He was
also a little more proud of it than of anything else in the whole
world. Of course he excepted his brave soldier father, who had gone to
the war as a private, to come home when it was all over wearing a
major's uniform; and his dear mother, who for four weary years had been
both father and mother to him, and his sister Elta, who was not only
the prettiest girl in the county, but, to Winn's mind, the cleverest.
But outside of his immediate family, the raft, the _Venture_, as his
father had named it, was the object of the boy's most sincere
admiration and pride. Had he not helped build it? Did he not know
every timber and plank and board in it? Had he not assisted in loading
it with enough bushels of wheat to feed an army? Was he not about to
leave home for the first time in his life, to float away down the great
river and out into the wide world on it? Certainly he had, and did,
and was. So no wonder he was proud of the raft, and impatient for the
waters of the little river, on a bank of which the Caspar's lived, to
be high enough to float it, that they might make a start.
Winn had never known any home but this one near the edge of the vast
pine forests of Wisconsin. Here Major Caspar had brought his New
England bride many years before. Here he had built up a mill business
that was promising him a fortune in a few years more at the time when
the war called him.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25