Chapter VI. Mrs. Crawford's Letter.

Driven From Home

by Horatio Alger

"How did you like my stepmother?" asked Carl, when Gilbert
returned in the afternoon.

"She's a daisy!" answered Gilbert, shrugging his shoulders. "I
don't think I ever saw a more disagreeable woman."

"Do you blame me for leaving home?"

"I only wonder you have been able to stay so long. I had a long
conversation with your father."

"Mrs. Crawford has made a different man of him. I should have no
trouble in getting along with him if there was no one to come between
us."

"He gave me this for you," said Gilbert, producing the
ten-dollar bill.

"Did my stepmother know of his sending it?"

"No; she was opposed to sending your trunk, but your father said
emphatically you should have it."

"I am glad he showed that much spirit."

"I have some hopes that he will make you an allowance of a few
dollars a week."

"That would make me all right, but I don't expect it."

"You will probably hear from your father to-morrow or next day,
so you will have to make yourself contented a little longer."

"I hope you are not very homesick, Mr. Crawford?" said Julia,
coquettishly.

"I would ask nothing better than to stay here permanently,"
rejoined Carl, earnestly. "This is a real home. I have met with more
kindness here than in six months at my own home."

"You have one staunch friend at home," said Gilbert.

"You don't allude to Peter?"

"So far as I can judge, he hates you like poison. I mean
Jane."

"Yes, Jane is a real friend. She has been in the family for ten
years. She was a favorite with my own mother, and feels an interest
in me."

"By the way, your stepmother's charge that you took a wallet
containing money from her drawer has been disproved by Jane. She saw
Peter abstracting the money, and so informed Mrs. Crawford."

"I am not at all surprised. Peter is mean enough to steal or do
anything else. What did my stepmother say?"

"She was very angry, and threatened to discharge Jane; but, as
no one would be left to attend to the dinner, I presume she is likely
to stay."

"I ought to be forming some plan," said Carl, thoughtfully.

"Wait till you hear from home. Julia will see that your time is
well filled up till then. Dismiss all care, and enjoy yourself while
you may."

This seemed to be sensible advice, and Carl followed it. In the
evening some young people were invited in, and there was a round of
amusements that made Carl forget that he was an exile from home, with
very dubious prospects.

"You are all spoiling me," he said, as Gilbert and he went
upstairs to bed. "I am beginning to understand the charms of home.
To go out into the world from here will be like taking a cold shower
bath."

"Never forget, Carl, that you will be welcome back, whenever you
feel like coming," said Gilbert, laying his band affectionately on
Carl's shoulder. "We all like you here."

"Thank you, old fellow! I appreciate the kindness I have
received here; but I must strike out for myself."

"How do you feel about it, Carl?"

"I hope for the best. I am young, strong and willing to work.
There must be an opening for me somewhere."

The next morning, just after breakfast, a letter arrived for
Carl, mailed at Edgewood Center.

"Is it from your father?" asked Gilbert.

"No; it is in the handwriting of my stepmother. I can guess
from that that it contains no good news."

He opened the letter, and as he read it his face expressed
disgust and annoyance.

"Read it, Gilbert," he said, handing him the open sheet.

This was the missive:

"CARL CRAWFORD:--AS your father has a nervous attack, brought on
by your misconduct, he has authorized me to write to you. As you are
but sixteen, he could send for you and have you forcibly brought
back, but deems it better for you to follow your own course and
suffer the punishment of your obstinate and perverse conduct. The
boy whom you sent here proved a fitting messenger. He seems, if
possible, to be even worse than yourself. He was very impertinent to
me, and made a brutal and unprovoked attack on my poor boy, Peter,
whose devotion to your father and myself forms an agreeable contrast
to your studied disregard of our wishes.

"Your friend had the assurance to ask for a weekly allowance for
you while a voluntary exile from the home where you have been only
too well treated. In other words, you want to be paid for your
disobedience. Even if your father were weak enough to think of
complying with this extraordinary request, I should do my best to
dissuade him."

"Small doubt of that!" said Carl, bitterly.

"In my sorrow for your waywardness, I am comforted by the
thought that Peter is too good and conscientious ever to follow your
example. While you are away, he will do his utmost to make up to
your father for his disappointment in you. That you may grow wise in
time, and turn at length from the error of your ways, is the earnest
hope of your stepmother,

Anastasia Crawford."

"It makes me sick to read such a letter as that, Gilbert," said
Carl. "And to have that sneak and thief--as he turned out to
be--Peter, set up as a model for me, is a little too much."

"I never knew there were such women in the world!" returned
Gilbert. "I can understand your feelings perfectly, after my
interview of yesterday."

"She thinks even worse of you than of me," said Carl, with a
faint smile.

"I have no doubt Peter shares her sentiments. I didn't make
many friends in your family, it must be confessed."

"You did me a service, Gilbert, and I shall not soon forget
it."

"Where did your stepmother come from?" asked Gilbert,
thoughtfully.

"I don't know. My father met her at some summer resort. She
was staying in the same boarding house, she and the angelic Peter.
She lost no time in setting her cap for my father, who was doubtless
reported to her as a man of property, and she succeeded in capturing
him."

"I wonder at that. She doesn't seem very fascinating."

"She made herself very agreeable to my father, and was even
affectionate in her manner to me, though I couldn't get to like her.
The end was that she became Mrs. Crawford. Once installed in our
house, she soon threw off the mask and showed herself in her true
colors, a cold-hearted, selfish and disagreeable woman."

"I wonder your father doesn't recognize her for what she is."

"She is very artful, and is politic enough to treat him well.
She has lost no opportunity of prejudicing him against me. If he
were not an invalid she would find her task more difficult."

"Did she have any property when your father married her?"

"Not that I have been able to discover. She is scheming to have
my father leave the lion's share of his property to her and Peter. I
dare say she will succeed."

"Let us hope your father will live till you are a young man, at
least, and better able to cope with her."

"I earnestly hope so."

"Your father is not an old man."

"He is fifty-one, but he is not strong. I believe he has liver
complaint. At any rate, I know that when, at my stepmother's
instigation, he applied to an insurance company to insure his life
for her benefit, the application was rejected."

"You don't know anything of Mrs. Crawford's antecedents?"

"No."

"What was her name before she married your father?"

"She was a Mrs. Cook. That, as you know, is Peter's name."

"Perhaps, in your travels, you may learn something of her
history."

"I should like to do so."

"You won't leave us to-morrow?"

"I must go to-day. I know now that I must depend wholly upon my
own exertions, and I must get to work as soon as possible."

"You will write to me, Carl?"

"Yes, when I have anything agreeable to write."

"Let us hope that will be soon."