THE morning sun beat fiercely down on Fred Walton and his new friend as they trudged along the dusty road. The pangs of hunger had seized them, and no way seemed open to obtain food short of begging it at one of the farmhouses which they were passing, and that Fred shrank from doing.
“If I could have stopped in Atlanta long enough to have sold my watch we could have paid our way for awhile,” he told his companion, “but I thought we ought to be on the move.”
“Yes, of course,” the younger agreed, with a slow, doubtful look into the other's face. “Will you tell me—I give you my word you can trust me,” he went on—“if you have any reason, except for my sake, in getting away from the city?”
“Yes, I have, Dick,” Walton replied. “I may as well admit it. I am in a pretty tight place. Things are done by telegraph these days, and I don't feel entirely safe, even here in the country.”
“Ah, I'm sorry, Fred!” the boy declared. “You have been so good to me that it doesn't look right for anybody to be running you down like a common—”
“Thief!” Walton supplied the word in a tone of bitterness. “That's exactly what some would call it. But you mustn't be afraid of me, Dick. I went wrong, and lost a good home and many friends by it. I've lost something else, too, Dick—some oneelse whom I once had as my own, but who is now out of my life forever.”
“You mean—you mean—a sweetheart?” ventured the boy, as he put out a sympathetic hand and touched the arm of his companion.
Walton nodded. He had averted his eyes, that his companion might not see the tears which blurred his sight, but no word escaped his lips.
“I'm sorry,” Dick Warren said, simply, and his hand tenderly clung to the dust-coated sleeve—“I'm sorry, Fred.”
“I wish you knew her, Dick,” Walton went on, reminiscently. “If you did, I reckon you'd pity your pal. Here I am, a tramp, an outcast in dirty clothing, and no money in my pocket. If you'd ever seen her, you'd never dream that such a girl could have actually cared for a man like me. I've got her photograph in my pocket. It is in an envelope. I have not looked at it once since I left her. I may never again on earth.”
“But why?” the boy asked, wonderingly. “It seems like it would be company for you, now that you and she are—parted.”
“She gave it to me in trust and confidence,” Walton answered, his dull gaze still averted. “She wouldn't want me to have it now. I shall keep it—I simply can't give it up; but I shall not insult her purity by looking at it. I must harden myself, and forget—forget thousands of things. You may see it if you wish.” Walton drew the envelope from his pocket and extended it to his companion. “I'll walk ahead, and when you've looked at it put it back in the envelope.”
“All right; thank you, Fred.” The boy fell back a few steps, and with his eyes straight in front of him Walton trudged on stolidly. The boy gazed at the picture steadily for several minutes, and then caught up with his companion and returned the envelope. He was silent for a moment then he said, with a slight huskiness in his young voice:
“Would you like for me to say anything about her, Fred?”
“Yes, I think I should,” Walton responded, slowly, as he thrust the envelope back into his pocket. “Yes, Dick, I'd like to hear what you think of her.”
“She is so sweet and gentle looking—so good—so very, very pretty! Oh, Fred, I understand now how you feel! I don't think I ever saw a face that I liked better. It may be because she is your—”
“Was!” Walton broke in. “Don't forget that, Dick.”
“I think a girl like that, with afacelike that, would forgive almost anything in the man she loved,” the boy went on, in a valiant effort at consolation.
“If she still loved him, perhaps; but she could no longer love him,” Walton sighed. “She belongs to a proud family, Dick, not one member of which was ever guilty of such conduct as mine. She would shudder at the sight of me, she would blush with shame for having cared for me. That's why I came away. If I had not loved her, I'd have stayed and faced my punishment.” After this talk the two trudged on through the garish sunshine without exchanging a word for several miles. It was noon. They had come to the gate of a farmhouse which bore the look of prosperity, and they paused in the shade of a tree.
“We can't go farther without eating,” the boy said. “You don't like to beg, but I don't care; I've done it hundreds of times, and don't feel ashamed of it. I'm going to put on a bold front and tackle the kitchen in the rear.”
“Don't ask for anythingfor me,” Walton said. “I'm not very hungry. I can get along for some time yet.”
“Wait till I find out how it smells around that kitchen,”
Dick laughed. “I'm nearly dead.” The boy had opened the gate, and was walking briskly toward the house, which stood back about a hundred yards from the road. Walton saw him meet a great lazy-looking dog near the steps and pat the animal on the head. Then the dog and boy went round the building toward the kitchen. A moment later Walton saw Dick returning, a flush on his face and empty handed. The dog paused near the front steps, wagging a cordial if not, indeed, a regretful tail.
“The dirty red-faced scamp ordered me to move on!” Dick cried, angrily. “He says the country is overrun with tramps, who won't work and who expect to live on the toil of honest men.”
“Did he say that?” and Walton's eyes flashed. “I'd like to prove to him that I'm no—But what's the use?”
“Look, he's coming!” the boy said, eagerly. “Maybe he's changed his mind. A woman was listening to what he said. Perhaps she's told him to call us back.” The fat, middle-aged farmer, bald, perspiring, and without hat or coat, strode down to them, and languidly opened the gate.
“Say, I just want to tell you fellowsone more thing,” he panted, as he wiped his bearded chin with his pudgy hand, “and that is this: We may look like a lot of galoots just out of an asylum along this here road, but most of us have a grain of sense. Back here a piece a neighbor of mine sent two able-bodied men like you two about their business a month ago, and that night his barn was fired. Now, if you fellows try any game of that sort on me, I'll—”
“Dry up!” Walton cried, as he suddenly faced him. “I wasn't begging of you. I only let this boy go up to you because he is nearly starved. You can't insult me—I won't have it! I am not a tramp. As proof of it, I have a good solid gold watch here that I am willing to sell you or any one else at any fair price you may put on it.”
“Huh! let me see it.” The farmer's eyes gleamed avariciously as Walton took the watch from his pocket and extended it to him.
The man tested the weight of the timepiece by tossing it lightly in his palm, and then he pried the case open with the stiff nail of his thumb, and, with a critical eye, examined the works.
“Full-jewelled and good make,” he said; and then he gave it back. “I'm a trader,” he went on. “I make money buying and selling any old thing from a pickaxe to a piano, from a pet cat to a blooded horse; but I hain't inyourmarket.”
“You say you 'hain't'?” Dick Warren mocked him, in fresh anger.
“No, I hain't,” the obtuse farmer repeated. “I did a fool thing like that when I was a boy. I bought a bay mare from a man who rid up to my daddy's barn without a saddle, blanket, or bridle—had just a heavy hemp rope round her neck. I bit, and chuckled all that day as I rid about, showing the gals how bright I'd been. Then the sheriff of the county hove in sight, and—well, my daddy had to pay out a hundred-dollar lawyer's fee to prove that I wasn't of age, never had had any sense, and couldn't have knowed the mare was stolen property. So, you see, when a fellow comes hiking along here without a nickel to buy a loaf of bread, and lookin' like he's been wading through swamps and sleeping in haystacks, and has a gold ticker that is good enough fer the vest-pocket of Jay Gould, why, I feel like pullin' down the left-hand corner of my right eye an' axin' him ef he hain't got a striped suit under his outside one, hot as the weather is.”
“You blamed old—” Dick Warren began, threateningly, as he bristled up to the farmer, his fists drawn; but Walton put out his hand and stopped him.
“He's right, Dick,” he said, and there was a pained look about his sensitive mouth. “The circumstances are dead against us.”
“Yes, I reckon they are, gents,” grinned the man at the gate. “Anyways, I don't think you will find a buyer fer that timepiece. Good-day. There ain't nothing in all this palaver ferme,” and his eye twinkled as he finished. “My wife's got dinner waitin' for me: a good fat hen, baked to a turn, with rich corn-meal stuffin', an' hot biscuits, coffee, string-beans, and fried ham—the country-cured sort that you've read about!”
ISWEAR, I'd enjoy firinghisbarn!” Dick fumed, as the two friends walked on through the beating sun. “I don't think I can stand much more of it, Fred. I'm all gone inside. The lining of my stomach has folded over.” They were passing the corner of a field where, in the distance, they could see two men at work digging ditches to drain the boggy land, and they paused again to rest under the shade of a tree.
“I guess they will stop soon and go home to a square meal,” Dick said, bitterly; and then his roving glance fixed itself on a spot in the corner of the snake-fence near by.
“By George!” he exclaimed, exultantly, “we are in luck! Gee, what a pick-up!”
“What is it, now?” Walton asked. But the boy was bounding away toward the fence. “You wait and see—gee, what luck!”
Walton stood and watched him as he climbed over the fence, dived into the thick underbrush, and reappeared with a covered tin pail in his hands. As he came back he unfastened the lid and laughed loud and long. “Full to the brim!” he chuckled. “Meat, bread, pie, and a bottle of fresh milk. We can leg it along the road a piece and sit down to it, or stow it away as we walk. My dinner-bell's rung, old man.”
“Put it back, Dick! Go put it back!” Fred said, firmly, his eyes averted.
The boy stared, a blended expression of surprise and keen disappointment capturing his features.
“Do you really mean it, Fred?” he asked, his lip falling, the pail hanging motionless at his side.
“Yes, it is not ours,” the other said. “Put it back before they see you, and then I'll—I'll try to explain what I mean.”
The boy swore under his breath, and for a moment he stood gloweringly sullen, but at the third command of his companion he retreated to the fence and dropped the pail into its place. Then he came back, his head hanging, his face still dark with disappointment.
“Huh!” he grunted, and started on without waiting to see if Fred was ready to go. Walton followed, and presently caught up with him.
“I'm not a preacher, Dick,” he began, with a forced laugh, which was intended as an opening wedge to the boy's displeasure, “I'm not one bit better than you are. I've stolen a farmer's watermelons by the light of the moon, and climbed his June apple-trees, and filled my pocket with his prize fruit, and heartily enjoyed it; but somehow I feel differently now. Dick. I'm older than you are, and reckless living has got me down and stamped all hope out of me. I'm fighting for my life. I'm swimming in a strange, swift stream, and my strength is almost gone, but I have grasped at a straw; it may hold me up, it may not; but I hope it will. That straw is the determination to live right—absolutely right—from now on, no matter what it costs. I've done great wrong, and I'm sick with the very thought of it. I want to try to do what is right, and if I could influence you to feel as I feel about these things, I'd like it mightily; it would strengthen me in my course. Two can succeed better, even at a thing like that, than one.”
“But I'mstarving!” the boy whimpered. “The world wasn't made for anybody to starve in. The birds up there in the trees don't starve, and God gave them as good right to live as you or me. Huh! when that beefy chump back there sows his wheat they watch him with their keen eyes from their nests in the trees, and when his hulking back is turned they chirp with glee and pounce down on his seed and take it and flutter away with it in the sunshine.”
“Dick, you are a bloody anarchist!” Walton laughed gently as he placed his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder.
“I don't know whether I am or not,” Warren retorted, still ruffled. “But the blamed bucket of grub may stay where it is. I wanted it for your sake as much as mine, but I sha'n't ask you to sit down to other men's dinner if you are going to ask the blessing over it. But you are too dang particular. At least, I've got as much right to the stuff as they have, for they can go home and get more, and I can't.”
“That isoneway to look at it,” Walton said, quietly, “and I thought as you do once, but I don't now.” After this they trudged along for several minutes in silence. The boy did not raise his eyes from the dusty ground, but he put his hand on Walton's arm, and there was a catch in his young throat as he said:
“Fred, somehow you make me think of my mother, When she was alive she was always wanting me to be good. She used to talk to me when I was a little tiny fellow. It was always that one thing over and over: 'My little boy is not going to be a bad man when he grows up, is he?' That's what she said time after time, and in a thousand ways she tried to impress it on me. She worried a lot about me just before she died. You see, my father—well, he didn't care what became of me, or her, either. He drank like a fish, and went with idle men about the loafing-places—in fact, he was shot and killed in a bar-room. I've tried pretty hard to have faith in what my mother used to say about God's mercy and all that stuff, but, Fred, God never answered her prayers to look afterme. If I haven't had to go it blind, I don't want a cent. Selling papers on the street at night till nearly morning, sometimes sleeping in a stairway, outhouse, or stable. Then I was a messenger boy, for a little better wages, in a dead boy's uniform, and finally became a tramp telegraph operator. But, Fred, you are true blue. I don't want a better pal. The way you yanked out that watch and offered it to keep me out of jail when it was the last thing you had in your pocket—well, you can count on me, that's all. I won't try to stuff another man's grub down your throat, either.”
A man was coming toward them on horseback, and as he drew near he reined in and leaned forward on the neck of his horse. “Gentleman,” he began, as he pulled at his scraggy beard and kicked his feet more firmly into his wooden stirrups, “I don't know whether you fellows are interested in the like or not, but I'm riding round here and yon trying to drum up hands to gather and crate and ship my crop of early peaches. There is such a demand for labor of that sort all through the peach section that we are powerful short on help.”
The two pedestrians exchanged eager glances.
“Where is your place?” Fred asked.
“Why, it's a few miles to the right, over them hills,” the rider said. “It's the Womack farm. That's my name. I've got a hundred acres of dandy Elbertas, and they are ripening as fast as chickens in a hatching-machine. They are a thing that has to be picked an' got off in cold-storage cars at exactly the right minute or they ain't worth the nails in the crates when they get to market. They say if all us early fellows can manage to hit New York just right this year, we'll get three dollars a crate, an' that will pay big, as times are now.”
“How far is it to your place?” Walton asked.
“Why, it's a little better than seven mile—on a beeline; but I reckon by the nighest road it's a matter of ten or thereabouts. You fellers look a little mite tired, but by stiff walking you could get there by sundown. You can make good wages in a pinch like this if you will buck down to it—I calculate three plunks a day for each of you.”
“And how long would the work last?” inquired Fred, as he and Warren looked at each other, their pulses quickening, their eyes beginning to glow.
“Well, I could hold you down for two weeks at least, for mine don't all ripen at once; but after you was through on my land you could go farther north and get more to do.”
“I think we'd better take you up,” Warren said. “I'd like that sort of work.” He winked at his friend and rubbed his stomach. “I see myselfpackinggood, ripe, juicy peaches right now, but not in crates. The truth is, farmer, we are mighty hungry, and that is a long walk. Now, if you had fifty cents about you that you'd be willing to let go in an advance, why we'll buy a snack at some farm-house, and go right on to you.”
The horseman's shrewd face fell. He leaned forward and ran his gnarled fingers through the mane of his horse, and avoided the pair of anxious eyes fixed on his. “I don't want to be blunt and hurt your feelings, fellers,” he said. “But we never come together before—we are plumb strangers, I might say; and, well, to tell the truth, last year I started out on this same business, and to my certain knowledge not a man, woman, gal, boy, nor baby that I advanced money to ever got to my place, while all the others who wasn't paid was there bright and early.”
“But we are hungry and weak!” Dick Warren protested.
“Well, some o' them that I failed to get told the selfsame tale. One said if I'd pay off the mortgage on his land, he'd bring his entire family; but that wasn'tbusiness, and I refused. I'm making you fellows a fair open-and-shut proposition. You hit my place before dark to-night and tell my wife to give you a square meal—tell her I've hired you to pick and pack, and that I said to stow you away somewhere for the night. She will make room for you. Now, I hope I'll see you there. That's as good as I can offer, as I look at it.”
“All right, we'll be there,” Walton promised. “And we will do the best we can for your interests.”
“Very well, gentlemen, I'll expect to see you there when I get back. So long.” And with his legs jogging the flanks of his mount, the farmer rode away.
“We can make it, Dick,” Walton said, encouragingly. “Let's bend down to it.”
“The thought of that meal is enough to keep me going,” the boy replied. “What do you reckon she will give us? But stop! My mouth is watering at such a rate that I believe I'll try not to think of it.”
It was long after sundown when the wayfarers reached the farm in question. The house was a rambling, one-story, frame structure which originally had been painted, afterward whitewashed, and rain and storm beaten till not a trace of any sort of coating remained on the bare, fuzzy, gray boards. At the gate, or bars, of the snake-fence, in front, they paused, faint and exhausted, wondering if they would be bitten by watch-dogs if they entered unannounced. On the grass under the trees in the front yard a group of twenty or more young women and young men were singing plantation melodies, and here and there couples were sitting alone or strolling about, their heads close together.
“They are peach-gatherers,” Walton surmised. “Come on; there are no dogs that I can see.”
Crawling through the bars, they went to the house. There was no light in the front part, but a yellow glow shone from a window against the dark foliage of the trees in the rear, and thither the wanderers directed their lagging steps. Looking in at the open door of the kitchen, they saw the portly form of the farmer's wife at a table washing dishes in the light of a smoking brass lamp which had no chimney.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, as her kindly eyes fell on them. “Not more pickers, surely?”
“That's what we are, and as good as you ever laid eyes on,” Dick told her. “Mr. Womack said you'd give us something to eat. We haven't had a bite since yesterday.”
“Well!” The woman drew her hands from the big dish-pan and dried them on her apron as she looked them over doubtfully. “Pete Womack goes crazy every year at picking-time. He's filled the house, barn, and yard with hooting and singing gals and boys, and furnished nobody to wait on 'em but me. The gals all say they are too fagged out at night to lay their hands to cooking or dish-washing, and yet, if you'll just listen and watch, you'll see that they are all able to gallivant with the men about the yard. Six couples met here for the first time last summer and got married. They say there's some progress being made right now between three or four, an' picking's just set in. I tell Pete he ought to start a marrying-agency and take out a license to preach, so he can tie 'em on the spot and collect two fees. Some of 'em are respectable and mean all right, but Pete is so anxious to get his crop off on time that he's got women in that bunch that—tolookat 'em—Well, it ain't any ofmybusiness! I ain't set up as a judge, and as the saying is, I won't throw no stones. But you say you are hungry, and I don't see how I could give you a thing hot at this time of night. My fires are out, and—”
“Hot!” Dick shouted. “Why, I've got such a big storage capacity that I'd be afraid to take it hot. It might generate steam and explode.”
The woman laughed. “Well, youmustbe hungry,” she said. “Come on in the dining-room and I'll lay it out in a minute. There is plenty of cold stuff. I cook a lot ahead. You have to feed pickers like kings or they won't stay. It won't take long to heat the coffee. But I reckon you want to wash and wipe. You'll find pans and water on the shelf in the entry, and a clean towel on the roller. I'll be ready when you are.”
“I'll see about that, old lady,” Dick challenged her, as he made a dash for the near-by water-shelf.
Two minutes later the two wanderers sat down at a long, improvised table, made of unplaned planks, in the dining-room. In the light of a guttering home-made tallow dip the farmer's wife spread before them the best meal that famished men ever feasted on. They saw roast chicken with dressing, fried chicken with cream gravy, country-smoked ham in a great platter of eggs; butter, hard and cold, from the spring-house; great, snow-capped pound-cakes, biscuits, apple-sauce, jellies, jams, cold buttermilk, and hot coffee.
“I don't know where I'm going to bunk you boys,” Mrs. Womack said, in a motherly tone, as she stood behind their chairs, and, with unsuppressed delight, watched them eat. “The women and gals have got every bed in the house; and every spot on the floor, even to the kitchen, has been staked off by the men.”
“What's the matter with the barn?” Dick mumbled, with his mouth full. “I wouldn't want a better place this time of year than a sweet-smelling bed of fresh hay or fodder.”
“There's plenty of room in the loft down there,” the woman replied; “but somehow I hate to see nice-looking young men like you put in a place like that.”
“It will do very well,” Fred assured her. “In fact, we would rather like it.”
“Well, a little later, if you decide to stay, I may fix you a place in the house,” the woman said; “but you got in too late to-night.”
“I'm dead tired and sleepy, Fred,” Dick said, when they had left the table. “Let's turn in.”
Directed by Mrs. Womack, they went down to the barn, and from the big cattle-room on the ground they climbed a ladder to the loft above. A startled hen flew from her nest with a loud cackling as they crawled through the hay and husks and leaves of corn to a square, shutterless door, through which the hay was loaded to wagons below. They threw off their coats and vests, and made pillows of them; then took off their shoes, and lay down and stretched out their tired limbs.
Through the doorway they saw the fathomless sky filled with mysterious stars. The chirping of some chickens, as they jostled one another on the roost below, came up to them; the champing of the teeth of a horse, as he gnawed his wooden trough; the snarling of a tree-frog; the far-off and dismal howling of a dog, and—they were asleep.
IT was not till early autumn that the two friends reached their far-off destination. Fred's watch had been sold; they had saved the greater part of their earnings from the various odd jobs at which they had worked, and had made of their journey by rail. It was Walton's idea that they must put their best foot to the front in Gate City, and start out with a good appearance in their new home, and so the most of their funds were promptly invested in new clothing. Notwithstanding their spick-and-span appearance, however, luck seemed against them, for every application they made for work—Dick as a telegraph operator and Fred as an accountant—was refused them.
The city was a bustling new place with prosperity and activity in its very air. There were great railway-shops, factories of several kinds, and various other enterprises. It was a typical Western “boom” town. Its buildings were modern, its streets regular and well-paved. Men and women, as they drove through the streets in their carriages, thought nothing of it if a mounted horde of yelling cow-boys galloped past with their revolvers playfully flourished, nor saw anything unusual in the gangs of blanket-draped Indians who hung about the bar-rooms, dance-halls, or gambling-houses. The new-comers liked the place; Dick believed they would eventually secure work, and Fred had the first sense of security which had come to him since leaving Stafford. Here, under his new name, in this remote place, he was sure he would meet with no familiar face, nor catch any discordant echoes of the life he had left behind him, and which he was trying to banish from his memory.
There was in the town a certain Stephen Whipple, a man about sixty-five years of age, who had come from one of the Southern States shortly after the Civil War. He had established himself, first, as a small grocer, but, having acquired considerable wealth, he was now the owner of the only wholesale grocery store in the place, an establishment which was known for miles around.
He was an earnest member of the Presbyterian church of the town, and its chief pride, owing to his influence in the community. It had been his money which had built the church to which he belonged, and it was said that he practically paid the salary of its eloquent young preacher.
In his great red-brick, four-story business-house on the main street Stephen Whipple had his private office. It was in the rear of the counting-room and was of unusual size, and by many deemed a curious place. Indeed, it was put to strange, unbusiness-like uses, for it was here that the owner of the establishment personally received all sorts of applications for aid. There were half a dozen plain chairs in the bare, uncarpeted room, and the Rev. Luke Matthews, who had the entrée to the office at any moment, often found a motley gathering of supplicants on hand, each patiently awaiting his turn to be beckoned to the seat close to the portly, shaggy-browed merchant. There were individuals who called the old man a deep-dyed hypocrite, for they held that no really self-sacrificing toiler in the Lord's vineyard could have amassed the great wealth old Whipple was known to possess. But this was disputed by all the men in his employment, at least, for they were ready to attest that Whipple had often held over important business matters till the case of some suffering applicant could be investigated and relief supplied. There were other uses to which this room was put. Old Whipple, in order to render his pet church more attractive to the public, selected and paid out of his own pocket the salaries of the best choir in town. He was no expert musician, but he had them meet in his office and practise on every Saturday afternoon, and he was always present, seeing to it that refreshments were served and the singers made comfortable.
It was one morning when Dick Warren and Fred Walton had been in the town for a month, and had reached the lowest ebb of their resources, that the minister dropped in to see the merchant. The Rev. Luke Matthews was of unusual height, measuring six feet four, very slender in build, and of markedly nervous temperament. He was under thirty, unmarried, wore his black hair long enough to touch his shoulders, and had the thin-lipped, unbearded face of an Edwin Booth. It was said of him that he couldn't keep a coin in his pocket—that it was promptly given to the first beggar he met.
“Well, brother, how are your bones?” was the halfjesting greeting he gave the old man, as he bustled in, buttoning and unbuttoning his long black coat and swinging his broad-brimmed hat at his side. “Not holding court this morning?” He laughed as he looked over the empty chairs.
“No; I sent the last prisoner up for life an hour ago,” the merchant responded, jovially. “Set down, set down!”
The long-legged man with the poetic face complied. “Well,” he said, “you'll have to be a judge in that sort of tribunal so long as you inhabit this globe.” He smiled, showing two fine rows of white teeth. “It looks like the Lord is pushing you on to unlimited prosperity, and your work for humanity will increase instead of letting up. Say, brother, I know the sort of thing you glory in, and I've had an experience—the sort of experience that makes a fellow feel like preaching is worth while. It was exactly the kind of thing you are interested in yourself.”
“What have you run across now?” Whipple asked, as he leaned his elbow on his desk and rested his florid face on his hand.
“The genuine thing, brother—a genuine reformation in a young chap hardly out of his teens. He's been coming to my special meetings for young men, and, as I'm a close observer, I was attracted by his face. It interested me more than that of any boy's I ever saw. Finally, I ventured to approach him. I never scare them off if I can help it, but I singled him out from the rest last Thursday evening and spoke to him. I saw that he was greatly moved, and I invited him into my study, and we had a good long heart-to-heart talk. Brother Whipple, I never felt the glory of God bearing down on me in my life as I did while that boy was talking—while he was telling me his past history. Crying like his heart would break, he confessed to having been almost everything a boy could be—a thief, a tramp, and an all-round, good-for-nothing idler, from his childhood up to his sudden awakening to what was right.”
“Good, good!” Stephen Whipple ejaculated, his features working, his kind old eyes twinkling.
“But now comes the climax to my experience,” the minister went on. “You and I meet a converted person now and then, but we don't often run across individuals in private life who are leading lives which convert. The boy went on to tell me, brother, how he was rescued from arrest by a young man who was a tramp like himself. They began searching for work side by side. The boy told me how his new friend—without ever saying a word that was preachy—gradually won him from his ingrained tendencies and taught him the difference between right and wrong. He gave me scores of touching and inspiring incidents that had happened between them during their wanderings here and there, trying to get work. Somehow I became even more deeply interested in the fellow I hadn't met than the one I had in tow, and so I asked the boy if he would introduce me to his friend. He hesitated for a while, and then finally agreed to take me to the room they had together. It was away over beyond the railroads, in the slums of our 'tenderloin' district. It seemed to be the only room whose price they could afford, and they were unwilling to contract for what they could not pay. It was an awful place, brother, up a narrow flight of shaky stairs, in the attic of a negro shoemaker's house, in the worst part of 'Dive-town.' The man, this Fred Spencer, when we came in, was seated at the little dingy window reading a newspaper. He seemed very much surprised, and flushed red as he stood up and shook hands. He was fine-looking—strong and tall, well-clad and neat from his feet to his carefully combed hair, but his great big sad eyes haunted me long after I left him, and when he spoke his voice seemed to come from a proud spirit that was crushed and broken. He began by saying that his friend had spoken to him of my meetings, and that he was exceedingly grateful for my interest and courtesy in calling. He tried to apologize for the appearance of the room, and insisted on my taking the only chair while he and his room-mate sat on the bed, which, by the way, was unfit for a convict to sleep on. They used it together, and yet it was barely wide enough for one. The straw in the mattress was crumbling to powder and falling to the floor.”
“Poor chaps,” the merchant sighed, “and they have evidently seen better days.”
“Spencer, the older one, has decidedly,” the minister answered. “He is evidently Southern, for he has the soft accent of Virginia, I should say, and the manner of the old aristocracy. I told him that I had heard of his good influence over the boy, and he got redder than ever, and tried to make light of what he had done, endeavored, in fact, to convince me that the boy had only spoken as he had out of personal friendship. Finally I offered my assistance toward finding employment for them both, and Spencer showed real embarrassment—as if he did not want to put me to any trouble in the matter.”
“He's tried to find work here, then?” Stephen Whipple mused, aloud.
“Yes, and been turned down on all sides. He has tried till he has lost hope. He likes Gate City, but is afraid they will be driven to the road again.”
“And to think that a fellow likethatcan't find work,” Whipple cried, indignantly, “when the world is full of grafters and panhandlers! Brother Matthews, I am interested in those fellows, especially the oldest one. My list is full, as you know, but I can manage to find places for the right sort. Couldn't you send him to me right away? I'll be here to-night after closing time. There won't be anybody else about, and me and him can talk undisturbed. I'd like to help a chap like that. You have got me interested. The world is too full of bad men who are prospering for his sort to go unrewarded.”
“Well, I'll send him, Brother Whipple. God bless you, old man, you can always be counted on!”
That evening the merchant sat in the light of his green-shaded gas-lamp at his desk waiting for the expected caller. The outer door of the great building, which opened on the main street, was ajar, and was plainly visible to the merchant from his seat. Now, as he heard his visitor coming, he rose to his feet, pushed his desk-chair back with his ponderous calves, and stood smiling cordially. As the young man entered, politely removing his hat, Whipple grasped Walton's hand and shook it warmly.
“I'm powerfully glad to know you, Mr. Spencer,” he said, “I am, indeed. I'm told you are a newcomer to our brag town, and as I'm one of the pioneers, so to speak, I take a personal pride in the place, and I want to see everybody that drifts this way anchored here for life. It certainly is the town for fresh young blood. Even old men can make money here, and I know the young can. Set down, set down! I'm glad you ran across my long-legged jumping-jack of a preacher. He is a wheel-horse, I am here to state. If all the churches in the world were led by men of his stamp, infidelity would die of the dry rot or burn up with shame.
“I built Matthews' meeting-house, and if I hadn't found a man like him to fill the pulpit I'd have turned the blamed thing into a warehouse to store groceries in. But I found him, and he's doing mighty well—mighty well! He isn't any of your ranting trance religionists; he's practical, and, in one way, the funniest cuss you ever laid eyes on. Me and him have big times in our way. He looks after the souls of men while I sometimes help a little in patching up their bodies. He tells me that you and a friend of yours haven't made any business connection yet. My house is pretty well supplied, but this is our best season of the year, and a good man always comes in handy. You look like you've got a good head on them broad shoulders, and I want to give you a start, so if you will show up here in the morning with your friend, I'll put you to work in the office and stow him away somewhere.”
“You are very, very kind, Mr. Whipple,” Fred said, a gratified flush on his face; “but you have had no recommendation of me, and—”
“I don'twantnone,” the merchant said, firmly. “You see, I've already heard about you. Long before me and you met you had cast your bread on the water, and it has already come back. I've heard about you. Anybody these days can bring a scrap of paper with indorsements scribbled on it, but the best recommendation is the sort that crawls along ahead of a fellow. Yes, I've heard about you, and, to be plain, that's why I sent for you. Even if I didn't have no opening right now, it would pay me to rub against men that—well, that believe like you do and act like you have acted.”
“I suppose you mean”—Walton was quite embarrassed now—“I suppose Mr. Matthews has been speaking of what my friend told him of our ups-and-downs together; but really I couldn't let that sort of thing stand as an indorsement of me, Mr. Whipple. Dick is young and enthusiastic. It seems that he has never had a close friend before, and he naturally exaggerates my—”
“Say, look here,” the merchant broke in, with a smile, “you really don't know how funny that sounds. In this day and time, when a man in my position has to set and listen to folks spout for the hour about how good and worthy they are, why—well, to see a chap actually denying the favorable things which have been said behind his back is a downright curiosity. Why, the very fact that you aretalkingthis way shows plain enough what you are. Along with what I've picked up about you and the—the general look of you, now that you are at close range—why, if you was to lay down a whole batch of written recommendations I'd chuck 'em in that stove. I'm a judge of human faces and of men, and I know youmeanwell, and that is all I ask.”
“It is very good of you, Mr. Whipple,” Walton said, his glance on the floor. “I feel like we could get on together. I know I'd do my best to please you.”
“Well, then, there is nothing more to be said,” old Whipple answered. “Bring that boy in to-morrow morning, and we'll make some sort o' a start.”
Fred sat silent. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the genial face in the green light. “I must be frank and open with a man as generous as you are, Mr. Whipple. If I am to work here we ought to understand each other thoroughly. There are some things which you must know about me, or I cannot consent to enter your employment, for it would be deceiving you.”
“Oh,that'sit!” Whipple said, awkwardly. “Still, you mustn't feel that I am requiring any explanations of—of a private nature, for I am not.”
“You ought to know more than you do know about me, at all events,” Walton went on. “I'd feel better if nothing at all was hidden from your knowledge. I haven't lived right, Mr. Whipple. I went wrong—frightfully wrong. I got in debt—it is worse than that. I misappropriated a considerable sum of money belonging to my father. He is a stern, hard man, and demanded as much of me as he would have done of a stranger. I left home to escape arrest. You may think I ought to have submitted to the law. I simply couldn't, for I felt that my father, when his passion cooled, would regret his step, and, moreover, I felt that, with my freedom, I could apply myself and eventually restore the loss.”
“Merciful Father!” Whipple exclaimed, fervently. “Lord have mercy! To think of a man blessed with a son holding the law over his repentant head and chasing him from spot to spot over God's green earth! The child he brought into the world and saw cooing in the cradle, a little, tiny sprout of his own flesh and blood, made in the image of the Lord God of Hosts! My boy,” the old man leaned forward, “shake hands with me. I've often wanted to help young men in my stormy life, but, God knows, I never felt the desire as strong as I do now. Just in this little talk I've been drawn more closely to you than I ever was to a human being before. You are the right sort, the genuine thing; if I was to turn you adrift, I'd never get over it. I had a boy once, and I doted on him. He died when he was a little toddling fellow, and since then I have never been consoled. But his loss, and the memory of him, has warmed my heart to young men wherever I meet them. You must come to me, my boy. I feel sure we'll pull together. In fact, I'd want you at hand, for I'd grieve to see you falter in your noble undertaking. God will bless your effort as sure as the stars are shining up there in the heavens to-night.”
“I haven't told you quite all yet,” Walton added, in a low tone. “To protect myself, I took another name. My real name is—”
“Stop! Don't tell me. That won't make one bit of difference to me,” Whipple answered, with a sigh, as if he were thinking more of the young man's former revelations than the one just made. “No doubt it is best. You say you have determined to make good the loss, and if bearing another name will help you out, then it can't be wrong. Go ahead, I'll be your friend; I'll stick to you. I'm glad we came together to-night. It makes me feel better. I've seen many sorts of human struggles, but I never saw one that touched me down deep like yours does. Wait, let me lock up, and I'll walk along a piece with you.”
Outside, after he had closed the heavy door, the merchant put his hand on the arm of his companion, and they moved on down the street together. Suddenly they paused. Whipple swept his fat hand in a slow gesture toward the skies.
“My boy,” he said, fervently, “this is a wonderful, wonderful old world. Life seems hard and harsh at times, but when the soul is right a man can conquer anything. I have my fight to make; you have yours—stick to it, and may the Lord be with you! Goodnight.”. .