Читать книгу Wrecked on Spider Island; Or, How Ned Rogers Found the Treasure онлайн

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The deacon predicted he would “come to some bad end,” and the deacon’s friends fully expected each morning to hear that “the Rogers boy” had been sent to jail, because of having committed some terrible crime.

Despite this very unpleasant and unsatisfactory method of gaining less than half a livelihood, Ned remained in the town until he was fourteen years old; not for love of the place, but owing to his inability to leave.

The city was so far away that he did not think it possible to walk, and as for paying his fare on the stage-coach, he might just as well have cried for the moon.

The cost of riding from Jonesboro to Portland, in both stage and cars, was $7, and Ned had never been the possessor of a tenth part of that amount, although he was really as industrious as the townspeople would allow him to be.

From the day he was ten years old the unhappy boy had said to himself that he would go to the city at the first opportunity; but as the weeks went by and he could see no possibility of carrying out such a plan, he grew discouraged.