CHAPTER IV

I believe she would have let me kiss her had I wanted to then.

"I guess this ends my education, and being a lawyer, and all that," I said gloomily, as we drew near the Rudgefarm. "Dad will never forgive this. He thinks rum is the best road to hell, the same as the old preacher. He won't sell a glass of cider in the store."

"There are other kinds of work," she answered. "You can show them just the same you know what's right."

"But you'll never marry a man who isn't educated," I said boldly.

"I'll never marry a man who hasn't principles—and religion," she replied without a blush.

"So I must be good and pious, as well as educated?"

"You must be a man"—and her lips curved ironically—"and now you are just a boy."

But I held her hand when I helped her from the buggy, and I believe she would have let me kiss her had I wanted to then.

Earning mighty little but my keep.

Father and mother took my expulsion from school very hard, as I expected. Father especially—who had begun to brag somewhat at the store about my being a lawyer and beating the judge out—was so bitter that I told him if he would give me fifty dollars I would go off somewhere and never trouble him again.

"You ask me to give you fifty dollars to go to hell with!" he shouted out.

"Put me in the store, then, and let me earn it. Give me the same money you give Will."

But father didn't want me around the store for folks to see. So I had to go out to a farm once more, to a place that father was working on shares with a Swede. I spent the better part of two years on that farm, living with the old Swede, and earning mighty little but my keep. For father gave me a dollar now and then, but no regular wages. I could get sight of May only on a Sunday. She was teaching her first school in another county. Father and mother Rudge had never liked me: they looked higher for May than to marry a poor farm-hand, who had a bad name in the town. My brother Will, who was a quiet, church-going fellow, had learned his way to the Rudge place by this time, and the old people favored him.

After a while I heard of a chance in a surveyor's office at Terre Haute, but old Sorrell, who had more business than any ten men in that part of the country, met the surveyor on the train, and when I reached the office there wasn't any job for me. That night, when I got back from Terre Haute, I told my folks that I was going to Chicago. The next day I asked my father again for some money. Mother answered for him:—

"Will don't ask us for money. It won't be fair to him."

"So he's to have the store and my girl too," I said bitterly.

"May Rudge isn't the girl to marry a young man who's wild."

"I'll find that out for myself!"

Always having had a pretty fair opinion of myself, I found it hard to be patient and earn good-will by my own deserts. So I said rather foolishly to father:—

"Will you give me a few dollars to start me with? I have earned it all right, and I am asking you for the last time."

It was a kind of threat, and I am sorry enough for it now. I suspect he hadn't the money, for things were going badly with him. He answered pretty warmly that I should wait a long time before he gave me another dollar to throw away. I turned on my heel without a word to him or mother, and went out of the house with the resolve not to return.

But before I left Jasonville to make my plunge into the world I would see May Rudge. I wanted to say to her: "Which will you have? Choose now!" So I turned about and started for the Rudge farm, which was about a mile from the town, beyond the old place on the creek that used to belong to us. Judge Sorrell had put up a large new barn on the place, where he kept some fine blooded stock that he had been at considerable expense to import. I had never been inside the barn, and as I passed it that afternoon, it came into my mind, for no particular reason, to turn in at the judge's farm and go by the new building. Maybe I thought the old judge would be around somewhere, and I should havethe chance before I left Jasonville to tell him what I thought of his dirty, sneaking ways.

But there was no one in the big barn, apparently, or anywhere on the place, and after looking about for a little I went on to May's. I came up to the Rudge farm from the back, having taken a cut across the fields.

As I drew near the house I saw Will and May sitting under an apple tree talking. I walked on slowly, my anger somehow rising against them both. There was nothing wrong in their being there—nothing at all; but I was ready to fire at the first sign. By the looks of it, mother was right: they were already sweethearts. Will seemed to have something very earnest to say to May. He took hold of one of her hands, and she didn't draw it away at once.... There wasn't anything more to keep me in Jasonville.

I kept right on up the country road, without much notion of where I was going to, too hot and angry to think about anything but those two under the apple tree. I had not gone far before I heard behind me a great rushing noise, like the sudden sweep of a tornado, and then a following roar. I looked up across the fields, and there was the judge's fine new barn one mass of red flame and black smoke. It was roaring so that I could hear it plainly a quarter of a mile away. Naturally, I started to run for the fire, and ran hard all the way across the fields. By the time I got there some men from town had arrived and were rushing around crazily. But they hadn't got out the live stock, and there was no chance now to save a hen. The judge drove up presently, and we all stood around and stared at the fire. After a time I began to think it was time for me to move on if I was to get to any place that night. I slipped off and started up the road once more. I hadn't gone far, however, before I was overtaken by a buggy in which was one of the men who had been at the fire.

"Where be yer goin', Van?" he asked peremptorily.

"I don't know as I am called on to tell you, Sam," I answered back.

"Yes, you be," he said more kindly. "I guess you'll have to jump right in here, anyways, and ride back with me. The judge wants to ask you a few questions about this here fire."

"I don't answer any of the judge's questions!" I replied sharply enough, not yet seeing what the man was after. But he told me bluntly enough that I was suspected of setting fire to the barn, and drove me back to the town, where I stayed in the sheriff's custody until my uncle came late that night and bailed me out. Will was with him. Father didn't want me to come home, so Will let me understand. Neither he nor my uncle thought I was innocent, but they hoped that there might not be enough evidence to convict me. Some one on the creek road had seen me going past the barn a little time before the fire was discovered, and that was the only ground for suspecting me.

The next morning I got my uncle (who wouldn't trust me out of his sight) to drive me over to the Rudge place. He sat in the team while I went up to the house and knocked. I was feeling pretty desperate in my mind,but if May would only believe my story, I shouldn't care about the others. She would understand quick enough why I never appeared at the farm the day before. Old man Rudge came to the door, and when he saw me, he drew back and asked me what my business was.

"I guess she don't want much to see you."

"I want to see May," I said.

"I guess she don't want much to see you."

"I must see her."

The sound of our voices brought Mrs. Rudge from the kitchen.

"Mother," old Rudge said, "Van wants to see May."

"Well, Cyrus, it won't do any harm, I guess."

When May came to the door she waited for me to speak.

"I want to tell you, May," I said slowly, "that I didn't have any hand in burning the judge's barn."

"I don't want to believe you did," she said.

"But you do all the same!" I cried sharply.

"Every one says you did, Van," she answered doubtfully.

"So you think I could do a mean, sneaky thing like that?" I replied hotly, and added bitterly: "And then not have sense enough to get out of the way! Well, I know what this means: you and Will have put your heads together. You're welcome to him!"

"You've no reason to say such things, Van!" she exclaimed.

"There ain't no use in you talking with my girl, Harrington," put in Rudge, who had come back to the door. "And I don't want you coming here any more."

"How about that, May?" I asked. "Do you tell me to go?"

Her lips trembled, and she looked at me more kindly. Perhaps in another moment she would have answered and not failed me. But hot and heady as I was by nature, and smarting from all that had happened, I wanted a ready answer: I would not plead for myself.

"So you won't take my word for it?" I said, turning away.

"The word of a drunkard and a good-for-nothing!" the old man fired after me.

"Oh, father! don't," I heard May say. Then perhaps she called my name. But I was at the gate, and too proud to turn back.

I was discharged the next week. Although there wasnothing against me except the fact that I had been seen about the barn previous to the fire, and the well-known enmity between me and the judge, it would have gone hard with me had it not been for the fact that in the ruins of the burned barn they found the remains of an old farm-hand, who had probably wandered in there while drunk and set the place on fire with his pipe.

When I was released my uncle said the folks were ready to have me back home; but without a word I started north on the county road in the direction of the great city.

"So," said his Honor, when I had finished my story in the dingy chamber of the police court, "you want me to believe that you really had no hand in firing that barn any more than you took this lady's purse?"

But he smiled to himself, at his own penetration, I suppose, and when we were back in the court room that dreaded sentence fell from his lips like a shot,—"Officer, the prisoner is discharged."

"I knew he was innocent!" the young lady exclaimed the next instant.

"But, Judge, where is the purse and my friend Worden's fur coat?" the old gentleman protested.

"You don't see them about him, do you, Doctor?" the judge inquired blandly. Then he turned to me: "Edward, I think that you have told me an honest story. I hope so."

He took a coin from his pocket.

"Here's a dollar, my boy. Buy a ticket for as far asthis will take you, and walk the rest of the way home."

"I guess I have come to Chicago to stay," I answered. "They aren't breaking their hearts over losing me down home."

"Well, my son, as you think best. In this glorious Republic it is every man's first privilege to take his own road to hell. But, at any rate, get a good dinner to start on. We don't serve first-class meals here."

"I'll return this as soon as I can," I said, picking up the coin.

"The sooner the better; and the less we see of each other in the future, the better, eh?"

I grinned, and started for the door through which I had been brought into court, but an officer pointed to another door that led to the street. As I made for it I passed near the young lady. She called to me:—

"Mister, mister, what will you do now?"

"Get something to eat first, and then look for another purse, perhaps," I replied.

She blushed very prettily.

"I am sorry I accused you, but you were looking at me so hard just then—I thought.... I want you to take this!"

She tried to give me a bill rolled up in a little wad.

"No, thanks," I said, moving off.

"But you may need it. Every one says it's so hard to find work."

"Well, I don't take money from a woman."

"Oh!" She blushed again.

Then she ran to the old gentleman, who was talking to the judge, and got from him a little black memorandum-book.

"I want you to take this."

"You see, my cards were all in the purse. But there!" she said, writing down her name and address on the first page. "You will know now where to come in case you need help or advice."

"Thank you," I replied, taking the book.

"I do so want to help you to start right and become a good man," she said timidly. "Won't you try to show your friends that they were mistaken in you?"

She turned her eyes up at me appealingly as if she were asking it as a favor to her. I felt foolish and began to laugh, but stopped, for she looked hurt.

"I guess, miss, it don't work quite that way. Ofcourse, I mean to start fresh—but I shan't do it even for your sake. All the same, when you see me next it won't be in a police station."

"That's right!" she exclaimed, beaming at me with her round blue eyes. "I should like to feel that I hadn't hurt you—made you worse."

"Oh, you needn't worry about that, miss. I guess I'm not much worse off for a night in the police station."

She held out her hand and I took it.

"Sarah! Sarah!" the old gentleman called as we were shaking hands. He seemed rather shocked, but the judge looked up at us and smiled quizzically.

Outside it was a warm, pleasant day; the wind was blowing merrily through the dirty street toward the blue lake. For the moment I did not worry over what was to come next. The first thing I did was to get a good meal.

After that refreshment I sauntered forth in the direction of the lake front—the most homelike place I could think of. The roar of the city ran through my head like the clatter of a mill. I seemed to be just a feeble atom of waste in the great stream of life flowing around me.

When I reached the desolate strip of weeds and sand between the avenue and the railroad, the first relay of bums was beginning to round up for the night. The sight of their tough faces filled me with a new disgust; I turned back to the busy avenue, where men and women were driving to and fro with plenty to do and think, and then and there I turned on myself and gave myself a good cussing. Here I was more than twenty, and just a plainfool, and had been ever since I could remember. When I had rid myself of several layers of conceit it began to dawn on me that this was a world where one had to step lively if he wasn't to join the ranks of the bums back there in the sand. That was the most valuable lot of thinking I ever did in my life. It took the sorehead feeling of wronged genius out of me for good and all. Pretty soon I straightened my back and started for the city to find somewhere a bite of food and a roof to cover my head.

And afterward there would be time to think of conquering the world!

THE PIERSONS

A familiar face—A hospitable roof—The Pierson family, and others—The Enterprise Market, and ten dollars a week—Miss Hillary Cox—Crape—From the sidewalk—The company of successful adventurers—The great Strauss

"Hello! Here you be! Ain't I glad I found yer this soon," and Ed's brown eyes were looking into mine. His seemed to me just then about the best face in the world. "Seems though I was bound to be chasin' some one in this city!" he shouted, grabbing me by the arm. "But I've found all of 'em now."

He had missed me at the police station by a few minutes, and I had left no address. After looking up and down a few streets near by, Ed had thought of lying in wait for me on the lake front, feeling that unless some extraordinary good luck had happened to me I should bring up at that popular resort. He had not seen the little incident when the detective grabbed me in the great store, for just at that moment his attention had been attracted to a girl at one of the counters, who had called him by name. The girl, who was selling perfumes and tooth-washes, turned out to be his cousin Lou, his Aunt Pierson's younger daughter. After the surprise of their meeting Ed had looked for me, and the floor-walker told them ofmy misfortune. Then the cousin had made Ed go home with her. Mrs. Pierson, it seems, took in boarders in her three-story-and-basement house on West Van Buren Street. She and the two girls had given Ed a warm welcome, and for the first time in many days he had had the luxury of a bed, which had caused him to oversleep, and miss me at the station.

"Ma Pierson's."

All this I learned as we walked westward toward Ed's new home. At first I was a little shy about putting another burden on the boy's relations. But my friend would not hear of letting me go. When Ed tucked hisarm under mine and hauled me along with country heartiness, saying I could share his bed and he had a job in view for us both, I felt as though the sun had begun to shine all over again that day. Through all the accidents of many years I have never forgotten that kindness, and my heart warms afresh when I stop to think how Ed grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him off those city streets....

So it happened at dinner-time that night I found myself in the basement dining room and made my first bow to some people who were to be near me for a number of years—one or two of them for life. I can remember just how they all looked sitting about the table, which was covered with a mussed red table-cloth, and lit by a big, smelly oil lamp. Pa Pierson sat at the head of the table, an untidy, gray-haired old man, who gave away his story in every line of his body. He had made some money in his country store back in Michigan; but the ambition to try his luck in the city had ruined him. He had gone broke on crockery. He was supposed to be looking for work, but he spent most of his time in this basement dining room, warming himself at the stove and reading the boarders' papers.

The girls and the boy, Dick, paid him even less respect than they did their mother. They were all the kind of children that don't tolerate much incompetence in their parents. Dick was a putty-faced, black-haired cub, who scrubbed blackboards and chewed gum in a Board of Trade man's office. Neither he nor his two sisters, who were also working downtown, contributed much to thehouse, and except that now and then Grace, the older one, would help clean up the dishes in a shamefaced way, or bring the food on the table when the meal was extra late or she wanted to get out for the evening, not one of the three ever raised a finger to help with the work. The whole place, from kitchen to garret, fell on poor old Ma Pierson, and the boarders were kinder to her than her own children. Lank and stooping, short-sighted, with a faded, tired smile, she came and went between the kitchen and the dining room, cooking the food and serving it, washing the dishes, scrubbing the floors, and making the beds—I never saw her sit down to the table with us except one Christmas Day, when she was too sick to cook. She took her fate like an Indian, and died on the steps of her treadmill.

There were two other regular boarders besides myself and Ed—a man and a woman. The latter, Miss Hillary Cox, was cashier in the New Enterprise Market, not far from the house. She was rather short and stout, with thick ropes of brown hair that she piled on her head in a solid mass to make her look tall. She had bright little eyes, and her rosy face showed that she had not been long in the city.

The man was a long, lean, thin-faced chap, somewhat older than I was. His name was Jaffrey Slocum; he was studying law and doing stenographic work in a law office in the city. When I first looked at him I thought that he would push his way over most of the rocks in the road—and he did. Slocum was a mighty silent man, but little passed before his eyes without his knowingwhat it meant. I learned later that he came from a good Maine family, and had been to college in the East. And he had it much on his mind to do several things with his life—the first of which was to buy back the old home in Portland, and put his folks there where they belonged. Old Sloco, we called him! For all his slow, draggy ways he had pounds of pressure on the gauge. He and I have fought through some big fights since then, and there's no man I had as soon have beside me in a scrap as that thin-faced, scrawny-necked old chip of Maine granite.

When Ed introduced me at the table, Grace made a place beside her, and her sister Lou hospitably shoved over a plate of stew. Then Lou smiled at me and opened fire:—

"We read all about you in the papers this morning, Mr. Harrington!"

"Heh, heh!" Pa Pierson cackled.

"Say, Lou, I don't call that polite," Grace protested in an affected tone.

"Don't mind me," I called out. "I guess I'm a public character, anyway."

"What did the lady say when she found she was wrong?" Lou went on. "I should think she'd want to die, doing a mean thing like that."

"Did she give you any little souvenir of the occasion?" Dick inquired.

"If they are real nice folks, I should think they'd try to make it up some way," Grace added.

"But what we want to know first," Slocum drawledgravely, "is, did you take the purse, and, if so, where did you put it?"

"Why, Mr. Slocum!" Miss Cox sputtered, not catching the joke. "What a thing to insinuate! I am sure Mr. Harrington doesn't look like that—any one could see he wouldn'tsteal."

In this way they passed me back and forth, up and down the table, until the last scrap of meat was gnawed from the bone. Then they sniffed at Jasonville. Where was it? What did I do there? Why did I come to the city? Miss Cox was the sharpest one at the questions. She wanted to know all about my father's store. She had already got Ed a place as delivery clerk in the Enterprise Market, and there might be an opening in the same store for me. I could see that there would be a place all right if I met the approval of the smart little cashier. It has never been one of my faults to be backward with women,—all except May,—and as Miss Hillary Cox was far from unprepossessing, I fixed my attention on her for the rest of the evening.

The Pierson girls tired of me quickly enough, as they had already tired of Ed. Lou soon ceased to smile at me and open her eyes in her silly stare when I made a remark. After dinner she went out on the steps to wait for a beau, who was to take her to a dance. Grace sat awhile to chaff with the lawyer's clerk. He seemed to make fun of her, but I could see that he liked her pretty well. (It must be a stupid sort of woman, indeed, who can't get hold of a man when he has nothing to do after his work except walk the streets or read a book!) Therewas nothing bad in either of the girls: they were just soft, purring things, shut up all day long, one in a big shop and the other in a dentist's office. Of course, when they got home, they were frantic for amusement, dress, the theatre—anything bright and happy; anything that would make a change. They had a knack of stylish dressing, and on the street looked for all the world like a rich man's daughters. Nothing bad in either one, then—only that kind gets its eyes opened too late!...

The next morning I stepped around to the Enterprise Market, and Miss Cox introduced me to the proprietors. They were two brothers, sharp-looking young men, up-to-date in their ideas, the cashier had told me, and bound to make the Enterprise the largest market on the West Side. Miss Cox had evidently said a good word for me, and that afternoon I found myself tying up parcels and taking orders at ten dollars a week.

Not a very brilliant start on fortune's road, but I was glad enough to get it. The capable cashier kept a friendly eye on me, and saved me from getting into trouble. Before long I had my pay raised, and then raised again. Ed had taken hold well, too, and was given more pay. He was more content with his job than I was. The work suited him—the driving about the city streets, the rush at the market mornings, the big crates of country stuff that came smelling fresh from the fields. The city was all that he had hoped to find it. Not so to me—I looked beyond; but I worked hard and took my cues from the pretty cashier, who grew more friendly every day. We used to go to places in theevenings,—lectures and concerts mostly,—for Miss Cox thought the theatre was wicked. She was a regular church attendant, and made me go with her Sundays. She was thrifty, too, and taught me to be stingy with my quarters and halves.

The Enterprise Market.

The first day I could take off I went to the police station and paid my loan from the judge. I had to wait an hour before I could speak to him, while he ground out a string of drunks and assaults, shooting out his sentences like a rapid-fire battery. When I finally got his attention, he turned one eye on me:—

"Well, Edward, so you haven't gone home yet!" And that was all he said as he dropped the coin into his pocket. (I hope that my paying back that money made him merciful to the next young tramp that was cast up there before him!)

After I had paid the judge I strolled down to the South Side, into the new residence district, with some idea of seeing where the young lady lived who had first had me arrested and then wanted to reform me. When I came to the number she had written in the memorandum-book, there was a piece of crape on the door. It gave me a shock. I hung around for a while, not caring to disturb the people inside, and yet hoping to find out that it was not the young lady who had died. Finally I came away, having made up my mind, somehow, that it was the young lady, and feeling sorry that she was gone. That night I opened the memorandum-book she had given me, and began a sort of diary in a cramped, abbreviated hand. The first items read as follows:—

September 30.Giv. this book by young la. who tho't I stole her purse. She hopes I may take the right road.

October 1.—Got job in Ent—mark., 1417 W. VanB St. $10. Is this the right road?

October 23.—Went to address young lad. gav. me. Found crape on the door. Hope it's the old man.

From time to time since then I have taken out the little black memorandum-book, and made other entries of those happenings in my life that seemed to me especially important—sometimes a mere list of figures or names,writing them in very small. It lies here before me now, and out of these bare notes, keywords as it were, there rise before me many facts,—the deeds of twenty-five years.

When I got back to the Piersons' for dinner, Miss Cox was curious to know what I had done with my first day off.

"I bet he's been to see that girl who had him arrested," Lou suggested mischievously. "And from the way he looks I guess she told him she hadn't much use for a butcher-boy."

Pa Pierson laughed; he was a great admirer of his daughter's wit.

"I don't think he's that much of a fool, to waste his time trapesing about afterher," Hillary Cox snapped back.

"Well, I did look up the house," I admitted, and added, "but the folks weren't at home."

After supper we sat out on the steps, and Hillary asked me what kind of a place the young woman lived in. I told her about the crape on the door, and she looked at me disgustedly.

"Why didn't you ask?" she demanded.

"I didn't care to know if it was so, perhaps."

"I don't see as you have any particular reason to care, one way or the other," she retorted. And she went off for that evening somewhere with Ed. For the want of anything better to do I borrowed a book from the law student, who was studying in his room, and thus, by wayof an accident, began a habit of reading and talking over books with Slocum.

So I was soon fitted into my hole in the city. In that neighborhood there must have been many hundreds of places like Ma Pierson's boarding-house. The checker-board of prairie streets cut up the houses like marble cake—all the same, three-story-and-mansard-roof, yellow brick, with long lines of dirty, soft stone steps stretching from the wooden sidewalks to the second stories. And the group of us there in the little basement dining room, noisy with the rattle of the street cars, and dirty with the smoke of factory chimneys in the rear, was a good deal like the others in the other houses—strugglers on the outside of prosperity, trying hard to climb up somewhere in the bread-and-butter order of life, and to hold on tight to what we had got. No one, I suppose, ever came to Chicago, at least in those days, without a hope in his pocket of landing at the head of the game sometime. Even old Ma Pierson cherished a secret dream of a rich marriage for one or other of her girls!

Hillary Cox smiled on me again the next day, and we were as good friends as ever. As I have said, the energetic cashier of the Enterprise Market had taken me in hand and was forming me to be a business man. She was a smart little woman, and had lots of good principles besides. She believed in religion on Sundays, as she believed in business on week days. So on the Sabbath morning we would leave Ed and Lou and Dick Pierson yawning over the breakfast table, while Slocum and I escorted Grace and Hillary downtown to hear some celebrated preacher in one of the prominent churches. Hillary Cox had no relish for the insignificant and humble in religion, such as we might have found around the corner. She wanted the best there was to be had, she said, and she wanted to see the people who were so much talked about in the papers.

Perhaps the rich and prominent citizens made more of a point of going to church in those days than they do now. It was a pretty inferior church society that couldn't show up two or three of the city's solid merchants, who came every Sunday with their women, all dressed in their smartest and best. Hillary and Grace seemed to know most of these people by sight. Women are naturally curious about one another, and I suppose the girls saw their pictures and learned their names in the newspapers. And in this way I, too, learned to know by sight some of the men whom later it was my fortune to meet elsewhere.

There was Steele, the great dry-goods merchant, and Purington, whose works for manufacturing farming tools were just behind Ma Pierson's house; Lardner, a great hardware merchant; Maybricks, a wholesale grocer; York, a rich lumberman—most of them thin-faced, shrewd Yankees, who had seized that tide of fate which the poet tells us sweeps men to fortune. And there were others, perhaps less honorably known as citizens, but equally important financially: Vitzer, who became known later as the famous duke of gas, and Maxim, who already had begun to stretch out his fingers over the street-car lines. This man had made his money buying up taxtitles, that one building cars, and another laying out railroads, and wrecking them, too. They were the people of the land!

"That's Strauss!"

One fine winter morning, as the four of us idled on the sidewalk opposite a prominent South Side church that was discharging its prosperous congregation into the street, Slocum nudged me and pointed to a group of well-dressed people—two or three women and a short, stout, smooth-shaven man—who were standing on the steps of the church, surveying the scene and bowing to their neighbors.

"That's Strauss!"

It was not necessary to say more. Even in those days the great Strauss had made his name as well known as that of the father of our country. He it was who knew each morning whether the rains had fallen on the plains beneath the Andes; how many cattle on the hoof had entered the gates of Omaha and Kansas City; how tight the pinch of starvation set upon Russian bellies; and whether the Sultan's subjects had bought their bread of Liverpool. Flesh and grain, meat and bread—Strauss held them in his hand, and he dealt them forth in the markets of the world!

Is it any wonder that I looked hard at the portly, red-faced man, standing there on the steps of his temple, where, with his women and children, he had been worshipping his God?

"My!" said Grace, "Mrs. Strauss is plain enough, and just common-looking."

(I have noticed that women find it hard to reconcile themselves to a rich man's early taste in their sex.)

"She don't dress very stylish, that's true," Hillary observed thoughtfully. "But it weren't so very long ago, I guess, that she was saving his money."

Strauss, surrounded by his women folk, marched up the avenue in solemn order. We followed along slowly on the other side of the street.

"He didn't make his pile at the Enterprise Market," Grace remarked. She spoke the idea that was in all our minds: how did he and the others make their money?

"I guess they began like other folks," Hillary contended, "saving their earnings and not putting all their money in their stomachs and on their backs."

This last was aimed at Grace, who was pretty smartly dressed.

"Well," said Slocum, dryly, "probably by this time Strauss has something more than his savings in the bank."

Thus we followed them down the street, speculating on the great packer's success, on the success of all the fortunate ones in the great game of the market, wondering what magic power these men possessed to lift themselves out of the mass of people like ourselves. Pretty simple of us, perhaps you think, hanging around on the street a good winter morning and gossiping about our rich neighbors! But natural enough, too: we had no place to loaf in, except Ma Pierson's smelly dining room, and nothing to do with our Sunday holiday but to walk around the streets and stare up at the handsome new houses and our well-dressed and prosperous neighbors. Every keen boy who looks out on life from the city sidewalk has a pretty vigorous idea that if he isn't as good as the next man, at least he will make as much money if he can only learn the secret. We read about the rich and their doings in the newspapers; we see them in the streets; their horses and carriages flash by us—do you wonder that some poor clerks on a Sunday gape at the Steeles and the Strausses from the sidewalk?

What was the golden road? These men had found it—hundreds, thousands of them,—farming tools, railroads, groceries, gas, dry-goods. It made no matter what: fortunes were building on every side; the flowers of success were blooming before our eyes. To take my place with these mighty ones—I thought a good deal about that these days! And I remember Grace saying sentimentally to Slocum that Sunday:—

"You fellers keep thinkin' of nothin' but money and how you're goin' to make it. Perhaps rich folks ain't the only happy ones in the world."

"Yes," Hillary chimed in, "there's such a thing as being too greedy to eat."

"What else are we here for except to make money?" Slocum demanded more bitterly than usual.

He raised his long arm in explanation and swept it to and fro over the straggling prairie city, with its rough, patched look. I didn't see what there was in the city to object to: it was just a place like any other—to work, eat, and sleep in. Later, however, when I saw the little towns back East, the pleasant hills, the old homes in the valleys, and the red-brick house on the elm-shaded street in Portland, then I knew what Slocum meant.

Whatever was there in Chicago in 1877 to live for but Success?

A MAN'S BUSINESS

Signs of trouble at the Enterprise—A possible partnership—He travels fastest who travels alone—John Carmichael—Feeding the peoples of the earth—I drive for Dround

"Do you see that big, fat fellow talking with Mr. Joyce?" the cashier whispered to me one morning as I passed her cage. "He's Dround's manager—his name is Carmichael. When he shows up, there is trouble coming to some one."

Dround & Co. was the name of the packing firm that the Enterprise dealt with. I tied up my bundles and made up my cash account, thinking a good deal about the appearance of the burly manager of the packing-house. Pretty soon Mr. Carmichael came out into the front store very red in the face, followed by the elder Joyce, who had been drinking, and they had some words. The cashier winked at me.

The Enterprise had been doing a good business. It was run on a new principle for those days—strictly cash and all cut prices, a cent off here and there, a great sale of some one thing each day, which the house handled speculatively. The brothers Joyce kept branching out, but there wasn't any money to speak of behind the firm. The Drounds and a wholesale grocer hadbacked it from the start. Nevertheless, we should have got on all right if the elder Joyce had given up drinking and the younger one had not taken to driving fast horses. Latterly no matter how big a business we did, the profits went the wrong way.

That evening, as Hillary Cox and I walked over to the Piersons', she said to me abruptly, "There's going to be a new sign at the Enterprise before long!"

The smart little cashier must have divined the situation as I had.

"Cox's Market?" I suggested jokingly.

"Why not Harrington & Cox?" she retorted with a nervous little laugh. We were on the steps then, and Ed joined us, so that I did not have to answer her invitation. But all through the meal I kept thinking of her suggestion. It was nearly two years since she had introduced me to the Enterprise, and I had saved up several hundred dollars in the meantime, which I wanted to put into some business of my own. But it did not quite suit my card to run a retail market. After supper the others left us in the dining room, and when we were alone Hillary said:—

"Well, what do you think of the firm name? It wouldn't be so impossible. I've got considerable money saved up, and I guess you have some in the bank, too. It wouldn't be the first time in this town that a clerk's name followed a busted owner's over the door."

She spoke in a light kind of way, but a tone in her voice made me look up. It struck me suddenly that this thing might mean a partnership for life, as well as apartnership for meat and groceries. Hillary Cox was an attractive woman, and she would make a splendid wife for a poor man, doing her part to save his money. Between us, no doubt, we could make a good business out of the old Enterprise, and more, too!

"That firm name sounds pretty well," I answered slowly, somewhat embarrassed.

"Yes—I thought it pretty good."

Suddenly she turned her face shyly away from my eyes. She was a woman, and a lovable, warm-hearted one. Perhaps she was dreaming of a home and a family—of just that plain, ordinary happiness which our unambitious fathers and mothers took out of life. I liked her all the better for it; but when I tried to say something tender, that would meet her wish, I couldn't find a word from my heart: there was nothing but a hollow feeling inside me. And the thought came over me, hard and selfish, that a man like me, who was bound on a long road, travels best alone.

"I don't know as I want to sell coffee and potatoes all my life," I said at last, and my voice sounded colder than I meant to make it.

"Oh!" she gave a little gasp, as if some one had struck her. "You're very ambitious, Mr. Harrington," she said coldly. "I hope you'll get all you think you deserve, I am sure."

"Well, that wouldn't be much—only I am going to try for more than I deserve—see?" I laughed as easily as I could.

We talked a little longer, and then she made somekind of excuse—we had planned to go out that evening—and left me, bidding me good night as if I were a stranger. I felt small and mean, yet glad, too, to speak the truth—that I hadn't made a false step just there and pretended to more than I could carry through.

Some time later Slocum looked in at the door, and, seeing me alone, came into the room. He had a grim kind of smile on his face, as if he suspected what had been happening.

"Where's Grace?" I asked him.

"Just about where your Hillary is," he answered dryly; "gone off with another fellow."

I laughed. We looked at each other for some time.

"Well?" I said.

"He travels fastest who travels alone," he drawled, using the very words that had been in my mind. "But it is a shame—Miss Cox is a nice woman."

"So is the other."

"Yes, but it can't be—or anything like it."

And the difference between us was that I believe he really cared.

So the Enterprise Market crumbled rapidly to its end, while I kept my eye open for a landing-place when I should have to jump. One day I was sent over to Dround's to see why our usual order of meats hadn't been delivered. I was referred to the manager. Carmichael, as I have said, was a burly, red-faced Irishman—and hot-tempered. His black hair stood up all over his head, and when he moved he seemed to wrench hiswhole big carcass with the effort. As I made my errand known to him, he growled something at me. I gathered that he didn't think favorably of the Enterprise and all that belonged thereto.

"They can't have any more," he said. "I told your boss so the last time I was over."

I hung on, not knowing exactly what to say or do.

"I guess they must have it this time," I ventured after a while.

"'Guess they must have it'! Who are you?"

He thrust his big head over the top of his desk and looked at me, laying his cigar down deliberately, as if he meant to throw me out of the office for my impudence.

"Oh!" I said as easily as I could, "I'm one of their help."

"Well, my son, maybe you know better than I what they do with their money? They don't pay us."

I knew he was trying to pump me about the Enterprise. I smiled and told him nothing, but I got that order delivered. Once or twice more, having been successful with the manager, I was sent on the same errand. Carmichael swore at me, bullied me, and jollied me, as his mood happened to be. Finally he said in earnest:—

"Joyce's got to the end of his rope, kid. You needn't come in here again. The firm will collect in the usual way."

I had seen all along that this was bound to come, and had made up my mind what I should do in the event.

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