Robert Coverdale's Struggle

ROBERT COVERDALE'S STRUGGLE


CHAPTER I

A FISHERMAN'S CABIN

"Robert, have you seen anything of your uncle?"

"No, aunt."

"I suppose he's over at the tavern as usual," said the woman
despondently. "He drinks up about all he earns, and there's little
enough left for us. I hope you won't follow in his steps, Robert."

"You may be sure I won't, Aunt Jane," said the boy, nodding
emphatically. "I wouldn't drink a glass of rum for a hundred dollars."

"God keep you in that resolution, my dear boy! I don't want my sister's
son to go to destruction as my husband is doing."

My story opens in a small fishing village on the coast of one of the New
England States. Robert Coverdale, whom I have briefly introduced, is the
young hero whose fortunes I propose to record.

He is a strong, well-made boy, with a frank, honest face, embrowned by
exposure to the sun and wind, with bright and fearless eyes and a manly
look. I am afraid his dress would not qualify him to appear to advantage
in a drawing-room.

He wore a calico shirt and well-patched trousers of great antiquity and
stockings and cowhide shoes sadly in need of repairs.

Some of my well-dressed boy readers, living in cities and large towns,
may be disposed to turn up their noses at this ragged boy and wonder at
my taste in choosing such a hero.

But Robert had manly traits, and, in spite of his poor clothes,
possessed energy, talent, honesty and a resolute will, and a boy so
endowed cannot be considered poor, though he does not own a dollar,
which was precisely Robert's case.

Indeed, I may go further and say that never in the course of his life of
fifteen years had he been able to boast the ownership of a hundred
cents.