{"id":"01KG8AKRNQE1NM6VD868CJCR6Y","cid":"bafkreiae3bj4jum7b7ssh4c4demu6mjye5ivkvzbimyaaeherdi7fd5v2m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":446,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":378,"text":"CHAPTER II.\r\nREDBURN’S DEPARTURE FROM HOME\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was with a heavy heart and full eyes, that my poor mother parted\r\nwith me; perhaps she thought me an erring and a willful boy, and\r\nperhaps I was; but if I was, it had been a hardhearted world, and hard\r\ntimes that had made me so. I had learned to think much and bitterly\r\nbefore my time; all my young mounting dreams of glory had left me; and\r\nat that early age, I was as unambitious as a man of sixty.\r\n\r\nYes, I will go to sea; cut my kind uncles and aunts, and sympathizing\r\npatrons, and leave no heavy hearts but those in my own home, and take\r\nnone along but the one which aches in my bosom. Cold, bitter cold as\r\nDecember, and bleak as its blasts, seemed the world then to me; there\r\nis no misanthrope like a boy disappointed; and such was I, with the\r\nwarmth of me flogged out by adversity. But these thoughts are bitter\r\nenough even now, for they have not yet gone quite away; and they must\r\nbe uncongenial enough to the reader; so no more of that, and let me go\r\non with my story.\r\n\r\n“Yes, I will write you, dear mother, as soon as I can,” murmured I, as\r\nshe charged me for the hundredth time, not fail to inform her of my\r\nsafe arrival in New York.\r\n\r\n“And now Mary, Martha, and Jane, kiss me all round, dear sisters, and\r\nthen I am off. I’ll be back in four months—it will be autumn then, and\r\nwe’ll go into the woods after nuts, an I’ll tell you all about Europe.\r\nGood-by! good-by!”\r\n\r\nSo I broke loose from their arms, and not daring to look behind, ran\r\naway as fast as I could, till I got to the corner where my brother was\r\nwaiting. He accompanied me part of the way to the place, where the\r\nsteamboat was to leave for New York; instilling into me much sage\r\nadvice above his age, for he was but eight years my senior, and warning\r\nme again and again to take care of myself; and I solemnly promised I\r\nwould; for what cast-away will not promise to take of care himself,\r\nwhen he sees that unless he himself does, no one else will.\r\n\r\nWe walked on in silence till I saw that his strength was giving out,—he\r\nwas in ill health then,—and with a mute grasp of the hand, and a loud\r\nthump at the heart, we parted.\r\n\r\nIt was early on a raw, cold, damp morning toward the end of spring, and\r\nthe world was before me; stretching away a long muddy road, lined with\r\ncomfortable houses, whose inmates were taking their sunrise naps,\r\nheedless of the wayfarer passing. The cold drops of drizzle trickled\r\ndown my leather cap, and mingled with a few hot tears on my cheeks.\r\n\r\nI had the whole road to myself, for no one was yet stirring, and I\r\nwalked on, with a slouching, dogged gait. The gray shooting-jacket was\r\non my back, and from the end of my brother’s rifle hung a small bundle\r\nof my clothes. My fingers worked moodily at the stock and trigger, and\r\nI thought that this indeed was the way to begin life, with a gun in\r\nyour hand!\r\n\r\nTalk not of the bitterness of middle-age and after life; a boy can feel\r\nall that, and much more, when upon his young soul the mildew has\r\nfallen; and the fruit, which with others is only blasted after\r\nripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud. And never\r\nagain can such blights be made good; they strike in too deep, and leave\r\nsuch a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it. And it is a\r\nhard and cruel thing thus in early youth to taste beforehand the pangs\r\nwhich should be reserved for the stout time of manhood, when the\r\ngristle has become bone, and we stand up and fight out our lives, as a\r\nthing tried before and foreseen; for then we are veterans used to\r\nsieges and battles, and not green recruits, recoiling at the first\r\nshock of the encounter.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJNGCFJEYRZHY7V01TC8B","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRNT45QZG3SZ3N1K0A8E","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.031Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:23.319Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}