Ringold Griffitt, finding that his mother
was left with a small pittance at his father's
decease, and not wishing to become a burden
to her, young as he was, resolved to give
himself to labor in order to support her, and
if possible release the cottage from the mortgage
which burdened it. For this purpose,
while he worked hard on the little farm in
summer, he hired himself in the winter as a
woodsman and raftsman; a hardy employment
for which his manly and athletic person
well fitted him; though he instinctively felt
that in mind, taste and education he was the
superior of the rough men who constituted
his companions in the wild and reckless
camp of the forest. But as he was of a
cheerful spirit, and agreeble manners, and
assumed nothing like a sense of superiority
in his intercouse with them—as he was a
skilful wielder of the axe and an unerring
shot with the rifle—as he was ready to oblige
all around him by good offices, and had
shown that courage in many an encounter
with bears and wolves which commands the
respect of the backwoodsman, as well as displayed
his fearlessness and love of justice in
punishing the braggert and bully, his popularity
among them became unbounded; and
not one of the hardy men would have hesitated
to risk his life to serve him or gratify
his slightest wish.

But after three winters in the woods, Ringold
began to feel an ambition to try his fortune
on the sea. He had seen at Baltimore,
where he had been with one of the vast rafts
that he had aided in guiding down the Susquehannah
into the Chesapeake, the ships of
foreign countries, and the sight of them and

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

of the seamen in their red caps and blue
jackets inspired him with a restless desire to
become a sailor. The seamen whom he
talked with fanned this flame of curiosity by
representing to him the beauty and grandeur
of European cities, and the wealth of the Indies
and Peru.

At length fired by their stories of far lands,
he resolved that he would ship on board a
vessel that was bound to the Mediterranean
and thence to England. He believed that he
should be able to return with wealth enough
to relieve the cottage from its mortgage and
make his mother independent. Under the
influence of these filial motives, he shipped,
after first sending home, by Whitlock, to his
mother, not only the wages he had received
as raftsman, but the advance which
had been paid to him by the captain of the
ship.

The fortunes of our young adventurer we
shall not at present follow, but merely inform
the reader that after two years absence he
once more made his appearance in his native
valley, gladdening his mother's heart by his
return, and receiving a warm and enthusiastic
welcome from the raftsmen, his old companions
in camp, who were now at home tilling
their lands; for it was the month of June when
Ringold, grown to the full height and noble
proportions of manhood, returned among his
friends. He brought back with him some money,
but not so much as he had hoped to present
to his mother; for he had found by experience
that the world was pretty much the same every
where, and that wealth every where must be
labored for, if it would be attained. He
however was rich enough to raise the mortgage
of four hundred dollars upon the cottage;
but when he laid this sum in his mother's
lap, his surprise can be imagined, at
hearing from her Robert Burnside's generous
conduct towards her!

He at once sought out the raftsman, and
after thanking him for his noble generosity,
he would have forced him to take back the
amount he had advanced with the year's in
terest; but this the raftsman firmly refused
to do; saying, with a smile,

`It isn't often a man has an opportunity of
doing good in this world, and I am not going
to be cheated out of this one; so keep your
money, young man, for you will need it!'

Ringold, seeing that it would be useless to
try and induce him to change his opinion, left
him, with his heart overflowing with kindness
and gratitude towards him. This was two years
preceding the opening of our story, during
which time Ringold had been living at the
cottage in the summer and in camp in the
winter, beloved and esteemed by all his companions.
But during the present winter he had
been but once in the camp, the agent of the
company, Mr. Bixby, having employed him
in drawing some plans for mills, which it
was the intention of the company to erect
upon a waterfall that emptied itself into a
lake on the east side of the valley. This
preference had been given to the young raftsman,
from a knowledge of his well-known
talents at drawing, which, in speaking of his
qualities, we ought before to have said, were
the wonder of the neighborhood. There
was scarcely a cottage, or waterfall, or hill
in the valley that he had not transferred to
paper or canvass, which adorned the humble
parlor of his mother, or the sitting-rooms of
his neighbors. There was not a venerable,
silvery-headed old man, or beautiful girl, or
promising infant, whose feature he had not
copied to the life with his magic pencil.—
His room at his mother's house was a picturegallery,
and the good people used to come in
for miles to look at his `sights,' as they
termed them. His mother was justly proud
of her son's genius; and many of his friends
advised him to quit rafting and farming, and
go to `the city,' and make his fortune.

But Ringold shook his head! He knew
that out of every ten who sought distinction
in that way, nine perished broken-hearted.—
Moreover, although his performances were
masterly, he had no confidence in himself.

`They will do very well to please the good

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

people of the valley,' he would say to his
friend and great admirer, Whitlock, `but
they would prove insignificant compared with
the works of distinguished artists. I will
paint to please myself and my neighbors, but
if I wish to keep my happiness in my own
hands, I shall remain a woodsman. Old
Derick shall see that I shall make no less a
forester for once in a while painting. But he
has never forgiven me for having taken his
portrait so faithfully like his own ugly
phiz!'

These were Ringold's feelings before he
went to sea. But since his return he had
applied himself with even more assiduity to
his pencil than ever; than even when in his
early boyhood he first made the proud and
happy discovery of the talent which had
slumbered within him! Still he did not
neglect his other pursuits, either on the farm
or in the forest; but he was now never idle.
Every leisure hour was passed by him in his
chamber, which he had converted into a neat
studio; and here he devoted himself to the
study of his art, having, as the greatest prizes
which he could find abroad, brought
home in his chest, from England, several
valuable works upon `Art and Design.'—
These he pored over, night and day, with his
pencil in his hand and his canvass or drawing-board
before him.

`What makes you paint so much now, and
pore over them books so hard, Ringold?'
asked Ned Whitlock, as he one day lounged
into his studio. `You never hunt nor fish,
but are always at work, either with a hoe or
plough, or that infernal paint-brush! I
thought before you went to sea you said you
never would paint for pastime; and here you
have been working this four months at it, till
you are as pale as a young minister. There's
poison in them paints and they'll kill you
yet, Ringold!'

The young painter smiled; and then said,
gravely and impressively,

`I saw pictures in Europe, Ned!'

`One wouldn't think you saw anything
else, the way you've come back and gone to
making 'em! For my part, —'

`I saw divine works of Art, while I was
absent, Whitlock; paintings that my most
daring conceptions, my most romantic
dreams never presented to me! I never realized
till then, the greatness, the majesty,
the glory of genius! My soul was kindled
with enthusiasm! I felt like adoring what I
felt I could not approach! I wandered
though the Royal Academy—the National
Galleries of Art, bewildered, and half the
time blinded with tears! I wept like a child
because I saw how ignorant, how weak, how
impotent I was beside the Kings and Emperors
of Art, before the mightiness of whose
works I humbled my spirit in the humiliation
of despair! But —'

`But what, Griffitt?' cried Whitlock, who
had listened to his impassioned words with
amazement and a sympathy he could not
rightly direct, `what happened to you? I
hope you didn't go mad!'

`Not quite! But I was attracting general
attention, unwittingly; for I forgot that there
were others present; and some one addressed
a word or two to me. I can't tell you how,—
but these kind words were followed by
others, and—and—how shall I explain or tell
you. I was raised from despair to hope!
It is hope that now inspires me, my friend:
It is hope that leads me to apply myself, as
you daily see me doing. And yet it is hope
that hath shot up out of despair, and deep
humiliation, and which never would have
budded, but for the nourishing words of the
stranger, that fell like dew upon my spirit.'

`You ought to give up this painting, at
least for a while, Griffitt!' said Whitlock
sadly. `As I said, it is affecting your health:
I never knew you to talk so—so wildly:
come, we go up to the camp next week: you
must go with us.'

`Willingly. I shall be invigorated by the
hardy labor of the woods. I will, however,
work all I can before I start.'

`What is it you intend to do by all this

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

study and painting? You must mean something:
you don't take pictures out of doors,
nor portraits now days! What is the end
of it?'

`Immortality — fame — glory!' answered
Griffitt, with a kindling eye, like the warrior,
who hears afar off the thunder of the battle.
`Before the glorious works of the great
masters, I humbled myself to the dust; but
hope, hope hath bid me look up, and stand
upon my feet, and remember that what man
hath done, man may do again. Therefore,
I work and study as you see me, Whitlock,
the love and glory of my art, the spirit that
breathes into my soul, and nerve my purpose.
But I will leave all to go with you to the
woods; for I must toil for gold, as well as
for fame.'

Griffitt joined the party of foresters, and in
two or three days recovered his health and
spirits, and became the life of the wild border-camp.
But he had been there only four
weeks, when Bixby, the agent, wrote to Robert
Burnside, to send him down to the valley,
as he wished the aid of his pencil. So,
two months before the opening of our story,
he returned down the river, and was immediately
intrusted with the draughting of the
plans of the company, the agent being fully
informed by inspection of drawings in his
room, of his ability. In this agreeable,
though somewhat mechanical occupation, for
a young man of genius, he was occupied until
the warm sun of spring foretold the breaking
up of the ice. He was then despatched
by the agent to the camp, to which he had
previously sent word, with money to pay the
gangs of cutters for their winter's work, an
important trust which we have seen was executed
by him with fidelity. At the same
time he brought letters and tokens to the
men from their families; for it was no sooner
known that Ringold Griffitt was going to
`the camp,' than he was besieged with mes
sages and letters. The old man, and aged
matron, had a word to send to their grand
son, the mother a letter or kind word to
her son, the maiden a love-token to her
sweet-heart, or a letter sealed with half a
dozen wafers, to be well secure against
peeping.

All these he consented most cheerfully to
deliver as directed to do, a pledge which we
have beheld him redeem in the most honorable
manner; not forgetting even the softly
whispered communication entrusted to him
by Kate Boyd, for the ears of her illiterate
but gallant lover, the handsome Ned Whitlock.

Although Kate could write, as Ned said,
like a yankee schoolmistress, she was too
good natured to trifle with his love for her,
by writing him a note in order to shew her
superiority to her sweetheart; a little act of coquettish
self-love, which a good many girls in
Kate's place would have been surely tempted
to be guilty of. But she knew it would
deeply mortify and annoy her brave lover,
who had no fault in the world but his frankly
confessed ignorance of his a b c's, and was
loved by her with all her noble heart.

`No matter,' said she, when one of her
companions twitted her for having a lover
who could not write his name, nor read hers
when written; `I can write well enough for
both Ned and I, and when we get married I
shall have the pleasure of teaching him. He
shall be such a docile pupil. If he don't
study I shall—I—shall—'

`Beat him!' said the other with emphasis.

`No, that wont do. I will not let him kiss
me for a whole day. That'll punish him,
and make him study hard.'

Such was Kate Boyd, one of the best and
handsomest creatures in the world, with
laughing red lips, and mirthful black eyes, a
neat, buxom figure, and a small foot, and
hand dimpled like a baby's.