Three People Part 16

"All right. Then rent it to the first chap who'll take it for two dollars; but _I_ ain't acquainted with him."

"How much _will_ you give then?"

"How much will you take?"

"Well, now, I like to help the young, so I'll take a dollar a week."

"Not from me," said Tode, promptly.

"Do hear the fellow! As generous as I've been to him, too. Well, come, now, its your turn to make an offer."

"I'll give you fifty cents a week, and pay you every Sat.u.r.day night at seven o'clock."

"It's a bargain," exclaimed the man, striking his hand down on the counter, till the dirty gla.s.ses jingled. There was a further attempt to discover the intention of the new firm, but Tode made his escape the moment the bargain was concluded, and went off vigorously to work to get the old barrel out of his premises. Then he departed, and presently made his appearance again with an old dry-goods box, which he brought on a wheelbarrow, and deposited squarely on the stone. Off again, and back with boards, hammer and nails. And then ensued a vigorous pounding, which, when it was finished, was productive of three neat fitting shelves inside the dry-goods box.

"Jolly," he said, eyeing his work triumphantly and his fingers ruefully, "I'm glad I own a hotel instead of a carpenter's shop. I wonder now which I did pound the oftenest, them nails or my thumb? Ain't my shelves some though? So much got along with; now for my next move. I wonder where the old lady lives what's going to lend her stove for my coffee?

Must be somewhere along here, because I couldn't go far away from my place of business after it, specially if all my waiters should happen to be out when the rush comes. I may as well start off and hunt her up."

Just next to the oyster-saloon was a little old yellow house. Thither Tode bent his steps, and knocked boldly at the door. No reply.

"Not at home," he said, shaking his head as he peeped in at the curtainless window. "No use of talking about you then. _You_ won't do, 'cause you see my old lady must be at home. I can't be having her run off just at the busiest time."

There were two doors very near together, and our young adventurer tried the next one. It was quickly opened, and a very slatternly young woman appeared to him with a baby in her arms, and three almost babies hanging to various portions of her dress.

"Does Mr. Smith live here?" queried Tode.

The woman shook her head and slammed the door.

"That's lucky now," soliloquized Tode; "because he _does_ live most everywhere, and I don't want to see him just about now--fact is, it would never do to have them nine babies tumbling into my coffee and getting scalded."

He trudged back to a little weather-worn, tumble-down building on the other side of his new enterprise, and knocked. Such a dear little old fat woman in a bright calico dress, and with a wide white frill to her cap, answered his knock. He chuckled inwardly, and said at once: "I guess you're the woman what's going to let me boil my coffee on your stove, and warm a pie now and then, ain't you?"

"Whatever is the lad talking about?" asked the bewildered old lady.

"Why--" said Tode, conscious that he had made a very unbusiness-like opening, and he begun at the beginning, and told her his story.

"Well now, I never!" said the woman, sinking into a chair. "No, I never did in all my life! And so you left that there place, because you wasn't going to give bottles to your neighbors no longer, and now you're going into business for yourself? Well, well, the land knows I wish there wasn't no bottles to put to 'em--and then they wouldn't be put, you know; and if there's anything I _do_ pray for with all my might and main, next to prayin' that my two boys would let the bottles alone--which I'm afraid they don't, and more's the pity--it's that the bottles will all get clean smashed up one of these days, in His own good time you know."

Tode turned upon her an eager, questioning look.

"Who do you pray to?" he asked, abruptly.

"Why, bless the boy! I ain't a heathen, you know, to bow down to wood and stone, the work of men's hands, and them things as it were. I pray to the dear Lord that made me, and died for me too, and, for the matter of that, lives for me all the time."

A bright color glowed in Tode's cheek, and a bright fire sparkled in his eye.

"I know him," he said, briefly and earnestly.

"Now, do you, though?" said the little old lady, as eager and earnest as himself, "and do you pray to him?"

Tode gravely bowed his head.

"Then I'll let you have my stove and my coffee-pot, and my oven, and welcome, and I'll look after the coffee and the pies now and then myself. I'll give you a lift as sure as I have a coffee-pot to lend.

Like enough you're one of the Lord's own, and have been sent right straight here for me to give a cup of cold water to, you know, or to look after your coffee for you, and it's all the same, you know, so you do it in the name of a disciple."

Will Tode ever forget the feeling of solemn joy with which he finally turned away from the dear little old lady's door? He had really talked with one of those who knew the Lord, and he was to see her every day, two or three times a day, and perhaps she knew things that he did not; about Habakkuk--like enough. "She knew about that bottle business as well as I did," he said gleefully, as he flew back to his dry-goods box.

Such delightful arrangements as he made with her, too!--elegant cakes she was to make him, better than any that could be bought at the baker's he was sure, though he had called there on his way for the dry-goods box, and made what he considered a very fine bargain with him.

Altogether it was a very busy day; he had never flown around more industriously at the hotel than he did on this first day of business for himself. He dined on crackers and cheese, and missed, as little as he could help, the grand dinner which would have been sure to fall to his share at his old quarters, and which he hardly understood that he had given up for conscience' sake. "There now," he said, with a final chuckle of satisfaction, just as the twilight was beginning to fall, "I'm fixed all snug and fine--by to-morrow morning, bright and early, I'll be ready for business!" Then suddenly he dived his hands into his pockets, and gave a low, long, perplexed whistle--then gave vent to his new idea in words:

"Where in the name of all that's funny and ridiculous, be I going to spend the time 'tween this and to-morrow morning? Just as true as you're alive and hearty, Tode Mall, I never once thought of that idea till this blessed minute--did you?

"Whatever is to be did! I've slept, to be sure, in lots of places, on the steps, and in barrels, and I ain't no ways discomfl.u.s.ticated; but then, you see, after a fellow has slept on a bed for a spell, why, he has a kind of a hankering _after_ a bed to sleep on some more. Hold on, though! why don't I board? That's the way men do when they go into business. Tode, you're green, _very_ green, I'm afraid, not to think of that before. Course I'll board! I'll go right straight down to the old lady, and order rooms."

But the old lady shook her head, and looked troubled. "You see," said she, "I ain't got but one bed for spare, and I've got a boy. I've got two of 'em; but they don't sleep at home, only my youngest; he comes a visiting sometimes, and if he should come and find a stranger sleeping in his bed, why, he'd feel kind of homesick, I'm afraid, and I want Jim to feel that this is the best home that ever was, I do."

Tode bestowed a very searching look on the earnest little old woman in answer to this, and then spoke rapidly:

"I shouldn't wonder one bit if you was our Jim's mother down at the Euclid House--that's where I lived, and that's where he lives, only he don't sleep there--he sleeps with his brother Rick, down at the livery stable. Now, ain't they your two boys?"

"They are so!" the old lady answered, speaking as eagerly as he had done.

"And so you know them! Well, now, _don't_ things work around queer?"

Then she shut the door and locked it, and came over to Tode so close that her cap frills almost touched his curly head, before she whispered her next sentence:

"Now, I know you will tell me just the truth. Do them two boys of mine touch the bottles for themselves?"

How gently and pitifully Tode answered the poor mother! "I guess they do, a little--all the fellows do, except just me--they don't think it's any harm."

"I knew it, I knew it!" she said, pitifully. "Their father would, and _they_ will."

Then, after a moment, she rallied.

"But I don't give up hope for 'em, not a bit, and I ain't going to so long as I can pray for 'em. Now I'll tell you what we'll do. The Lord has sent you to help me, I do guess--I asked him if I couldn't have somebody just to give me a lift with them. You'll have Jim's room, and when he comes you'll be just nice and comfortable together, seeing you know each other. Rick, he never comes home for all night, 'cause he can't get away. And then you'll help me keep an eye on Jim, and say a word to him now and then when you can, and pray for him every single day--will you now?"

So when the night closed in, Tode's bundle was unpacked, and his clothes hung on Jim's nails, and once again he had a home.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII.

TODE'S REAL ESTATE.

By next evening business had fairly commenced. The first day's sales were encouraging in the extreme, the more so that Tode had rescued two boys from the vortex on his left, and persuaded them into taking a cup of his excellent coffee instead of something stronger. Among the accomplishments that he acquired at the Euclid House was the art of making delicious coffee, an art which bid fair to do him good service now. He set a very inviting looking table. A very coa.r.s.e, but delightfully clean white cloth, hid the roughness and imperfections of the dry-goods box; and his stock of crockery, consisting of three cups and saucers, three large plates, and three pie plates, purchased at the auction rooms, were disposed of with all the skill which his native tact and his apprenticeship at the Euclid House had taught him. After mature deliberation he had bargained for and rolled back the barrel, made it stationary with the help of a nail or two, and mounting it was ready for customers. He had them, too--one especially, whose appearance filled him with great satisfaction. With the incoming of the four o'clock train Mr.

Stephens appeared, stopped in surprise on seeing his new acquaintance, asked numerous questions, and finally remarked that he had been gone all day, and might as well take his lunch there and go directly to the store. So Tode had the very great pleasure of seeing him drink two cups of his coffee, eat three of his cakes, and lay down fifty cents in payment thereof. Never was there a more satisfied boy than he, when at dusk he packed his cakes into a basket procured for the purpose, covered them carefully with the table-cloth, tucked the coffee-pot in at one end, and marched whistling away toward home. He had been gone since quite early in the morning, had procured his own breakfast and dinner, according to previous arrangement, but was going home to tea.