{"id":"01KG8AKFNHP8AF3S687QV4BRCT","cid":"bafkreiauh7n4kz6car5tqftrpkqf73ec6v5sdnwbcnbrbflgojau6dssta","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":346,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":283,"text":"CHAPTER II.\r\nTHE YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES OF ISRAEL.\r\n\r\n\r\nImagination will easily picture the rural day of the youth of Israel.\r\nLet us pass on to a less immature period.\r\n\r\nIt appears that he began his wanderings very early; moreover, that ere,\r\non just principles throwing off the yoke off his king, Israel, on\r\nequally excusable grounds, emancipated himself from his sire. He\r\ncontinued in the enjoyment of parental love till the age of eighteen,\r\nwhen, having formed an attachment for a neighbor’s daughter—for some\r\nreason, not deemed a suitable match by his father—he was severely\r\nreprimanded, warned to discontinue his visits, and threatened with some\r\ndisgraceful punishment in case he persisted. As the girl was not only\r\nbeautiful, but amiable—though, as will be seen, rather weak—and her\r\nfamily as respectable as any, though unfortunately but poor, Israel\r\ndeemed his father’s conduct unreasonable and oppressive; particularly\r\nas it turned out that he had taken secret means to thwart his son with\r\nthe girl’s connections, if not with the girl herself, so as to place\r\nalmost insurmountable obstacles to an eventual marriage. For it had not\r\nbeen the purpose of Israel to marry at once, but at a future day, when\r\nprudence should approve the step. So, oppressed by his father, and\r\nbitterly disappointed in his love, the desperate boy formed the\r\ndetermination to quit them both for another home and other friends.\r\n\r\nIt was on Sunday, while the family were gone to a farmhouse church near\r\nby, that he packed up as much of his clothing as might be contained in\r\na handkerchief, which, with a small quantity of provision, he hid in a\r\npiece of woods in the rear of the house. He then returned, and\r\ncontinued in the house till about nine in the evening, when, pretending\r\nto go to bed, he passed out of a back door, and hastened to the woods\r\nfor his bundle.\r\n\r\nIt was a sultry night in July; and that he might travel with the more\r\nease on the succeeding day, he lay down at the foot of a pine tree,\r\nreposing himself till an hour before dawn, when, upon awaking, he heard\r\nthe soft, prophetic sighing of the pine, stirred by the first breath of\r\nthe morning. Like the leaflets of that evergreen, all the fibres of his\r\nheart trembled within him; tears fell from his eyes. But he thought of\r\nthe tyranny of his father, and what seemed to him the faithlessness of\r\nhis love; and shouldering his bundle, arose, and marched on.\r\n\r\nHis intention was to reach the new countries to the northward and\r\nwestward, lying between the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, and the\r\nYankee settlements on the Housatonic. This was mainly to elude all\r\nsearch. For the same reason, for the first ten or twelve miles,\r\nshunning the public roads, he travelled through the woods; for he knew\r\nthat he would soon be missed and pursued.\r\n\r\nHe reached his destination in safety; hired out to a farmer for a month\r\nthrough the harvest; then crossed from the Hudson to the Connecticut.\r\nMeeting here with an adventurer to the unknown regions lying about the\r\nhead waters of the latter river, he ascended with this man in a canoe,\r\npaddling and pulling for many miles. Here again he hired himself out\r\nfor three months; at the end of that time to receive for his wages two\r\nhundred acres of land lying in New Hampshire. The cheapness of the land\r\nwas not alone owing to the newness of the country, but to the perils\r\ninvesting it. Not only was it a wilderness abounding with wild beasts,\r\nbut the widely-scattered inhabitants were in continual dread of being,\r\nat some unguarded moment, destroyed or made captive by the Canadian\r\nsavages, who, ever since the French war, had improved every opportunity\r\nto make forays across the defenceless frontier.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJHFM4S3HHFVTHGZ033WY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFNGZTDCVDF0SRWAFSKA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.809Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.083Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}