She had
gone to work in a shoe factory established by an enterprising Yankee in
that city. The work lasted but a few months, when the proprietor failed
and the factory was closed. In a strange city mother and children were
left without employment. In her anxiety and distress a new trouble, the
greatest and most poignant since Abijah's desertion, wrung her with a
supreme grief. James, the light and pride of her life, had run away from
his master and gone to sea. Lloyd, poor little homesick Lloyd, was the
only consolation left the broken heart. And he did not want to live in
Baltimore, and longed to return to Newburyport. So, mindful of her
child's happiness, and all unmindful of her own, she sent him from her
to Newburyport, which he loved inexpressibly. He was now in his eleventh
year. Very happy he was to see once more the streets and landmarks of
the old town--the river, and the old house where he was born, and the
church next door and the school-house across the way and the dear
friends whom he loved and who loved him. He went again to live with the
Bartletts, doing with his might all that he could to earn his daily
bread, and to repay the kindness of the dear old deacon and his family.
It was at this time that he received his last scrap of schooling. He
was, as we have seen, but eleven, but precious little of that brief and
tender time had he been able to spend in a school-house.
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