Crowded Out o' Crofield Part 31

"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 do _anything_."

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 b.u.t.ter, all of the best, came, and were eaten with excellent appet.i.te.

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 princ.i.p.al can't do everything. She must have a good a.s.sistant."

"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 the _Eagle_. "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."