stake.  The company assembled were of a decidedly low order, and Oscar at first felt almost ashamed to be seen among them.  Smoking, swearing, betting, and quarrelling, were all going on at once, interspersed with occasional shouts of laughter at some vulgar joke, or at the fluttering and cries of a wounded fowl.  Sometimes a poor chicken would receive several shots, before its misery would be terminated by a fatal one.  When one fowl was killed, a fresh one was brought forth.  Each man who fired at the mark, paid a trifling sum for the privilege, and was entitled to the fowl, if he killed it.

Oscar and his young companions lingered around the grounds for an hour or two, familiarizing themselves with scenes of shameful cruelty, and breathing an atmosphere loaded with pollution and moral death.  The repugnance which Oscar at first felt to the party and its doings was so far overcome, that before he left he himself fired one or two shots, with a rifle which was lent to him.

Oscar reached home before the hour for dinner.  As he entered the sitting-room, his mother, who had missed him, inquired where he had been all the forenoon.

“I ’ve been with Alf,” he replied.

His mother did not notice this evasion of her question, but added: 

“Why do you want to be with Alfred so much?  It seems to me you might find better company.  I ’m afraid he is not so good a boy as he might be.  I don’t like his looks very much.”

“Why, mother,” said Oscar, “Alf is n’t a bad boy, and I never heard anybody say he was.  I like him first-rate—­he ’s a real clever fellow.”

“He may be clever enough, but I do not think he is a very good associate for you,” replied Mrs. Preston.

“Who ought to know best about that, you or I?” said Oscar, with a pertness for which he was becoming a little too notorious.  “I see Alf every day, but you don’t know hardly anything about him.  At my rate, I ’ll risk his hurting me.”

Oscar’s grandmother looked at him with astonishment, as he uttered these words.  He felt the silent rebuke, and turned his head from her.

“Well,” added Mrs. Preston, “if Alfred is not a bad boy himself, I do not believe that the kind of people you spend so much of your time with, around the hotel-stable, will do either you or him any good.  The lessons a boy learns among tavern loungers do not generally make him any better, to say the least.  I wish you would keep away from such places—­I should feel a good deal easier if you would.”

The subject was dropped, and dinner,—­the event of Thanksgiving-day, in every New England home,—­soon began to engross the attention of the household.  It was a pleasant feast, to old and young.  The children forgot all their little, fanciful troubles, and the traces of care were chased from their parents’ brows for the hour.

The afternoon was stormy, and the children amused themselves with in-door sports.  After tea, however, Oscar asked his father for some money, to buy a ticket to an entertainment that was to take place in the evening.  But both his parents thought he had better stay at home, with the rest of the family, and he reluctantly yielded to their wishes, coupled with the promise of a story or two from his grandmother, about old times.