelfth year, went to work a few days, in haying time, for a farmer named Richards, who lived about a mile distant. A gentleman from Boston, well known in the commercial world, who chanced to bear the same name, was then visiting the Richardses.

If I remember correctly this Mr .Tunkins, of Boston, was a relative of the Richards family; at any rate, he had been in the habit of paying an occasional visit there. His attention was attracted to Caspar, who, if better cared for, would have been a handsome boy. Perhaps because Caspar bore his family name, although there was said to be no kinship, or because Mr Junkins had no boys of his own, he took a fancy to the lad and resolved to adopt him. He talked the matter over with Caspar’s mother, and being a man of kindly heart and persuasive manners, so far won the confidence of both mother and boy that an agreement was finally reached. This was a wonderful bit of good fortune for the poor lad. Every one encouraged him to go and to do his best to merit the preferment. Mr Junkins was reputed to be wealthy; and he avowed his intention of adopting Caspar as his son. In earnest of this purpose, he took him to the neighbouring village and procured new clothes, hat and shoes for him. Caspar was thus so much improved in appearance that we who had known him previously now scarcely recognised him.

A week or two later Caspar and his benefactor set off for Boston, in a suburb of which city Mr Junkins and his wife resided. Caspar went away in good spirits; the novelty of the railroad ride, the scenes by the way, the luncheon at the restaurant in Exeter occupied his attention. He was apparently as happy a boy as ever started to see the world. On their arrival Mrs Junkins gave Caspar a kindly reception, and allotted him a pretty room, looking out on the lawn. They treated him as a member of the family, and meant to give him an education at the city schools. It happened that Mr Junkins had also brought with him for a short visit at his houtse, the daughter of his friend Richards, whose name was Ruth. As Caspar knew her, her presence helped to prevent him from being homesick. It hardly seemed that Caspar had left at his old home anything to be homesick for, but homesickness is a singular! malady. From some perversity of human nature, those who go forth into the world from wholly wretched homes are sometimes the most incurably homesick. On the. third day at Mr Junkins’, Caspar began to mope. He appeared depressed, and his face exhibited hopeless: sadness, but when he was questioned he said that nothing was the matter with him. Ruth Richards took him to see Bunker Hill Monument, to the Natural History Museum and to the Charlestown Navy Yard, but as this lively girl expressed it, Caspar behaved ‘as if he had lost his last friend.’ He was not to be amused. His ap-

petite, too, had departed. It was of no use to load his plate with dainties—apparently he sighed for raspberry sprouts and brake roots. Mrs Junkins iavished motherly kindnesses upon him, but failed to cheer him. They told him amusing stories, but he seemed not to hear, and jokes had no power to bring a smile to his face. He appeared now greatly to prefer the darkest corner of the sittingroom, and did not willingly leave it. Even Ruth could not lure him forth on any pretence of sightseeing. When solicited to go ouit, he only said, very plaintively, ‘I don’t wanter!’ It was evident he was homesick, but they imagined he would soon cheer up. On the sixth morning, matters at home requiring Ruth Richards’ presence, she took leave of Mr and Mrs Junkins, and without mentioning her intended departure to Caspar went into the city by horse-car, to take the half past eight express train at Haymarket Square Station for Portland. The entire distance to her home was one hundred and sixtyseven miles.

Shortly after Ruth went away, Caspar was missed from his corner in the sitting-room, and Mrs Junkins failed to find him anywhere in the house. When Ruth had purchased her ticket at the station, attended to her checks and entered a car, she was not a little surprised and disturbed to see Caspar make his appearance. Describing the circumstances afterward, she said that he came in out of breath, evidently having chased the horse-car into the city, and that he had much the aspect and mien of a dog that has followed his master contrary to orders. He stole into the car and slunk to a seat behind hers without a word, but with a most beseeching expression on his face.

Ruth had no idea of allowing him to return to Maine with her. She scolded him. ‘Go back at once to Mr Junkins’ house,’ said she; and she reproached him for his silly behaviour and his ingratitude. All Caspar would say was. ‘I wanter go home.’ A few minutes remained before train time, and stirred by the emergency. Ruth led the lad firmly out of the ear, induced him to get off, and then herself stood on the car plat: form until the train started. To her alarm, as well as somewhat to her amusement, she saw Caspar, disregarding the hails of railway employees. run along the track after the

train. He passed the gates at Cause-way-street, and kept on across the Charles River bridges. Ruth’s car was the last one of the train. She entered it, went to the rear door and through it saw him pursuing at a run. When the train stopped at the crossing of the Eastern line, just across the bridge, he was still in sight, and value so near before the train started that she could see his face. He appeared to be crying. There was nothing that Ruth eould do. She could neither persuade him to return nor take him aboard the ear, for the train now moved off nt high speed. The last she saw of the lad he was still coining after the cars. Then, beyond Somerville, he was lost to view, a mere speck between the converging rails.

At Exeter she telelgraphed to Mr Juiikius, who took un afteruoou train for Lawrence, twenty miles from Boston, thinking that perhaps the homesick lad might follow the railway track as far as that place before becoming exhausted; but he was able to learn nothing concerning Caspar either at Lawrence or at Haverhill.

The fact is that Caspar had passed through Haverhill long before Mr Junkins arrived there. It seems incredible, but the boy . must have covered seven miles an hour for the greater part of the day! He kept to the line of the Boston and Maine railway, and ran constantly, stopping only to drink at rills or ditches beside the track. To use a railroad phrase, he was ‘running wild’ for home and made no halts. His own account of his trip accords with what was subsequently learned from several sources. Towards five in the afternoon he reached Newmarket, New Hampshire, and came to the station just as an east bound freight was starting out. The freight conductor noticed he had run unusually hard, and motioned with his hand for Caspar to climb into the ‘caboose’ with him.

The boy did so, and says that the trainmen asked him many questions and laughingly refused to believe him when he told them that he had come on foot from Boston that morning. They gave him as much cold food as he would eat and allowed him to ride with them as far as Salmon Falls, a distance of about seventeen miles. The train stopped there and Caspar, refreshed, ran on again. The day had been hot, and he says he drank at rills and ditches at least fifty* times. The sun was setting as he reached the station at Kennebunk, but he trotted on in the twilight, and even felt refreshed after the cool dews of evening had begun to fall. Trotting forward still, he passed through Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach. He. crossed a long, open trestle by starlight and entered the City of Portland, probably about midnight, for he says he remembers hearing one or more of the city clocks striking .many strokes. As he went along Commercial-street, following the railroad track, and approached the station of the Grand Trunk Railway, a night watchman spoke to him. Perceiving that the boy was much excited and nearly crying, the man spoke kindly to him, and having learnfed where he was going shared his midnight lunch with him and promised to get him a lift on an early freight train in the morning. But so erazed was the lad with home-sickness that he could not endure the idea of waiting even for a few hours, and set off again at trot along the track of the Grand Trunk line out of Portland. Early in the day his shoes had hurt his feet so badly that he had taken them off and had run on barefooted, carrying them in his hand. Being accustomed to go barefooted at home he no doubt made better progress for doing so, but before reaching Portland his feet were so tender as to bleed. To save them he put on the cotton socks and the shoes aga.in.

The distance from Portland to South Paris, the station nearest his home, is forty-eight miles. He probably left Portland no later than one o’clock in the morning, but must have, run the most of the way to reach South Paris at the time he is known to have arrived —a few minutes past nine in the morning.

He was still nine miles from home, but at once started off on the country road leading thither. A neighbour who had come to South Paris to meet an early train gave him a ride in his waggon for seven miles. He reached his home, the goal of his prodigious effort, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. His feet were raw and swollen. His stomach appeared abnormally thin, and his face is said to have worn a somewhat drawn and haggard, but yet wholly* happy look. He had got home! His mother was not overjoyed to see him. ’Caspar, you little scamp!’ she exclaimed, ‘what are you here for?’ •1 wanted to be home,’ replied the lad, with a pathos which, in view ot what he had endured to get there, should have softened the heart of a brute. He resumed the hard life of his childhood, and no overtures either from Mr Junkins, in Boston or from

others, could ever induce him to go away again. Not counting the twenty-four miles which he had ridden, but counting the three miles he had chased a horsecar. at the outset, Caspar Junkins had lieyond doubt gone on foot a distance of one hundred and forty-seven miles in twenty-seven hours! So far as I know this exploit is without a parallel. S.