riefest manner.

I never knew what to make of my uncle Amos. He had a little room,
which he called his library, in one corner of the house, which could
be entered only by passing through his bedroom. In this apartment he
spent most of his time, though he went out to walk every day, while I
was at school; but, if he saw me coming, he always retreated to the
house. He was gloomy and misanthropic; he never went to church
himself, though he always compelled me to go, and also to attend the
Sunday school. He did not go into society, and had little or nothing
to do with, or to say to, the people of Parkville. He never troubled
them, and they were content to let him alone.

As may well be supposed, my life at the cottage was not the
pleasantest that could be imagined. It was hardly a home, only a
stopping-place to me. It was gloom and silence there, and my uncle was
the lord of the silent land. Such a life was not to my taste, and I
envied the boys and girls of my acquaintance in Parkville, as I saw
them talking and laughing with their fathers and mothers, their
brothers and sisters, or gathered in the social circle around the
winter fire. It seemed to me that their cup of joy was full, while
mine was empty. I longed for friends and companions to share with me
the cares and the pleasures of life.

Of myself I knew little or nothing. My memory hardly reached farther
back than the advent of my uncle at Lake Adieno, and all my early
associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I
had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to
Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with
a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint
recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could
not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was
my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce my uncle to tell me
something about her; if he knew anything, he would not tell me.

Old Jerry and his wife evidently had no knowledge whatever in regard
to me before my uncle brought me to Parkville. They could not tell me
anything, and my uncle would not. Though I was a boy of only fourteen,
this concealment of my birth and parentage troubled me. I was told
that my father was dead; and this was all the information I could
obtain. Where he had lived, when and where he died, I was not
permitted to know. If I asked a question, my uncle turned on h