BOOKS.RESEAU.ORG - English-French Library

- Excerpts -

Page 1 : THE HERO OF HILL HOUSE BY MABEL HALE CONTENTS Home and Mother The Stricken Home Austin and His Father Austin Goes to His Father Humiliation for Austin To the Country Again The Runaway Wayside Friends The Captain's Guest With Uncle John Again Austin Takes Care of Himself The Revival The Young Church-Member Home Again The Battle of Two Wills Seeking New Pasture To the Hay-Fields Six Weeks of Haying Indecision and Restlessness Mother Hilman's Opinion Like the Troubled Sea Planning for Themselves Austin and Amy A Shopping-Expedition Harry Hill Uncle Philip's Children The Family Circle Narrows A Stormy Season Austin's New Home The Opinions of Parson Hawley and His Wife THE HERO OF HILL HOUSE CHAPTER 1 HOME AND MOTHER It was the evening of a quiet day in late autumn, and the inmates of the little farm home were gathered safely together around the supper-table. I say the family, but they were not all there.

Page 9 : "Good for you, Austin; stand by that decision as long as you live, and it will be well with you." Uncle John and Aunt Tillie were true to their promise about helping the children prepare for the journey. They spent much of the time with the children, and when the little house was empty of its furniture, they took them to their own home till time for them to go. Every day they heaped Austin with advice and counsel. The children heard them talking to him telling him just how to make the changes on their journey and how to arrange the baggage, and how to conduct themselves, and it filled them with respect for their brother. They felt safe in his care and certain that he would bring them safely to their father once more. "Austin," said his uncle one day, "there is one promise I wish you to make me. You are a good boy and have started out the right way to make a noble man. I want you to say that you will not follow in your father's footsteps.

Page 17 : But he was determined that if any questions were asked he would tell the truth, just as it was. He would not shield either his father or himself. His cause should stand upon its own foundation. He believed that almost any one would approve of his leaving home under the circumstances. He knocked at the farmhouse door, and the man of the house answered his rap and hospitably invited the boy in. It was a temptation; but Austin remembered his soppy condition and did not like to soil the housewife's floors, so refused to enter. "I am looking for work. Have you anything I can do?" he said. "Are you not that Hill boy who wanted work a few weeks back?" asked the man kindly. "Yes, and you thought you might have something for me later," replied Austin hopefully. "If you had come yesterday I should have hired you; I found a man over at town last night, and he will be here today to begin. I am sorry I did not know you were still wanting the place.

Page 25 : Austin met the world with no expectation of fraud or ill will, and when he found these, he was surprized and grieved, and was quite unprepared to cope with the situation. His first summer's work was to teach him a rather severe lesson in human nature. Farmer Coles knew the boy and that he was a good worker, and deliberately planned to get a farm-hand at a very reasonable rate. He was careful to see that Austin earned fully every dollar he received all the summer through, but he had no intention of keeping him during the winter. When school began the first of September, there was yet much to be done in the fields, and Austin consented, at the farmer's suggestion, to keep at his work for another month, but the first of October he quit and started to school. From the time he entered school, the atmosphere about the home, and Mr. Cole's attitude toward his choreboy, changed completely. Where he had been pleasant, he now was surly and cross.

Page 33 : Before the week was out Harry had heard and came home to be with Austin. He had them all together again. Home had a new meaning to all of them now. Austin wept with joy at their present happiness and with pity for their past neglect This was his work, his place in life. He would stay at home now through rough and smooth sailing. They should not be left alone again as they had been. Many were the vows he made in those first few days after his home-coming. His father had received him kindly, with no reference to his hasty departure nor the cause of it. He seemed satisfied that Austin should take the reins of home government again, and did not openly oppose him in any way, neither did he lend him assistance nor encouragement. Will came over to see his brother, but they had so little in common that he did not remain very long. Austin found his days filled with active service. He had little time for reverie; but at night when all was quiet, he lay and mused and planned.

Page 41 : "I see where you have the best of us," said Ned at the dinner-hour, "for you get a day's rest, and we do not." "My team and I can work all the better tomorrow for our rest today," said Austin with conviction. "My father will lose nothing by my keeping Sunday. Man and beast need one day of rest out of the seven on a job like this." Austin was to see many trying places where neither his father nor his brother would be any help to him in his service to God, and it is well for his future progress that he learned right at the first to stand by his convictions. But it is not more true in his case than in the case of every young Christian. Those who will stand faithful in the tests of life are the ones who gain the crown at last. While it is true that God has promised to keep his children in the most trying circumstances, it is also true that the child must put his trust wholly in God and live obediently.

Page 49 : The next step would be getting the cooperation of the girls. Without their willing assistance he could do nothing, and it would mean much for them to take the responsibility of home-keeping entirely upon themselves. Fortunately for Austin, he had learned how to carry all these burdens to One who was stronger than he, and to rely on his God to go before him and prepare the way. CHAPTER 22 PLANNING FOR THEMSELVES The girls, as well as Austin, were busy during the week, but they had Sunday afternoon to themselves. They were in the habit of spending this time together, and it was with both hope and fear in his heart that Austin went the next Sunday afternoon after his talk with his father about the children, to see his sisters. Amy had come over to see Nell and the two were waiting for Austin, eager for the opportunity of pouring into his sympathetic ears their story of heartaches and struggles of the week past.

Page 57 : "Nell, you will not disappoint me like that. I have counted so much on your company. Please say that you will go anyway, and I will go to Papa and see if I can get him to do better," pleaded Austin. "Well, but he will not do any more. I know he will not," she said. With a hasty look upward to the One who can give grace to calm the turbulent soul, Austin went to confer with his father. He set the matter before him in all its pathos. "Nell has worked hard, and been such a faithful housekeeper. She is not wanting to buy extravagantly, and she ought to have all that she has asked. I can't do any more, and I can hardly bear to see her so disappointed. Can you not do better by her now?" he had pleaded, humbling his own spirit in the asking, for he would rather have gone bungry and cold than to have asked his father for a cent. But his plea only succeeded in making his parent angry. "You are both as ungrateful as you can be.

Page 65 : Autumn came, bringing a letter from Doyle saying that he had decided to stay on the farm, assuring his brother that he was perfectly satisfied with life as he found it there. Austin's answer was a complete release of the child, so that he no longer was counted in the family circle. Harry was home very little, but when he came he brought good cheer and comradeship with him. He was fond of Nell, and found pleasure in spending a part of his means in buying her pretty clothes. Nell was handy with her needle, and was wise in the choice of both materials and styles, and so was able to go out carefully and tastefully dressed. Home seemed to have settled once more into steady lines, with just the three in the family. But as this was a bark that seldom rested in quiet seas, another storm-cloud was seen arising, and it was larger than a man's hand. Chapter 28 A STORMY SEASON One day Austin sat in his room in deep and troubled thought.