CHAPTER V.
OUR HERO EATS THE BREAD OF CHARITY.
Bright and early, on the following morning, our two tramps deserted the lumber-yard, and having found a pump, both performed their morning ablutions; Ben feeling a trifle stiff in the neighborhood of the spots where his bed rubbed him the heaviest. But relying on Tommy's assertion that he would soon view a clean plank as a positive luxury, he made no complaints.
"And now for breakfast!" said Tom. "Then we will start."
Never before had this matter of breakfast appeared of such magnitude to Ben. It was as natural for him to eat breakfast of a morning as to exist. It is so with thousands of good people. And yet there are many persons in the world who are ofttimes compelled to look upon a matutinal meal as an unattainable luxury, and respect it accordingly.
Tommy's cheerful invitation was somewhat reassuring, however. The two walked on in silence until they were well out in the suburbs of the city, when the boy turning to Ben, said:
"This will do. Now you are hungry, I'll warrant."
He did not deny the soft impeachment. Indeed his well regulated interior had clamored loudly the previous evening at the enforced fast imposed upon it, and was now sternly calling upon its provider to do his duty, and his whole duty, like a man.
"Listen to me," instructed Tommy. "You are young at cadging and I will have to give you some points."
Ben not only gave an attentive ear but he took a good look at his companion in the broad daylight. The boy might have been fourteen or fifteen years of age; a round, plump little fellow, with a merry face, and sparkling, hazel eyes shaded by long, black lashes. There was something girlish in his cheek, it was so round, and smooth, and rosy, without the slightest sign of those capillary advantages that manhood's prime was to decorate it with. An ungovernable mass of curly black hair straggled from under a well worn slouch hat that had bronzed beneath sun and storm, and become limp and shapeless in its career of pillow and basket. When Tommy spoke his voice had a clear, silvery ring, quite pleasant to the ear; and when he laughed he showed a dazzling set of teeth. Such was Ben's new companion. He looked as though he might be a good boy who would do many a bad trick.
"Listen," he said. "We must get breakfast right off. You take that side of the street, and I'll take this. Go to the back doors and tell them any sort of a tale that comes handy; only don't forget to say, every time, that this is the first time you have ever had to ask for such a thing in your life, and that you scorn to accept it as a charity, but want to earn what you eat, and you would like to saw wood enough for your breakfast. But before you knock be sure you look around and see that they use coal. We have no time to fool away manufacturing firewood. Now go on, and we will meet down at the corner of the next block; the one that gets there first, to wait for the other."
Of all forlorn mortals, Benjamin Cleveland felt at that moment the most forlorn. He could have charged a battery, where there was no chance of coming back alive, cheerfully. He could have ventured any desperate deed that required mere physical courage; but to go into a house and beg for something to eat,—he could not! His heart jumped to his throat with all the nervous energy that attends physical fear in men differently constituted from our hero. Gate after gate was passed, he persuading and promising himself that the next one should surely be entered. Once hedid stopwith his hand on a latch, but chancing to look up at the house he saw a little boy eyeing him from an upper window, and retreated completely vanquished. It required all his stubbornness and constant thoughts of New Orleans to prevent his giving up the projected "tramp" there and then, and acknowledging himself a failure. What was $20,000 to such humiliation!
But another course of reasoning came to his aid: "You call itpride, Ben; but are mistaken. It's lack ofnerve, my boy," said this new logician. "There is as much nerve required in facing humiliations as there is in facing a battery.More, sometimes.Physicallybrave men are plentiful. It ismentalbravery that is lacking in you and thousands of others. To be sure it is low. It is humiliating. It isbegging. You will be a beggar. But you have an object to attain, and it can only be attained the one way. It is either do it, or surrender!"
This sophistry at last wrought so upon him that closing his eyes upon all surroundings, he made a blind dash at a gate, and without allowing himself time to think hurried around to the mansion's back door, at which he was actually knocking before he fully understood himself, and without once remembering Tommy's injunction to be careful and satisfy himself that there was no obnoxious wood-pile in the vicinity.
A man answered his knock, and all his courage immediately oozed out. If it had only been a woman, he thought, it would have been different. But how could he ask a man for something to eat! He could not, and he did not, but stammering out some irrelevant inquiry about an imaginary Mr. Brown, he blushed and looked decidedly sheepish. The man, eyeing him suspiciously, replied that no Mr. Brown lived there, or in that neighborhood, and shut the door in his face.
Poor Ben made his way to the sidewalk feeling smaller than ever in his life. Truly if the $20,000 is to be earned at this price it will be dear enough; and he had not the heart to make another back door appeal, but walked to the appointed rendezvous, and there awaited Tommy.
That young gentleman shortly appeared, smacking his lips, and looking as well fed and contented as possible.
"I had a splendid breakfast! Mutton chops, hot waffles, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, coffee,—oh my eye, such coffee! Three cups of it! Oh!" and Tommy, his vocabulary unable to furnish him with adjectives to do full justice to the merits of the coffee, rolled his eyes instead, little knowing the misery his bill of fare was giving poor empty stomached Ben.
"What did you have, partner?"
Ben very truthfully remarked that he had had a light breakfast, indeed not much of any thing to speak of.
"Then why don't you go into another house and keep agoing until you're full?" asked Tommy. "Go back where I was and tell them I sent you. There's lots left."
But this proposition was viewed unfavorably by Mr. Cleveland, who remarked that he was notveryhungry, (which was false) and that he would purchase a nickel's worth of crackers, which would fill him to repletion.
"Do as you please," replied his companion, "but I advise you not to spend your money foolishly. You can get all the chuck you want, by asking for it, and can save your money for newspapers and tobacco—and (reflectively) hair grease."
Ben persisted in the extravagance of a nickel's worth of crackers, however, and when he had eaten them, felt much better. He also purchased a dime's worth of tobacco, some of which he offered Tommy, who refused the weed.
The two now took to the railroad, and late in the afternoon made a water tank and side track below Elizabeth, where the time table "For employees only," informed them many trains would stop to water and pass, during the night.
On the walk down the track, Tommy had made numerous excursions to houses along the lines for "hand-outs." He met with much success and nearly always returned with something. Sometimes with bread, sometimes bread and meat, and once a lot of soft rice pudding, carefully conveyed in his hat; all of which he shared with Ben, and when they had more than they needed, gave to other tramps whom they met. They passed several of these gentry on their way north-east. At such a meeting, all hands would squat on the rails and a long confab ensue. There were two questions always asked by those they met. One was, "How's 'times' where you fellows come from?" and the other, "How's grub on the road?" All of them professed to be in search of work; which, no doubt, the majority honestly were, but work is at present a very scarce article in the United States.
These tramps either preferred walking, or had been recently "bounced" from trains on which they were stealing rides. Hardly any took to the country roads,—save it might have been in the vicinity of a town,—much preferring the railroads, from which fact they have derived the sobriquet of "cross-tie sailors." Once while Ben was sitting on a pile of ties, awaiting Tommy's return from a foray into a neighboring farm house, he heard his name called, and looking in the direction of the house saw Tom vigorously beckoning him. A plump, kind faced, motherly housewife gave him a pleasant greeting, and on a bench he saw spread an appetizing banquet of bread, butter, milk and apple sauce, to which his little friend was energetically devoting himself. Ben needed no persuasion to follow his example; the good dame, meanwhile, standing by, and condoling with them.
"I have a son at sea, myself," said she, "and Heaven watch over my dear boy! I know not when the fierce winds may shipwreck him among strangers. God, forbid, though. You, young men, should be thankful that it is no worse. And don't forget to thank Him who did it for extending his protecting hand to you."
This was all not quite so lucid as Greek to Ben, who judiciously replied in monosyllables, as he devoured the food. On leaving, their kind hostess presented them with a large package of bread and ham.
When they regained the track, Tommy explained that he had given the good lady "quite a racket." The "racket" proved to be a pathetic tale of shipwreck in which the two tramps had taken a prominent part, having recently landed destitute in New York City, from thence they were making their way on foot to their homes in Baltimore. While Ben could not indorse the moral laxity embraced in the "racket," he nevertheless admired the milk and apple sauce. The bread and ham made them a hearty supper that afternoon, when they had taken to the seclusion of a small grove near the tank and side track. After their repast, Ben was about to remove his boots; for his feet were tired and badly chafed. Tommy advised him not to, stating that it would be better to let his feet "get used to it," and that they would "harden quicker" by allowing his boots to remain on. He took them off, though, and both lay down for a nap to strengthen them for the night's work.
They were soon asleep. Our hero dreamed of New Orleans and its glories. Of bread and milk, a motherly woman and a gruff man. Of gates that would not open, pull them ever so hard; and doors that he battered his knuckles to pieces on without there being a response. But most he dreamed of a pair of great, glorious, grey eyes, that, indeed, had occupied his reflections the major portion of the day.
If Tommy's face indicated the thoughts passing through his mind, his dreams were far from pleasant. He gritted his teeth, and clenched his hands, and muttered hoarsely as he tossed about. Gradually he rolled over on to Ben's outstretched arm. And the arm unconsciously closed around him and drew him to Ben's bosom, on which pillowing his head, the boy slept soundly.