The Finding of Jasper Holt by Grace Livingston Hill

There had been no fuss made over Jasper Holt when he was born. They handed him an honored name from some fierce old warrior of a forebear, relegated him to a fourth-story back nursery with a trained nurse, and left him to himself.

His mother paused long enough before returning to her interrupted social career to look him over, declare that he had nice eyes and she believed his hair was going to curl; then she was swallowed up in the world from which she had reluctantly stepped aside. She had little use for a son except to dress him in velvets and Lord Fauntleroy collars and make of him a toy to amuse her guests. Until he reached that stage she saw very little of him.

Of his stern father he saw less. He was immersed in business. He was rich, but what of that? He had to make more riches to keep the social whirl fed.

The baby had a face and form worth noticing, even in his first days. The great blue eyes that had attracted his mother's flitting attention, could be gray sometimes, and had in them depths of light and wisdom that fairly startled his practical nurse. He had the brow of a philosopher, and gold hair rippled around the fine little head like a halo. The old warrior-namesake must have bestowed upon him that firm chin beneath the cupid's bow of the lips, and surely an angel had lent him that smile!

But as he grew older there came into his eyes a wistfulness that was almost pathetic at times. He was an affectionate child, quite embarrassing his cold, reserved nurse with his demonstrations, but winning the utmost devotion always from all who had to serve him.

He was not a good boy in the conventional acceptation of the word. He sweetly and serenely had his own way in everything from the time he could walk and talk. He would neither eat what he did not like, nor wear what he did not fancy. He did not take kindly to his mother's velvets and curls and lace collars. He always disappeared hopelessly when made ready for a dress parade. He would fight any bully on the back street who undertook to cheat the little lame newsboy, and he was always trying to take the part of some weak dog or child. He could run down the street with the swiftness of a swallow, his pockets full of sharp stones, and hit every electric light in the block as he ran, and he was forever taking the blame frankly of all the broken windows and looted garden plots in the neighborhood. In these days his acquaintance with his father was limited to severe interviews in which stern threats and scathing reprimands mingled with a galling sarcasm were dealt abundantly. It was as his clear eyes looked steadily, unafraidly, into the angry steel ones of the man that his young face hardened, his warrior-chin took a firm set, and the light in his face was deadened by a stab of pain. He was growing wise and losing his faith in the love he had taken for granted in both father and mother. It was at that time that he lived mostly upon the street, and companioned with boys of the rougher class. No one but his nurse knew it, and she but seldom. She was only too glad to have the time off duty.

It was when they discovered a childish plot in the neighborhood to mob the president of a defaulting bank in which the hard-working parents of some of his playmates had lost their all, that Jasper was taken hold of by the law as leader and financier of the whole enterprise. Bravely, proudly, he took the whole blame, exonerating the other boys, and declaring himself instigator of the affair.

His father paid a heavy fine to hush it up and took his son in charge. A merciless whipping was the beginning of that interview between them, which the son received like a gentleman. But when it was over he lifted reproachful eyes, steadied his quivering warrior-chin and said determinedly: "But all the same, father, I think I was right! That man had been stealing those poor people's money!"

The father looked at the little son with the unbroken will and swore! He took away the cheap little firearms that the boy had purchased with his allowance for himself and the other boys, and he declared the allowance should cease until such time as the boy would own to his fault and come to his senses. One isn't just quite sure, but, perhaps after all, the removal of his allowance was the very best thing that father ever did for his little, lonely son who had begun so early to reform the world with a high hand.

Jasper went up to his room and thought. Then he went out and consulted with a newsboy friend of his, and presently he was established on a paper route of his own. For several weeks he sold papers till he had enough money to replace his lost revolver. Then he was satisfied and retired from business for the time, but this was not his first business venture, and his father began to discover that the threat of taking away the allowance had no effect whatever on his determined young son.

Yet in spite of his bravery and strength, in spite of his high purposes and anarchistic tendencies, there was in the boy's nature a great wealth of love and a desire to be loved. He was, in his younger days, forever throwing his arms about his beautiful mother's neck and kissing her to her great disgust and the severe detriment of her complexion; until finally he became shy about showing his affection, and the lines of loneliness and yearning grew deeper about the young mouth.

It was the time he ran away that made him sure that no one cared for him.

Jasper had been up before the paternal tribunal for some trivial offense, and his word had not been taken in explanation, against the word of his younger brother -- who had arrived on the scene some three years later than himself, and through some strange fantasy of selfishness was the beloved darling of his mother.