Come what might, I must stick to the office then, and for
life.
Some weeks passed whilst I was turning this over and over in my mind. I
was constantly forgetting things in the office, but Moses Benson helped
me out of every scrape. He was kinder and kinder, so that I often felt
sorry that I could not feel fonder of him, and that his notions of fun
and amusement only disgusted me instead of making us friends. They
convinced me of one thing. My dear mother's chief dread about my going
out of my own country was for the wicked ways I might learn in strange
lands. A town with an unpronounceable name suggested foreign iniquities
to her tender fears, but our own town, where she and everybody we knew
bought everything we daily used, did not frighten her at all. I did not
tell her, but I was quite convinced myself that I might get pretty deep
into mischief in my idle hours, even if I lived within five miles of
home, and had only my uncle's clerks for my comrades.
During these weeks Jem came home for the holidays. He was at a public
school now, which many of our friends regarded as an extravagant folly
on my father's part.
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