The Sherrods Part 8

THE FIRST WAS A CRIMINAL.

Jud's first night in Chicago was sleepless, even bedless. The train rolled into the Dearborn Street station at ten o'clock and he stumbled out into the smoky, clanging train-sheds among countless strangers. It was all different from the station platform at Glenville, or even the more pretentious depot in the town that had seen his short college career. Sharp rebuffs, amused smiles, and sarcastic rejoinders met his innocent queries as he wandered aimlessly about the station, carrying his ungainly "telescope." Dismayed and resentful, he refrained from asking questions at last, and for more than an hour sat upon one of the unfriendly benches near the gates. Once he plucked up enough courage to ask a stranger when he could get a train back to Glenville.

"Never heard of Glenville," was the unfeeling response.

The crowds did not interest the new arrival; he saw the people and novelties of a great city through dim, homesick eyes, and thought only of the old, familiar, well-beloved fences, lanes, and pastures, and Justine's sad face. His ambition waned. He realized that he did not belong in this great, unkind place; he saw that he was an object of curiosity and amus.e.m.e.nt; keenly he felt the inconsiderate stares of pa.s.sers-by, and indeed he knew that his own strangeness was an excuse for the smiles which made him shrink with mortification. An old gentleman stopped at the news-stand hard by and selected a magazine.

He stood beneath a dazzling arc light and turned the pages, glancing at the pictures. Jud was attracted by the honest kindliness of his face, and approached him. The old gentleman looked up.

"Excuse me, sir, but I am a stranger here, and I'd like to ask a favor," said Jud. He found that his voice was hoa.r.s.e.

"I have nothing for you," said the old gentleman, returning to the magazine.

"I'm not a beggar," cried Jud, drawing back, cut to the quick.

"Don't you want enough to get a bed or something for a starving mother to eat?" sarcastically demanded the old gentleman, taking another look at the youth.

"I have had nothing but hard words since I came into this depot, and G.o.d knows I've tried to be respectful. What am I that every one should treat me like a dog? Do I look like a beggar or a thief? I know I look just what I am, a country boy, but that oughtn't to turn people against me." Jud uttered these words in a voice trembling with pent-up anger and the tears of a long-tried indignation. Suddenly his eyes flashed and he blurted forth the real fierceness of his feelings in a savage, and, for him, unusual display of resentment: "For two cents I'd tell the whole crowd to go to h.e.l.l!"

It was this intense and startling expression that convinced the stranger of Jud's genuineness. There was no mistaking the sincerity of that wrath.

"My boy, you shouldn't say that. This is a big and busy city, and you must get used to the ways of it. I see you are a good, honest lad, and I beg pardon for my unkind words. Now, tell me, what can I do for you?

My train leaves in ten minutes, so we have no time to spare. Tell me what you are doing here."

Jud's heart leaped at the sound of these, the first kindly tones he had heard, and he poured forth the disjointed story of his ambitions, not once thinking that the stranger could have no personal interest in them. But he had won an attentive listener.

"You're the sort of a boy I like," exclaimed the gray-haired Chicagoan, grasping the boy's hand. "I'll be back in Chicago in three or four days, and I'll do all I can to help you. Get along here as best you can till next Friday, and then come to see me. Here is my card," and he handed forth an engraved piece of cardboard. "Don't forget it, now, for I am interested in you. Hanged if I don't like a boy who talks as you did awhile ago. I feel that way myself sometimes. Good-bye; I must get this train. Friday morning, Mr.--Oh, what is your name?"

"Dudley Sherrod, sir, and I'm much obliged to you. But I wanted to ask a favor of you. Where can I find a place to sleep?"

"Good Lord, was that all you wanted?" And then the old gentleman directed him to a nearby hotel. "Stay there to-night, and if it's too high-priced, hunt a cheaper place to-morrow. There goes my train!"

Jud looked after him as he raced down the yard, and drew a breath of relief as he swung upon the rear platform of the last sleeper, awkwardly, but safely. Then he read the card. "Christopher Barlow,"

it said, "Investment Broker." It seemed promising, and with a somewhat lighter heart he made his way to his c.u.mbersome valise, so unlike the neat boxes carried by other travelers, and prepared for the walk out into the lamplights of a Chicago street. He found the hotel, but had to occupy a chair in the office all night, for the rooms were full. A kind-hearted clerk gave him permission to remain there until morning, observing his fatigue and his loneliness. He even checked the boy's valise for him and told him where he could "wash up."

It was Tuesday morning when he started forth for his first walk about the streets of Chicago. The clerk recommended a cheap lodging-house and he found it without much difficulty, and began to feel more at home. Some one told him how to reach the _Record_ office, and he was soon asking a youth in the counting-room where he could find a certain artist. Here he encountered a peculiar rebuff. He was told that the artists did not go to work until nearly noon. To Jud, who had always gone to work at four in the morning, this was almost incomprehensible.

In his ignorance, he at once began to see the easy life he might lead if ever he could obtain such a position.

All the morning he wandered about State and Clark Streets, Wabash Avenue, and the Lake Front. Everything was new and marvelous. From the lowly cot in the lane to the fifteen-story monsters in Chicago; from the meadows and cornfields to the miles of bewildering thoroughfares; from the occasional vehicle or pa.s.sing farmhand of the "pike" to the thousands of rushing men and women on the congested sidewalks; from the hayracks and the side-boarded grain-wagon to the clanging street cars and the "L" trains; from the homely garb of the yokel to the fashionable clothes of the swell. It is a striking transition when it comes suddenly.

In the afternoon he was directed to the room of the newspaper artist.

He carried with him his batch of drawings, and his heart was in his shoes. Already he had begun to learn something of the haste of city life. How could he hope to win more than the pa.s.sing attention of the busy man? Several girls in the counting-room giggled as he strode by, and his ears flamed red. He did not know that more than one of those girls admired his straight, strong figure and sunburnt face.

The artist was drawing at his board when Jud entered the little room facing Fifth Avenue. There was no halo of glory hovering over the rumpled head, nor was there a sign of the glorious studio his dreams had pictured. He found himself standing in the doorway of what looked like a junk-shop. Desks were strewn with drawing-boards, cardboard, pens, pads, weights, thumb-tacks, unmounted photographs, and a heterogeneous a.s.sortment of things he had never seen before. The cartoonist barely glanced at him as he stepped inside the doorway.

"Morning," remarked the eminent man, and coolly resumed work on the drawing. Jud was stricken dumb by this indifference, expected as it was. He forgot the speech he had made up and stood hesitating, afraid to advance or retreat.

"Is this Mr. Brush?" he asked at length, after his disappointed eyes had swept the untidy den from floor to ceiling. Was this the room of a great artist? Shattered dream! The walls were covered with flaring posters, rough sketches, cheaply framed cartoons, and dozens of odd and ends, such as one sees in the junk-shops of art.

"Yes," was the brief response. "Have a chair. I'll talk to you in a minute." Jud sat in a chair near the door, his fingers spasmodically gripping the humble package of drawings he had brought all the way from the fields of Clay township to show to this surly genius whose work had been his inspiration.

"Fine day," said Mr. Brush, his head bent low over the board.

"Yes, sir," responded the visitor, who thought it one of the most dismal days in his life. After fully ten minutes of awkward silence, during which Jud found himself willing to hate the artist and that impolite pen, the artist straightened up in his chair and for the first time surveyed his caller.

"Do you want to see me about something?"

"I want to show you some of my drawings, if you have time to look at 'em--them, sir," said Jud timidly.

"Oh, you're another beginner who wants a job, eh?" said the other, a trifle sardonically. "Let's see 'em. I can tell you in advance, however, that you'll have a devil of a time finding an opening in Chicago. Papers all full and a hundred fellows looking for places.

Live here? Oh, I see--from the country." This after a swift inspection of his visitor's general make-up. "I am a little busy just now. Can you come in at six o'clock?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry I bothered you," said Jud, glad, in his disillusionment, to find an excuse for leaving the crowded workshop.

The artist, whimsical as are all men of his profession, suddenly fell to admiring the young man's face. It was a strong type, distinctly sketchable.

"Wait a minute. I have an engagement at six, come to think of it.

I'll look at 'em now," he said, still gazing. Jud reluctantly placed the package on the table and proceeded, with nervous fingers, to untie the string which Justine had so lovingly, but so stubbornly, knotted.

Every expression of the eager, embarra.s.sed face impressed itself upon the keen eye of the watcher. It was with little or no interest, however, that Mr. Brush took up the little stock of drawings. This boy was but one of a hundred poor, aspiring fellows who had wearied him with their miserable efforts.

"Did you draw these?" he asked, after he had looked at three or four.

Even Jud in all his embarra.s.sment could see that his face had suddenly turned serious.

"Yes, sir, certainly," answered Jud.

"Didn't copy them?"

"No, sir. They are pictures of places and objects down in Glenville."

"Where is that?"

"In Indiana. You don't think they are copies, do you?"

"Drew 'em from life?" asked the other incredulously.

"Of course I did," said Jud with acerbity.

"Don't get mad, my boy. How long have you been drawing?"

"Since I was a boy--'knee high to a duck'--as we say down there."

"Ever have any instructions?"

"No, sir. I haven't been able to afford it. I want to go to an art school when I have raised the money."

The artist looked through the pack without another word and Jud fidgeted under the strain. He was anxious to have the critic condemn his work so that he could flee and have done with it.

"Here's a pad of paper and a pencil. See how long it will take you to sketch that elevated track and the building across the street. Sit up here near the window," commanded the artist.

Jud's nerve fled as he found himself called upon to draw beneath the eye of an expert, and it was only after some little urging that he was induced to attempt the sketch. He felt uncertain, incompetent, uncomfortable, mainly because he was to draw objects entirely new to his eyes. It was not like sketching the old barns and fences down in Clay township. Closing his jaws determinedly, however, he began the task, wondering why he was doing so in the face of a decision he had reached but a moment before. He had come to the conclusion that it was not worth while to try for a place in Chicago and had made up his mind to go back to the farm, defeated. In twenty minutes he had a good accurate outline of all that met his keen gaze beyond the window-sill, and was beginning to "fill in" when the artist checked him.