Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 5 — page 1: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 | uy PR | | | | | ml —— ; ANY \ Wann -, —2 ‘ =] > By ou oo (Pm | | , aN Ht \ \ a i< (QM MR WEEE, ET, UTTAR K {jit I\ 2 TJ ___*®. OBR Go Hii. / My AN fo Vem il Vt i Vt Vt i iV! Vi VV Ya SSE St iad ol i : A Copyrighted in 1877, by BEADLE AND ADAMS, lk SS N a. \ > —— — — ee BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, Number. No. 98 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. 10 Cents. ses _—_- oo —— ————— ———— _ —— ee Se Ee —— ee ob 2 = | Conrille had suggested the idea to some of his | whimsical and inimitable expressions acquired Vag abond J 0€, mates, but they never could muster up courage | by association with hunters and 0 i enough to make the ge pe In fact, there was | Me asst gm Joe had no particular home, but ‘ | something in the face of the modest pedagogue | wandered about from place to place—stopping The Young Wandering J EW; | possessed of an awesome power calculated to | awhile at one place and then another—always command fear and respect in the most obstinate | welcomed and petted wherever he went, until _ he had finally obtained the name of Vagabond The Monday morning of the fifth week, how- | Joe, the Young Wandering Jew. This was all ever, promised a change in the hitherto unvary- | the name he knew anything about. If he ever | ing routine of mental labor. The scholars ex- | had any other, he had never heard it mentioned. _ pected some real, live fun, in the acquisition to His parentage was a dead secret to him, that CHAPTER I _ their number, of an_eccentric young genius , he, nor any of those interested in him, could un- : familiarly known as Vagabond Joe, the Young | ravel, VAGABOND JOE. _ Wandering Jew. He wasatrapper-boy of some , Joe was naturally industrious and ambitious THE village school was in session in the little | seventeen years of age, and was notorious for _ for one situated as he was. He had, by hard frontier settlement of Fort Dodge. Behind the ' his kind, pleasant and rollicking spirit, and odd, | work and economy, laid up a snu little sum of desk, “‘deep scarred with raps money from the sale of peltries. official,” Cyrus C. Carpenter pre- He was bright and intelligent, and sided with that calm, manly dig- Se = Sa ——S evinced a disposition to rise above nity which in after years distin- : ———= = 3 SVE SS ssi the level of that class to which his guished him in the gubernatorial name might be more properly ap- chair of the State. lied. All who knew him loved The school numbered about im; and it was not strange that twenty scholars—boys and girls— the better class of people took an ranging all the way from the child interest in the young vagabond’s in his A, B, C’s, to the lad and lass welfare. And the result of this of seventeen, and even older. interest was in their inducing him Most of the scholars were the to attend school. children of ple who had re- Joe was now making his home cently moved in from the Eastern with an old hunter’s family living “Pe | and rebellious natures. Plotting for a Legacy. BY OLL COOMES, f 7 / MDD P / MN iNy ribs Tn Tu States; consequently they were possessed of some education when ee came. or a youth of the border, Mave Conrille was considered a pretty fair scholar, having attained to McGuffey’s Third er, Ray’s First Arithmetic, and the study of Pinneo and Mitchell. He was a youth of eighteen, though he really looked and appeared older; and some always believed he was. Mave was in the employ of ‘* Newbold & Carew, Land-Agents and Speculators,” as a kind of an office boy and clerk, As land- agents in those days were gen- erally regarded as *‘ claim-jump- ers,” and swindlers in general, Newbold & Carew were not as highly respected by the grown people of the settlement as was consistent with a successful busi- ness. And, naturally enough, the reflections cast by the parents upon the firm, were plainly be- trayed in the feelin of their chil- dren toward Mave Conrille. It is true, the boy was not to blame for what his employers did; but then he was by nature a cross and domineering fellow amon his schoolmates, and made no ef- fort to gain the good-will and con- fidence of any of them, except Myrtle Gray, a blue-eyed, flaxen- haired little maiden of some six- teen summers, and the idol of every boyish heart in the school. The first month of the school had passed with nothing to break the monotonous routine of daily study. This was unusual for a frontier school. The teacher had not been turned out by unruly boys, as was customary in those days. Mave ' i, CF 5 ty, Yai ‘ a ‘ pu VAGABOND JOE. some five miles from the settle- ment up the river; and as long as the skating remained good, Joe promised to be punctual in his at- tendance at school, for by this means he could make the trip very easily. And so his coming was eagerly watched for by the scholars who had repaired to school earlier than usual that Monday morning. They stood upon the bluff overlooking the Des Moines with their anxious, eager eyes turned up the stream; and when at length a lithe figure glided into view around the bend of the river, a cry of mingled de- light and excitement burst from their lips. “That’s him! that’s him!” shouted a little, tow-headed fel- low, fairly dancing with delight. “Yes, that’s Joe,” added an-~ other. ‘What of it?” asked Mave Con- rille, sullenly, as if jealous of the interest centering in Vagabond Joe. “You make as much fuss over that young vagabond’s com- ing as though it were President klin Pierce.” _‘* Well, I don’t care,” replied little tow-head; “ Joe’sa jolly good feller, and that’s more than you are,” ‘See here; don’t sass me, boy, or I'll cuff your ears like blazes,” replied Mave, turning upon the boy. u Do it, if you dare, and I'll tell the teacher; he’ll make you toe a pier Sebel ave Conriile, enraged beyond endurance, started Sitind” the boy, when the blue-eyed Myrtle Gray interposed, saying: CORMIG NOOSE) —— — --—— -_ —__— — — -- —