It was a quiet New England village. Nowhere in the valley of the
Connecticut the autumn sun shone upon a more peaceful, pastoral,
manufacturing community. The wooden nutmegs were slowly ripening on
the trees, and the white pine hams for Western consumption were
gradually rounding into form under the deft manipulation of the hardy
American artisan. The honest Connecticut farmer was quietly gathering
from his threshing floor the shoe-pegs, which, when intermixed with a
fair proportion of oats, offered a pleasing substitute for fodder to
the effete civilizations of Europe. An almost Sabbath-like stillness
prevailed. Doemville was only seven miles from Hartford, and the
surrounding landscape smiled with the conviction of being fully insured.
Few would have thought that this peaceful village was the home of the
three young heroes whose exploits would hereafter—but we anticipate.
Doemville Academy was the principal seat of learning in the county.
Under the grave and gentle administration of the venerable Doctor
Context, it had attained just popularity. Yet the increasing
infirmities of age obliged the doctor to relinquish much of his trust
to his assistants, who, it is needless to say, abused his confidence.
Before long their brutal tyranny and deep-laid malevolence became
apparent. Boys were absolutely forced to study their lessons. The
sickening fact will hardly be believed, but during school hours they
were obliged to remain in their seats with the appearance at least of
discipline. It is stated by good authority that the rolling of croquet
balls across the floor during recitation was objected to, under the
fiendish excuse of its interfering with their studies. The breaking of
windows by base balls, and the beating of small scholars with bats,
were declared against. At last, bloated and arrogant with success, the
under-teachers threw aside all disguise and revealed themselves in
their true colors. A cigar was actually taken out of a day scholar's
mouth during prayers! A flask of whisky was dragged from another's
desk, and then thrown out of the window. And finally, Profanity,
Hazing, Theft, and Lying were almost discouraged!
Could the youth of America, conscious of their power and a literature
of their own, tamely submit to this tyranny? Never! We repeat it
firmly. Never! We repeat it to parents and guardians. Never! But the
fiendish tutors, chuckling in their glee, little knew what was passing
through the cold, haughty intellect of Charles Fanuel Hall Golightly,
aged ten; what curled the lip of Benjamin Franklin Jenkins, aged seven;
or what shone in the bold blue eyes of Bromley Chitterlings, aged six
and a half, as they sat in the corner of the playground at recess.
Their only other companion and confidant was the negro porter and
janitor of the school, known as "Pirate Jim."
Fitly, indeed, was he named, as the secrets of his early wild
career—confessed freely to his noble young friends—plainly showed. A
slaver at the age of seventeen, the ringleader of a mutiny on the
African Coast at the age of twenty, a privateersman during the last war
with England, the commander of a fire-ship and its sole survivor at
twenty-five, with a wild intermediate career of unmixed piracy, until
the Rebellion called him to civil service again as a blockade-runner,
and peace and a desire for rural repose led him to seek the janitorship
of the Doemville Academy, where no questions were asked and references
not exchanged: he was, indeed, a fit mentor for our daring youth.
Although a man whose days had exceeded the usual space allotted to
humanity, the various episodes of his career footing his age up to
nearly one hundred and fifty-nine years, he scarcely looked it, and was
still hale and vigorous.
"Yes," continued Pirate Jim, critically, "I don't think he was any
bigger nor you, Master Chitterlings, if as big, when he stood on the
fork'stle of my ship, and shot the captain o' that East Injymen dead.
We used to call him little Weevils, he was so young-like. But, bless
your hearts, boys! he wa'n't anything to little Sammy Barlow, ez once
crep' up inter the captain's stateroom on a Rooshin frigate, stabbed
him to the heart with a jack-knife, then put on the captain's uniform
and his cocked hat, took command of the ship and fout her hisself."
"Wasn't the captain's clothes big for him?" asked B. Franklin Jenkins,
anxiously.
The janitor eyed young Jenkins with pained dignity.
"Didn't I say the Rooshin captain was a small, a very small man?
Rooshins is small, likewise Greeks."
A noble enthusiasm beamed in the faces of the youthful heroes.
"Was Barlow as large as me?" asked C. F. Hall Golightly, lifting his
curls from his Jove-like brow.
"Yes; but then he hed hed, so to speak, experiences. It was allowed
that he had pizened his schoolmaster afore he went to sea. But it's dry
talking, boys."
Golightly drew a flask from his jacket and handed it to the janitor.
It was his father's best brandy. The heart of the honest old seaman
was touched.
"Bless ye, my own pirate boy!" he said, in a voice suffocating with
emotion.
"I've got some tobacco," said the youthful Jenkins, "but it's fine-cut;
I use only that now."
"I kin buy some plug at the corner grocery," said Pirate Jim, "only I
left my port-money at home."
"Take this watch," said young Golightly; "it is my father's. Since he
became a tyrant and usurper, and forced me to join a corsair's band,
I've began by dividing the property."
"This is idle trifling," said young Chitterlings, mildly. "Every
moment is precious. Is this an hour to give to wine and wassail? Ha,
we want action—action! We must strike the blow for freedom
to-night—aye, this very night. The scow is already anchored in the
mill-dam, freighted with provisions for a three months' voyage. I have
a black flag in my pocket. Why, then, this cowardly delay?"
The two elder youths turned with a slight feeling of awe and shame to
gaze on the glowing cheeks, and high, haughty crest of their youngest
comrade—the bright, the beautiful Bromley Chitterlings. Alas! that
very moment of forgetfulness and mutual admiration was fraught with
danger. A thin, dyspeptic, half-starved tutor approached.
"It is time to resume your studies, young gentlemen," he said, with
fiendish politeness.
They were his last words on earth.
"Down, tyrant!" screamed Chitterlings.
"Sic him—I mean, Sic semper tyrannis!" said the classical Golightly.
A heavy blow on the head from a base-ball bat, and the rapid projection
of a base ball against his empty stomach, brought the tutor a limp and
lifeless mass to the ground. Golightly shuddered. Let not my young
readers blame him too rashly. It was his first homicide.
"Search his pockets," said the practical Jenkins.
They did so, and found nothing but a Harvard Triennial Catalogue.
"Let us fly," said Jenkins.
"Forward to the boats!" cried the enthusiastic Chitterlings.
But C. F. Hall Golightly stood gazing thoughtfully at the prostrate
tutor.
"This," he said calmly, "is the result of a too free government and the
common school system. What the country needs is reform. I cannot go
with you, boys."
"Traitor!" screamed the others.
C. F. H. Golightly smiled sadly.
"You know me not. I shall not become a pirate—but a Congressman!"
Jenkins and Chitterlings turned pale.
"I have already organized two caucuses in a base ball club, and bribed
the delegates of another. Nay, turn not away. Let us be friends,
pursuing through various ways one common end. Farewell!" They shook
hands.
"But where is Pirate Jim?" asked Jenkins.
"He left us but for a moment to raise money on the watch to purchase
armament for the scow. Farewell!"
And so the gallant, youthful spirits parted, bright with the sunrise of
hope.
That night a conflagration raged in Doemville. The Doemville Academy,
mysteriously fired, first fell a victim to the devouring element. The
candy shop and cigar store, both holding heavy liabilities against the
academy, quickly followed. By the lurid gleams of the flames, a long,
low, sloop-rigged scow, with every mast gone except one, slowly worked
her way out of the mill-dam towards the Sound. The next day three boys
were missing—C. F. Hall Golightly, B. F. Jenkins, and Bromley
Chitterlings. Had they perished in the flames who shall say? Enough
that never more under these names did they again appear in the homes of
their ancestors.
Happy, indeed, would it have been for Doemville had the mystery ended
here. But a darker interest and scandal rested upon the peaceful
village. During that awful night the boarding-school of Madam
Brimborion was visited stealthily, and two of the fairest heiresses of
Connecticut—daughters of the president of a savings bank, and
insurance director—were the next morning found to have eloped. With
them also disappeared the entire contents of the Savings Bank, and on
the following day the Flamingo Fire Insurance Company failed.
