Clinton by Walter Aimwell — Read

Soon after Oscar left Brookdale, Jerry's father, who was interested in the logging business, started for the head-waters of the Penobscot river, to be absent several months. Large parties or gangs of loggers, as they are called, encamp every winter in the forests of Maine, for the purpose of cutting timber. After the trees are chopped down, the logs are hauled by oxen to the banks of some stream, where they remain until the ice breaks up in the spring, when they are rolled into the water, and floated down the swollen river, to the mills. Such was the business which kept Mr. Preston away from his home nearly half the year.

Jerry's conduct had never been very dutiful toward his mother, nor very affectionate toward his little sisters, during his father's long absences from home; but now it was soon evident that he was going to give the family much more trouble than ever before. He obeyed his mother only when her commands happened to be perfectly agreeable to him.