After walking for a few blocks, Jack found that he did not know exactly where he was. But suddenly he exclaimed:
"Why, if there isn't City Hall Square! I've come all the way down Broadway."
He had stared at building after building for a time without thinking much about them, and then he had begun to read the signs.
"I'll come down this way again to-morrow," he said. "It's good there are so many places to work in. I wish I knew exactly what I would like to do, and which of them it is best to go to. I know! I can do as I did in Crofield. I can try one for a while, and then, if I don't like it, I can try another. It is lucky that I know how to do 'most anything."
The confident smile had come back. He had entirely recovered from the shock of his eighty-cent expenditure. He had not met many people, all the way down, and the stores were shut; but for that very reason he had bad more time to study the signs.
"Very nearly every kind of business is done on Broadway," he said, "except groceries and hardware,—but they sell more clothing than anything else. I'll look round everywhere before I settle down; but I must look out not to spend too much money till I begin to make some."
"It's not far now," he said, a little while after, "to the lower end of the city and to the Battery. I'll take a look at the Battery before I go back to the Hotel Dantzic."
Taller and more majestic grew the buildings as he went on, but he was not now so dazed and confused as he had been in the morning.
"Here is Trinity Church, again," he said. "I remember about that. And that's Wall Street. I'll see that as I come back; but now I'll go right along and see the Battery. Of course there isn't any battery there, but Mr. Guilderaufenberg said that from it I could see the fort on Governor's Island."
Jack did not see much of the Battery, for he followed the left-hand sidewalk at the Bowling Green, where Broadway turns into Whitehall Street. He had so long been staring at great buildings whose very height made him dizzy, that he was glad to see beside them some which looked small and old.
"I'll find my way without asking," he remarked to himself. "I'm pretty near the end now. There are some gates, and one of them is open. I'll walk right in behind that carriage. That must be the gate to the Battery."
The place he was really looking for was at some distance to the right, and the carriage he was following so confidently, had a very different destination.
The wide gateway was guarded by watchful men, not to mention two policemen, and they would have caught and stopped any boy who had knowingly tried to do what Jack did so innocently. Their backs must have been turned, for the carriage passed in, and so did Jack, without any one's trying to stop him. He was as bold as a lion about it, because he did not know any better. A number of people were at the same time crowding through a narrower gateway at one side, and they may have distracted the attention of the gatemen.
"I'd just as lief go in at the wagon-gate," said Jack, and he did not notice that each one stopped and paid something before going through. Jack went on behind the carriage. The carriage crossed what seemed to Jack a kind of bridge housed over. Nobody but a boy straight from Crofield could have gone so far as that without suspecting something; but the carriage stopped behind a line of other vehicles, and Jack walked unconcernedly past them.
"Jingo!" he suddenly exclaimed. "What's this? I do believe the end of this street is moving!"
He bounded forward, much startled by a thing so strange and unaccountable, and in a moment more he was looking out upon a great expanse of water, dotted here and there with canal-boats, ships, and steamers.
"Mister," he asked excitedly of a little man leaning against a post, "what's this?"
"Have ye missed your way and got onto the wrong ferry-boat?" replied the little man gleefully. "I did it once myself. All right, my boy. You've got to go to Staten Island this time. Take it coolly."
"Ferry-boat?" said Jack. "Staten Island? I thought it was the end of the street, going into the Battery!"
"Oh, you're a greenhorn!" laughed the little man "Well, it won't hurt ye; only there's no boat back from the island, on Sunday, till after supper. I'll tell ye all about it. Where'd you come from?"
"From Crofield," said Jack, "and I got here only this morning."
The little man eyed him half-suspiciously for a moment, and then led him to the rail of the boat.
"Look back there," he said. "Yonder's the Battery. You ought to have kept on. It's too much for me how you ever got aboard of this 'ere boat without knowing it!" And he went on with a long string of explanations, of which Jack understood about half, with the help of what he recalled from his guide-book. All the while, however, they were having a sail across the beautiful bay, and little by little Jack made up his mind not to care.
"I've made a mistake and slipped right out of the city," he said to himself, "about as soon as I got in! But maybe I can slip back again this evening."
"About the greenest bumpkin I've seen for an age," thought the little man, as he stood and looked at Jack. "It'll take all sorts of blunders to teach him. He is younger than he looks, too. Anyway, this sail won't hurt him a bit."
That was precisely Jack's conclusion long before the swift voyage ended and he walked off the ferry-boat upon the solid ground of Staten Island.
When Jack Ogden left the Staten Island ferry-boat, he felt somewhat as if he had made an unexpected voyage to China, and perhaps might never return to his own country. It was late in the afternoon, and he had been told by the little man that the ferry-boat would wait an hour and a half before the return voyage.
"I won't lose sight of her," said Jack, thoughtfully. "No running around for me this time!"
He did not move about at all. He sat upon an old box, in front of a closed grocery store, near the ferry-house, deciding to watch and wait until the boat started.
"Dullest time I ever had!" he thought; "and it will cost me six cents to get back. You have to pay something everywhere you go. I wish that boat was ready to go now."
It was not ready, and it seemed as if it never would be; meanwhile the Crofield boy sat there on the box and studied the ferry-boat business. He had learned something of it from his guide-book, but he understood it all before the gates opened.
He had not learned much concerning any part of Staten Island, beyond what he already knew from the map; but shortly after he had paid his fare, he began to learn something about the bay and the lower end of New York.
"I'm glad to be on board again," he said, as he walked through the long cabin to the open deck forward. In a few minutes more he drew a long breath and exclaimed:
"She's starting! I know I'm on the right boat, too. But I'm hungry and I wish I had something to eat."
There was nothing to be had on board the boat, but, although hungry, Jack could see enough to keep him from thinking about it.
"It's all city; and all wharves and houses and steeples,—every way you look," he said. "I'm glad to have seen it from the outside, after all."
Jack stared, but did not say a word to anybody until the ferry-boat ran into its dock.
"If I only had a piece of pie and a cup of coffee!" Jack was thinking, as he walked along by the wharves, ashore. Then he caught sight of the smallest restaurant he had ever seen. It was a hand-cart with an awning over it, standing on a corner. A placard hanging from the awning read:
"Clams, one cent apiece; coffee, five cents a cup."
"That's plain enough!" exclaimed Jack. "She can't put on a cent more for anything."
A stout, black-eyed woman stood behind a kind of table, at the end of the cart; and on the table there were bottles of vinegar and pepper-sauce, some crackers, and a big tin coffee-heater.
Coffee and clams.Coffee and clams.
Coffee and clams.Coffee and clams.
"Clams?" she repeated. "Half-dozen, on the shell? Coffee? All right."
"That's all I want, thank you," said Jack, and she at once filled a cup from the coffee-urn and began to open shellfish for him.
"These are the smallest clams I ever saw," thought Jack; "but they're good."
They seemed better and better as he went on eating; and the woman willingly supplied them. He drank his coffee and ate crackers freely, and he was just thinking that it was time for him to stop when the black-eyed woman remarked, with an air of pride,
"Nice and fresh, ain't they? You seem to like them,—thirteen's a dozen; seventeen cents."
"Have I swallowed a dozen already?" said Jack, looking at the pile of shells. "Yes, ma'am, they're tiptop!"
After paying for his supper, there were only some coppers left, besides four one-dollar bills, in his pocket-book.
"Which way's the Battery, ma'am?" Jack asked, as she began to open clams for another customer.
"Back there a way. Keep straight on till you see it," she answered; adding kindly, "It's like a little park; I didn't know you were from the country."
"Pretty good supper, after all," he said. "Cheap, too; but my money's leaking away! Well, it isn't dark yet. I must see all I can before I go to the hotel."
He followed the woman's directions, and he was glad he had done so. He had studied his guide-book faithfully as to all that end of New York, and in spite of his recent blunder did not now need to ask anybody which was the starting place of the elevated railways and which was Castle Garden, where the immigrants were landed. There were little groups of these foreigners scattered over the great open space before him.
"They've come from all over the world," he said, looking at group after group. "Some of those men will have a harder time than I have had trying to get started in New York."
It occurred to him, nevertheless, that he was a long way from Crofield, and that he was not yet at all at home in the city.
"I know some things that they don't know, anyway—if Iamgreen!" he was thinking. "I'll cut across and take a nearer look at Castle Garden—"
"Stop there! Stop, you fellow in the light hat! Hold on!" Jack heard some one cry out, as he started to cross the turfed inclosures.
"What do you want of me?" Jack asked, as he turned around.
"Don't you see the sign there, 'Keep off the grass'? Look! You're on the grass now! Come off! Anyway, I'll fine you fifty cents!"
Jack looked as the man pointed, and saw a little board on a short post; and there was the sign, in plain letters; and here before him was a tall, thin, sharp-eyed, lantern-jawed young man, looking him fiercely in the face and holding out his hand.
"Fifty cents! Quick, now,—or go with me to the police station."
Jack was a little bewildered for a moment. He felt like a cat in a very strange garret. His first thought of the police made him remember part of what Mr. Guilderaufenberg had told him about keeping away from them; but he remembered only the wrong part, and his hand went unwillingly into his pocket.
"Right off, now! No skulking!" exclaimed the sharp eyed man.
"I haven't fifty cents in change," said Jack, dolefully, taking a dollar bill from his pocket-book.
"Hand me that, then. I'll go and get it changed;" and the man reached out a claw-like hand and took the bill from Jack's fingers, without waiting for his consent. "I'll be right back. You stand right there where you are till I come—"
"Hold on!" shouted Jack. "I didn't say you could. Give me back that bill!"
"You wait. I'll bring your change as soon as I can get it," called the sharp-eyed man, as he darted away; but Jack's hesitation was over in about ten seconds.
"I'll follow him, anyhow!" he exclaimed; and he did so at a run.
"Halt!"—it was a man in a neat gray uniform and gilt buttons who spoke this time; and Jack halted just as the fleeing man vanished into a crowd on one of the broad walks.
"He's got my dollar!"
"Tell me what it is, quick!" said the policeman, with a sudden expression of interest.
Jack almost spluttered as he related how the fellow had collected the fine; but the man in gray only shook his head.
"I thought I saw him putting up something," he said. "It's well he didn't get your pocket-book, too! He won't show himself here again to-night. He's safe by this time."
"Do you know him?" asked Jack, greatly excited; but more than a little in dread of the helmet-hat, buttons, and club.
"Know him? 'Jimmy the Sneak?' Of course I do. He's only about two weeks out of Sing Sing. It won't be long before he's back there again. When did you come to town? What's your name? Where'd you come from? Where are you staying? Do you know anybody in town?"
He had a pencil and a little blank-book, and he rapidly wrote out Jack's answers.
"You'll get your eyes open pretty fast, at this rate," he said. "That's all I want of you, now. If I lay a hand on Jimmy, I'll know where to find you. You'd better go home. If any other thief asks you for fifty cents, you call for the nearest policeman. That's what we're here for."
"A whole dollar gone, and nothing to show for it!" groaned Jack, as he walked away. "Only three dollars and a few cents left! I'll walk all the way up to the Hotel Dantzic, instead of paying five cents for a car ride. I'll have to save money now."
He felt more kindly toward all the policemen he met, and he was glad there were so many of them.
"The police at Central Park," he remarked to himself, "and that fellow at the Battery, were all in gray, and the street police wear blue; but they're a good-looking set of men. I hope they will nab Jimmy the Sneak and get back my dollar for me."
The farther he went, however, the clearer became his conviction that dollars paid to thieves seldom come back; and that an evening walk of more than three miles over the stone sidewalks of New York is a long stroll for a very tired and somewhat homesick country boy. He cared less and less, all the way, how strangely and how splendidly the gas-lights and the electric lights lit up the tall buildings.
"One light's white," he said, "and the other's yellowish, and that's about all there is of it. Well, I'm not quite so green, for I know more than I did this morning!"
It was late for him when he reached the hotel, but it seemed to be early enough for everybody else. Many people were coming and going, and among them all he did not see a face that he knew or cared for. The tired-out, homesick feeling grew upon him, and he walked very dolefully to the elevator. Up it went in a minute, and when he reached his room he threw his hat upon the table, and sat down to think over the long and eventful day.
Jack is homesick.Jack is homesick.
Jack is homesick.Jack is homesick.
"This is the toughest day's work I ever did! I'd like to see the folks in Crofield and tell 'em about it, though," he said.
He went to bed, intending to consider his plans for Monday, but he made one mistake. He happened to close his eyes.
The next thing he knew, there was a ray of warm sunshine striking his face from the open window, for he had slept soundly, and it was nearly seven o'clock on Monday morning.
Jack looked around his room, and then sprang out of bed.
"Hurrah for New York!" he said, cheerfully. "I know what to do now. I'm glad I'm here! I'll write a letter home, first thing, and then I'll pitch in and go to work!"
He felt better. All the hopes he had cherished so long began to stir within him. He brushed his clothes thoroughly, and put on his best necktie; and then he walked out of that room with hardly a doubt that all the business in the great city was ready and waiting for him to come and take part in it. He went down the elevator, after a glance at the stairway and a shake of his head.
"Stairs are too slow," he thought. "I'll try them some time when I am not so busy."
As he stepped out upon the lower floor he met Mr. Keifelheimer, the proprietor.
"You come in to preakfast mit me," he said. "I promise Mr. Guilderaufenberg and de ladies, too, I keep an eye on you. Some letters in de box for you. You get dem ven you come out. Come mit me."
Jack was very glad to hear of his friends, what had become of them, and what they had said about him, and of course he was quite ready for breakfast. Mr. Keifelheimer talked, while they were eating, in the most friendly and protecting way. Jack felt that he could speak freely; and so he told the whole story of his adventures on Sunday,—Staten Island, Jimmy the Sneak, and all. Mr. Keifelheimer listened with deep interest, making appreciative remarks every now and then; but he seemed to be most deeply touched by the account of the eighty-cent dinner.
"Dot vas too much!" he said, at last. "It vas a schvindle! Dose Broadvay restaurants rob a man efery time. Now, I only charge you feefty-five cents for all dis beautiful breakfast; and you haf had de finest beefsteak and two cups of splendid coffee. So, you make money ven you eat mit me!"
Jack could but admit that the Hotel Dantzic price was lower than the other; but he paid it with an uneasy feeling that while he must have misunderstood Mr. Keifelheimer's invitation it was impossible to say so.
"Get dose letter," said the kindly and thoughtful proprietor. "Den you write in de office. It is better dan go avay up to your room."
Jack thanked him and went for his mail, full of wonder as to how any letters could have come to him.
"A whole handful!" he said, in yet greater wonder, when the clerk handed them out. "Who could have known I was here? Nine,—ten,—eleven,—twelve. A dozen!"
One after another Jack found the envelops full of nicely printed cards and circulars, telling him how and where to find different kinds of goods.
"That makes eight," he said; "and every one a sell. But,—jingo!"
It was a blue envelope, and when he opened it his fingers came upon a dollar bill.
"Mr. Guilderaufenberg's a trump!" he exclaimed; and he added, gratefully, "I'd only about two dollars and a half left. He's only written three lines."
They were kindly words, however, ending with:
I have not tell the ladies; but you should be pay for the stateroom.
I hope you have a good time.
F. VON GUILDERAUFENBERG.
The next envelope was white and square; and when it came open Jack found another dollar bill.
"She's a real good woman!" he said, when he read his name and these words:
I say nothing to anybody; but you should have pay for your stateroom. You was so kind. In haste,
GERTRUDE VON GUILDERAUFENBERG.
"I'll go and see them some day," said Jack.
He had opened the eleventh envelope, which was square and pink, and out came another dollar bill. Jack read his own name again, followed by:
We go this minute. I have not told them. You should have pay for your stateroom. Thanks. You was so kind.
MARIE HILDEBRAND.
"Now, if she isn't one of the most thoughtful women in the world!" said Jack; "and what's this?"
Square, gray, with an ornamental seal, was the twelfth envelope, and out of it came a fourth dollar bill, and this note:
For the stateroom. I have told not the others. With thanks of
DOLISKA POD——SKI.
It was a fine, small, pointed, and wandering handwriting, and Jack in vain strove to make out the letters in the middle of the Polish lady's name.
"I don't care!" he said. "She's kind, too. So are all the rest of them; and Mr. Guilderaufenberg's one of the best fellows I ever met. Now I've got over six dollars, and I can make some more right away."
He pocketed his money, and felt more confident than ever; and he walked out of the Hotel Dantzic just as his father, at home in Crofield, was reading to Mrs. Ogden and Aunt Melinda and the children the letter he had written in Albany, on Saturday.
They all had their comments to make, but at the end of it the tall blacksmith said to his wife:
"There's one thing certain, Mary. I won't let go of any of that land till after they've run the railway through it."
"Land?" said Aunt Melinda. "Why, it's nothing but gravel. They can't do anything with it."
"It joins mine," said Mr. Ogden; "and I own more than an acre behind the shop. We'll see whether the railroad will make any difference. Well, the boy's reached the city long before this!"
There was silence for a moment after that, and then Mr. Ogden went over to the shop. He was not very cheerful, for he began to feel that Jack was really gone from home.
In Mertonville, Mary Ogden was helping Mrs. Murdoch in her housework, and seemed to be disposed to look out of the window, rather than to talk.
"Now, Mary," said the editor's wife, "you needn't look so peaked, and feel so blue about the way you got along with that class of girls—"
"Girls?" said Mary. "Why, Mrs. Murdoch! Only half of them were younger than I; they said there would be only sixteen, and there were twenty-one. Some of the scholars were twice as old as I am, and one had gray hair and wore spectacles!"
"I don't care," said Mrs. Murdoch, "the Elder said you did well. Now, dear, dress yourself, and be ready for Mrs. Edwards; she's coming after you, and I hope you'll enjoy your visit. Come in and see me as often as you can and tell me the news."
Mary finished the dishes and went upstairs, saying, "And they want me to take that class again next Sunday!"
After leaving the Hotel Dantzic, with his unexpected supply of money, Jack walked smilingly down toward the business part of the city. For a while he only studied signs and looked into great show-windows; and he became more and more confident as he thought how many different ways there were for a really smart boy to make a fortune in New York. He decided to try one way at just about nine o'clock.
"The city's a busy place!" thought Jack, as he walked along. "Some difference between the way they rush along on Monday and the way they loitered all day Sunday!"
He even walked faster because the stream of men carried him along. It made him think of the Cocahutchie.
"I'll try one of these big clothing places," he said, about nine o'clock. "I'll see what wages they're giving. I know something about tailoring."
He paused in front of a wide and showy-looking store on Broadway. He drew a long breath and went in. The moment he entered he was confronted by a very fat, smiling gentleman, who bowed and asked:
"What can we do for you, sir?"
"I'd like to know if you want a boy," said Jack, "and what wages you're giving. I know—"
"After a place? Oh, yes. That's the man you ought to see," said the jocose floor-walker, pointing to a spruce salesman behind a counter, and winking at him from behind Jack.
The business of the day had hardly begun, and the idle salesman saw the wink. Jack walked up to him and repeated his inquiry.
"Want a place, eh? Where are you from? Been long in the business?"
Jack told him about Crofield, and about the "merchant tailors" there, and gave a number of particulars before the very dignified and sober-faced salesman's love of fun was satisfied; and then the salesman said:
"I can't say. You'd better talk with that man yonder."
There was another wink, and Jack went to "that man," to answer another string of questions, some of which related to his family, and the Sunday-school he attended; and then he was sent on to another man, and another, and to as many more, until at last he heard a gruff voice behind him asking, "What does that fellow want? Send him to me!"
Jack turned toward the voice, and saw a glass "coop," as he called it, all glass panes up to above his head, excepting one wide, semicircular opening in the middle. The clerk to whom Jack was talking at that moment suddenly became very sober.
"Head of the house!" he exclaimed to himself. "Whew! I didn't know he'd come;" Then he said to Jack: "The head partner is at the cashier's desk. Speak to him."
Jack stepped forward, his cheeks burning with the sudden perception that he had been ridiculed. He saw a sharp-eyed lady counting money, just inside the little window, but she moved away, and Jack was confronted by a very stern, white-whiskered gentleman.
"What do you want?" the man asked.
"I'd like to know if you'll hire another boy, and what you're paying?" said Jack, bravely.
"No; I don't want any boy," replied the man in the coop, savagely. "You get right out."
"Tell you what youdowant," said Jack, for his temper was rising fast, "you'd better get a politer set of clerks!"
"I will, if there is any more of this nonsense," said the head of the house, sharply. "Now, that's enough. No more impertinence."
Jack was all but choking with mortification, and he wheeled and marched out of the store.
"I wasn't afraid of him," he thought, "and I ought to have spoken to him first thing. I might have known better than to have asked those fellows. I sha'n't be green enough to do that again. I'll ask the head man next time."
That was what he tried to do in six clothing-stores, one after another; but in each case he made a failure. In two of them, they said the managing partner was out; and then, when he tried to find out whether they wanted a boy, the man he asked became angry and showed him the door. In three more, he was at first treated politely, and then informed that they already had hundreds of applications. To enter the sixth store was an effort, but he went in.
"One of the firm? Yes, sir," said the floor-walker. "There he is."
Only a few feet from him stood a man so like the one whose face had glowered at him through that cashier's window in the first store that Jack hesitated a moment, but the clerk spoke out:
"Wishes to speak to you, Mr. Hubbard."
"This way, my boy. What is it?"
Jack was surprised by the full, mellow, benevolent voice that came from under the white moustaches.
"Do you want to hire a boy, sir?" he inquired.
"I do not, my son. Where are you from?" asked Mr. Hubbard, with a kindlier expression than before.
Jack told him, and answered two or three other questions.
"From up in the country, eh?" he said. "Have you money enough to get home again?"
"I could get home," stammered Jack, "but there isn't any chance for a boy up in Crofield."
"Ten chances there for every one there is in the city, my boy," said Mr. Hubbard. "One hundred boys here for every place that's vacant. You go home. Dig potatoes. Make hay. Drive cows. Feed pigs. Doanythinghonest, but get out of New York. It's one great pauper-house, now, with men and boys who can't find anything to do."
"Thank you, sir," said Jack, with a tightening around his heart. "But I'll find something. You see if I don't—"
"Take my advice, and go home!" replied Mr. Hubbard, kindly. "Good-morning."
"Good-morning," said Jack, and while going out of that store he had the vividest recollections of all the country around Crofield.
"I'll keep on trying, anyway," he said. "There's a place for me somewhere. I'll try some other trade. I'll doanything."
So he did, until one man said to him:
"Everybody is at luncheon just now. Begin again by and by; but I'm afraid you'll find there are no stores needing boys."
"I need some dinner myself," thought Jack. "I feel faint. Mister," he added aloud, "I must buy some luncheon, too. Where's a good place?"
He was directed to a restaurant, and he seated himself at a table and ordered roast beef in a sort of desperation.
"I don't care what it costs!" he said. "I've got some money yet."
Beef, potatoes, bread and butter, all of the best, came, and were eaten with excellent appetite.
Jack was half afraid of the consequences when the waiter put a bright red check down beside his plate.
"Thirty cents?" exclaimed he joyfully, picking it up. "Why, that's the cheapest dinner I've had in New York."
"All right, sir. Come again, sir," said the waiter, smiling; and then Jack sat still for a moment.
"Six dollars, and, more too," he said to himself; "and my room's paid for besides. I can go right on looking up a place, for days and days, if I'm careful about my money. I mustn't be discouraged."
He certainly felt more courageous, now that he had eaten dinner, and he at once resumed his hunt for a place; but there was very little left of his smile. He went into store after store with almost the same result in each, until one good-humored gentleman remarked to him:
"My boy, why don't you go to a Mercantile Agency?"
"What's that?" asked Jack, and the man explained what it was.
"I'll go to one right away," Jack said hopefully.
"That's the address of a safe place," said the gentleman writing a few words. "Look out for sharpers, though. Plenty of such people in that business. I wish you good luck."
Before long Jack Ogden stood before the desk of the "Mercantile Agency" to which he had been directed, answering questions and registering his name. He had paid a fee of one dollar, and had made the office-clerk laugh by his confidence.
"You seem to think you can take hold of nearly anything," he said. "Well, your chance is as good as anybody's. Some men prefer boys from the country, even if they can't give references."
"When do you think you can get me a place?" asked Jack.
"Can't tell. We've only between four hundred and five hundred on the books now; and sometimes we get two or three dozen fixed in a day."
"Five hundred!" exclaimed Jack, with a clouding face. "Why, it may be a month before my turn comes!"
"A month?" said the clerk. "Well, I hope not much longer, but it may be. I wouldn't like to promise you anything so soon as that."
Jack went out of that place with yet another idea concerning "business in the city," but he again began to make inquiries for himself. It was the weariest kind of work, and at last he was heartily sick of it.
"I've done enough for one day," he said to himself. "I've been into I don't know how many stores. I know more about it than I did this morning."
There was no doubt of that. Jack had been getting wiser all the while; and he did not even look so rural as when he set out. He was really beginning to get into city ways, and he was thinking hard and fast.
The first thing he did, after reaching the Hotel Dantzic, was to go up to his room. He felt as if he would like to talk with his sister Mary, and so he sat down and wrote her a long letter.
He told her about his trip, all through, and about his German friends, and his Sunday; but it was anything but easy to write about Monday's experiences. He did it after a fashion, but he wrote much more cheerfully than he felt.
Then he went down to the supper-room for some tea. It seemed to him that he had ordered almost nothing, but it cost him twenty-five cents.
It would have done him good if he could have known how Mary's thoughts were at that same hour turning to him.
At home, Jack's father and Mr. Magruder were talking about Jack's land, arranging about the right of way and what it was worth, while he sat in his little room in the Hotel Dantzic, thinking over his long, weary day of snubs, blunders, insults and disappointments.
"Hunting for a place in the city is just the meanest kind of work," he said at last. "Well, I'll go to bed, and try it again to-morrow."
That was what he did; but Tuesday's work was "meaner" than Monday's. There did not seem to be even so much as a variation. It was all one dull, monotonous, miserable hunt for something he could not find. It was just so on Wednesday, and all the while, as he said, "Money will just melt away; and somehow you can't help it."
When he counted up, on Wednesday evening, however, he still had four dollars and one cent; and he had found a place where they sold bread and milk, or bread and coffee, for ten cents.
"I can get along on that," he said; "and it's only thirty-cents a day, if I eat three times. I wish I'd known about it when I first came here. I'm learning something new all the time."
Thursday morning came, and with it a long, gossipy letter from Mary, and an envelope from Crofield, containing a letter from his mother and a message from his father written by her, saying how he had talked a little—only a little—with Mr. Magruder. There was a postscript from Aunt Melinda, and a separate sheet written by his younger sisters, with scrawly postscripts from the little boys to tell Jack how the workmen had dug down and found the old church bell, and that there was a crack in it, and the clapper was broken off.
Jack felt queer over those letters.
"I won't answer them right away," he said. "Not till I get into some business. I'll go farther down town today, and try there."
At ten o'clock that morning, a solemn party of seven men met in the back room of the Mertonville Bank.
"Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, please come to order. I suppose we all agree? We need a teacher of experience. The academy's not doing well. The lady principal can't do everything. She must have a good assistant."
"Who's your candidate, Squire Crowninshield?" asked Judge Edwards. "I'm trustee as Judge of the County Court. I've had thirty-one applications for my vote."
"I've had more than that," said the Squire good humoredly. "I won't name my choice till after the first ballot. I want to know who are the other candidates first."
"So do I," said Judge Edwards. "I won't name mine at once, either. Who is yours, Elder Holloway?"
"We'd better have a nominating ballot," remarked the Elder, handing a folded slip of paper to Mr. Murdoch, the editor of theEagle. "Who is yours, Mr. Jeroliman?"
"I haven't any candidate," replied the bank-president, with a worried look. "I won't name any, but I'll put a ballot in."
"Try that, then," said General Smith, who was standing instead of sitting down at the long table. "Just a suggestion."
Every trustee had something to say as to how he had been besieged by applicants, until the seventh, who remarked:
"I've just returned from Europe, gentlemen. I'll vote for the candidate having the most votes on this ballot. I don't care who wins."
"I agree to that," quickly responded General Smith, handing him a folded paper. "Put it in, Dr. Dillingham. It's better that none of us should do any log-rolling or try to influence others. I'll adopt your idea."
"I won't then," said Squire Crowninshield, pleasantly but very positively. "Murdoch, what's the name of that young woman who edited theEaglefor a week?"
"Miss Mary Ogden," said the editor, with a slight smile.
"A clever girl," said the Squire, as he wrote on a paper, folded it, and threw it into a hat in the middle of the table. He had not heard Judge Edwards's whispered exclamation:
"That reminds me! I promised my wife that I'd mention Mary for the place; but then there wasn't the ghost of a chance!"
In went all the papers, and the hat was turned over.
"Now, gentlemen," said General Smith, "before the ballots are opened and counted, I wish to ask: Is this vote to be considered regular and formal? Shall we stand by the result?"
"Certainly, certainly," said the trustees in chorus.
"Count the ballots!" said the Elder.
The hat was lifted and the count began.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—for Mary Ogden," said Elder Holloway calmly.
"I declare!" said General Smith. "Unanimous? Why, gentlemen, we were agreed! There really was no difference of opinion whatever."
"I'm glad she is such a favorite," said Judge Edwards; "but we can't raise the salary on that account. It'll have to remain at forty dollars a month."
"I'm glad she's got it!" said Mr. Murdoch. "And a unanimous vote is a high testimonial!"
And so Mary was elected.
Each of them had other business to attend to, and it was not until Judge Edwards went home, at noon, that the news was known to Mary, for the Judge carried the pleasant tidings to Mary Ogden at the dinner-table.
"Oh, Judge Edwards!" exclaimed Mary, turning pale. "I? At my age—to be assistant principal of the academy?"
"There's only the Primary Department to teach," said the Judge encouragingly. "Not half so hard as that big, overgrown Sunday-school class. Only it never had a good teacher yet, and you'll have hard work to get it into order."
"What will they say in Crofield!" said Mary uneasily. "They'll say I'm not fit for it."
"I'm sure Miss Glidden will not," said Mrs. Edwards, proudly. "I'm glad it was unanimous. It shows what they all thought of you."
Perhaps it did; but perhaps it was as well for Mary Ogden's temper that she could not hear all that was said when the other trustees went home to announce their action.
It was a great hour for Mary, but her brother Jack was at that same time beginning to think that New York City was united against him,—a million and a half to one.
He had been fairly turned out of the last store he had entered.
At Crofield, the morning mail brought a letter from Mary, telling of her election.
There was not so very much comment, but Mrs. Ogden cried a little, and said:
"I feel as if we were beginning to lose the children."
"I must go to work," said the tall blacksmith after a time; "but I don't feel like it. So Mary's to teach, is she? She seems very young. I wish I knew about Jack."
Meanwhile, poor Jack was half hopelessly inquiring, of man after man, whether or not another boy was wanted in his store. It was only one long, flat, monotony of "No, sir," and at last he once more turned his weary footsteps up-town, and hardly had he done so before he waked up a little and stood still, and looked around him.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "I never was here before. This must be Chatham Square and the Bowery. I've read about them in the guide-book. I can go home this way. It's not much like Broadway."
So he thought, as he went along. And it did not at all resemble Broadway. It seemed to swarm with people; they appeared to be attending to their own business, and they were all behaving very well, so far as Jack could see.
"Never saw such a jam," said Jack, as he pushed into a small throng on a street corner, trying to get through; but at the word "jam" something came down upon the top of his hat and forced it forward over his eyes.
Up went both of his hands, instinctively, and at that moment each arm was at once caught and held up for a second or two. It was all done in a flash. Jack knew that some boisterous fellow had jammed his hat over his eyes, and that others had hustled him a little; but he had not been hurt, and he did not feel like quarreling, just then. He pushed along through the throng, and was getting out to where the crowd was thinner, when he suddenly felt a chill and a weak feeling at his heart. He had thrust his hand into his pocket.
"My pocket-book!" he said, faintly. "It's gone! Where could I have lost it? I haven't taken it out anywhere. And there was more than three dollars in it I'd saved to pay for my room!"
He leaned heavily against a lamp-post for a moment, and all the bright ideas he had ever had about the city became very dim and far away. He put up one hand before his eyes, and at that moment his arm was firmly grasped.
"Here, boy! What's the matter?"
He looked up, and saw a blue uniform and a hand with a club in it, but he could not say a word in reply.
"You seem all right. Are you sick?"
"I've lost my pocket-book," said Jack. "Every cent I had except some change."