Mine has ached, till it's as hard as a stone. No, I've often tried, and
now I'll go. I won't be called to account, and scolded for staying out
of the house, when there is no comfort to be found in it." And again
rose before his mind many scenes of cold indifference or harshness from
his parents, which had, as he said, hardened his heart to stone. "I'll
bid good bye to the whole of it. Little Em,--darling little sister! I
wish I could kiss her soft sweet cheek once more. But she grows fretful
every day, and by the time she is three years old, she will snap and
snarl like the rest of us. I'll be out of hearing of it any way." And he
softly raised the window sash, and slipped upon the roof of a piazza,
from which he had often jumped in sport with his brothers, and in a few
moments was at the dépôt. Soon the night train arrived, and soon was
James in one of our large cities--and inquiring for the wharf of a
steamer about to sail for California; and when the next Sabbath sun rose
upon the home of his youth, he was tossing rapidly over the waves of the
wide, deep, trackless ocean, one moment longing to be again amid scenes
so long dear and familiar, and the next writhing, as he thought of the
anger of his father, the reproaches of his mother. On he went, often
vexed at the services he was called to perform, in working his passage
out, for which his previous habits had poorly prepared him. On went the
stanch vessel, and in due time landed safely her precious freight of
immortal beings at the desired haven--but some of them were to see
little of that distant land, where they had fondly hoped to find
treasure of precious gold, and with it happiness. The next arrival at
New York brought a list of recent deaths. Seven of that ship's company,
so full of health and buoyancy and earthly hopes, but a few short months
before, were hurried by fevers to an untimely, a little expected grave.
And on that fatal list, was read with agonized hearts in the home of his
childhood, the name of their first-born--James Colman, aged sixteen.