His wife's remonstrances against such a course of
life were sometimes so energetic that the house became any thing but a
pleasant place for the children.
Here John Jacob grew up to boyhood. His brothers left home to earn their
livelihood elsewhere, as soon as they were old enough to do so, and he
alone remained under the paternal roof. His father destined him for his
own calling, but the boy shrank from it with disgust. To crown his
misfortunes, his mother died, and his father married again, and this
time a woman who looked with no favor upon the son. The newly-married
pair quarreled continually, and the boy was glad to escape occasionally
to the house of a schoolmate, where he passed the night in a garret or
outhouse. By daylight he was back at his father's slaughter-house, to
assist in carrying out the meat. He was poorly clad and badly fed, and
his father's bad reputation wounded him so keenly that he shrank from
playing with other boys, and led a life of comparative isolation.
Fortunately for him, he had a teacher, Valentine Jeune by name, the son
of French Protestants, who was better fitted for his position than the
majority of the more liberally-patronized Catholic instructors.
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