Jessie by Walter Aimwell

Four months in the county jail, was the sentence passed upon Sam Hapley, / Jessie's oldest brother, for a robbery which he committed in a / neighboring town. Sam entered upon his imprisonment during the last week / of the year, and his sentence had now expired. Those were four very long / and weary months to the boy-prisoner, but he could scarcely realize the / change they had brought about in his once happy home. Since the key / first turned upon him in his little cell, his youngest brother, the / flower and pet of the household, had been carried to his long home, and / was soon followed by his father, who met with an awful fate one winter's / night, while he was stupefied with liquor. The rest of the family had / been scattered, strangers gathered around the fireside where they used / to meet, and not one of them could now claim a home.

A few days before Sam's release from jail, Jessie wrote to him an / affectionate letter, inviting him, in behalf of Mrs. Page and Marcus, to / come and see them, before going elsewhere, and promising him a kind / reception. His mother had also written to him, informing him that she / had the promise of a good situation for him on a farm, in the town where / she was living, and urging him to come to her at once, on his discharge / from jail. Sam did not reply to either of these letters; but the day / after the expiration of his sentence, just as the academy bell was / ringing for the afternoon session, a little boy put into the hands of / Jessie a note, which he said a strange young man, whom he met in the / woods, had asked him to deliver. It was faintly written with a lead / pencil, and was dirty and crumpled; but she soon ascertained that it was / from Sam, and that it contained a request for her to meet him, that / afternoon, at a certain retired spot on the banks of Round Hill Pond. It / also apprised her that she must come alone, if she wished to see him.