CHAPTER IV.

A DISCONTENTED BOY.

“I do think that if there is a mean business in the world, I am engaged in it.”

Gus Robbins suspended for a moment the work of folding up the numerous bolts of calico he had taken down from the shelves for the inspection of a customer who had just departed without purchasing anything, and leaning on the counter, gazed longingly through the glass door into the street. It was a bright winter day. The sleighing was excellent, and the principal thoroughfare of the thriving little city of Foxboro’ was filled with sleighs which dashed by in both directions, carrying loads of gay pleasure-seekers, all of whom, Gus noticed with no little bitterness of heart, seemed to be enjoying themselves to the fullest extent. It was just before the holidays, and everybody seemed to be making unusual preparations for them. The store was filled with customers almost all the time, and Gus had stood in his place behind the counter, and taken down and put up bales of goods until he was almost tired out, and completely disgusted with the store and everything belonging to it. Just now there was a little lull in business, and Gus had a few minutes to himself. He improved them, as he generally improved his moments of leisure, by growling over his hard lot in life, and drawing a contrast between his own situation and that of some of the other boys of his acquaintance in the city.

“There are no such things as peace and pleasure for the unfortunate fellow who makes his bread and butter by clerking in a dry-goods store,” continued Gus, spitefully banging a bolt of calico down upon the counter. “Everybody is happy except me. Other boys are out behind their fast horses having a good time, and here I am shut up in this miserable old store, and have been ever since seven o’clock this morning. This thing is getting to be a little too monotonous, the first thing you know, and I am not going to put up with it much longer. If I had money, I wouldn’t stay in this city twenty-four hours longer. Great Cæsar!”

Gus brought his soliloquy to a sudden close, and the bolt of calico he had picked up to place upon the shelf dropped from his hands. While he was talking to himself he kept his gaze directed toward the street, and saw a red-faced man pass one of the windows and turn toward the door. As he laid his hand upon the knob, somebody in the street accosted him, and the red-faced man turned about and entered into conversation with him. Gus looked at him for a moment, and then ran his eyes hastily around the store as if he were looking for some way of escape.

“He’ll be in here in a second more,” said he, to himself, “and how shall I put him off? I’ve told him so many lies that I shall have to get a fresh stock on hand before I can tell him any more.”

The expression that rested on the boy’s face during the next half-minute, seemed to indicate that he was revolving a very perplexing problem in his mind. Suddenly he brightened up and with another glance at the door, passed rapidly around the counter, and crossed over to the other side of the store, where another clerk was at work folding up some goods.

“I say, Sam,” exclaimed Gus, in a hurried whisper; “will you add another to the long list of favors you have done me?”

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Sam, hesitatingly. “Depends upon what it is. If you want to borrow any more——”

“I don’t,” interrupted Gus. “But Meyers is coming after what I owe him, and there he is now. Tell him that I have gone out and shan’t be back for a week. If you will do that much for me I will repay you——”

Gus did not have time to say how or when he would repay Sam, for at this moment the red-faced man turned half around and placed his hand on the door-knob. Gus quickly ducked his head and stole along behind the counter toward the back part of the store, until he came to a door opening into the warehouse.

He straightened up when he reached this place of refuge, and just as he did so the opening and closing of the front door told him that Mr. Meyers, the Jew who kept the little cigar and tobacco stand around the corner, had entered on one of his regular weekly dunning visits.

“Much good may it do him,” thought Gus, keeping the door open about half an inch so that he could see all that passed in the store. “He is a regular leech, and if I could only settle up with him I’d pay him for his persistency by buying my cigars and fine cut somewhere else.”

The visitor held a long interview with Sam—so long that Gus began to be very impatient, and at last to tremble for fear that his father, who was busy with the books in the office, might come out and find him there. Gus could not hear what they said, but he could see, by Mr. Meyers’s emphatic gestures, that he was very much in earnest about something. As soon as the man left the store, Gus drew a long breath of relief and came out of his hiding-place. The smile on his face showed that he was very much pleased with the success of his little stratagem.

“O, there’s nothing to grin over, old fellow,” said Sam. “If you know when you are well off you will rake fifteen dollars together pretty lively, I tell you.”

“Fifteen dollars!” replied Gus. “I don’t owe him any such sum as that.”

“He’s got a bill made out for it, anyhow.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him that you had gone out somewhere on business, and that you would call and pay him to-morrow afternoon.”

“To-morrow afternoon!” echoed Gus. “Great Cæsar! How am I going to raise fifteen dollars between this time and that?”

“I give it up,” replied Sam.

“To-morrow afternoon!” gasped Gus, as visions of a stormy interview with the impatient and angry cigar vendor flitted through his mind.

“Yes; I tried to put him off, but he wouldn’t be put off, so I had to tell him something definite.”

“You had no business to tell him that, at any rate,” snapped Gus. “You know I couldn’t keep that promise.”

“Well, the next time you want any lies told you can just stay in the store and tell them yourself,” retorted Sam. “I shall not do it any more, and you needn’t waste your time and breath in asking me. I have stood between you and your creditors just as long as I am going to; but I’ll tell you one thing: You had better settle with that Jew, or he will go to your father with his bill. Then won’t you be in a fix?”

“Whew!” exclaimed Gus, who was not a little alarmed.

“But remember that my claim is to be settled first,” continued Sam. “You have owed me money longer than you have owed him, and I want you to begin to pony up. I am tired of waiting.”

“You will have plenty of time to get rested again before you get the money, and so will that Jew,” thought Gus, as he turned and walked back to his own counter. “Is it any wonder that I want to get away from here?”

No, it was no wonder that Gus was always in trouble, but he had no one to thank for it but himself. He had a comfortable home, a kind father and mother, and there was more than one boy in the city who would have been glad to change places with him. The great trouble with Gus was, that he would not work if he could help it, and he had no idea of the value of money.

Mr. Robbins, who had once been a poor boy, and who had earned every dollar he possessed by his own unaided efforts, thought that every youth ought to learn how to take care of himself; so as soon as Gus and Bob (that was the name of Gus’s younger brother) had completed the course at the High School, they were placed in the store, given the free use of the money they earned and assured that they would be promoted and their wages increased as fast as their services would warrant. They each received two hundred and fifty dollars a year, and that was fifty dollars more than inexperienced clerks had ever before been paid in that store; but Gus declared that it was but little better than nothing at all. He had some very grand ideas, and was frequently heard to say that he did not intend to be a dry goods’ clerk all his life.

“I don’t want you to be,” said his father, who one day happened to be standing near when Gus made this declaration. “Clerks are necessary, but if you have brains and energy enough to work your way up higher, I shall be only be too glad to see you do it. I hope you will some day be a prosperous merchant; but you never can be unless you know all about business. In order to learn it you must begin at the beginning.”

“And work for two hundred and fifty dollars,” said Gus. “How is a fellow to get rich on that, I’d like to know?”

“By saving; that is the only way.”

“But I have nothing to save. After I drew my wages last month I bought a suit of clothes, and a dollar—just one little dollar—was all I had to show for twenty-six days’ work.”

“And what did you do with that one little dollar?”

“I—I believe I spent it.”

“Of course you did. If you had saved it you would have been just a dollar ahead.”

“And if I saved a dollar every month, I should have just twelve dollars at the end of the year,” said Gus. “That’s a magnificent sum.”

“But you don’t need a suit of new clothes every thirty days, and most of the time you could save more than a dollar a month. The amount of your savings is not so important as it is that you should get in the way of saving something—no matter how small the amount may be. If you begin by saving four dollars every month, you will find it just as easy after a while to save eight; for good habits, like bad ones, grow stronger every day.”

“But I can’t be satisfied to plod along in that way,” said Gus, to himself. “If I could have two or three hundred dollars all in a lump, so that I could buy some things I need, pay all my debts and have a good-sized nest-egg left, I might get up ambition enough to go to saving; but this thing of laying by pennies—Pshaw!”

Mr. Robbins often talked to his boys in this way, and he had finally succeeded in convincing Bob that it was not best to despise the day of small things, and that the surest road to prosperity was the one his father had pointed out. Like his brother, Bob had been in the habit of spending every cent he made, and more, too, if he could get it; but of late he had taken to saving, and now he had grown to be, to quote from Gus, “the very quintessence of meanness.” But he had money in the bank, and being safely out of debt, he was not continually harassed by duns as his brother was. More than that, he got into the way of being very attentive to his work (one good habit leads to another, you know), and before he had been in the store a year he was given entire charge of one branch of his father’s business, and his wages were increased.

This left Gus at the very lowest round of the ladder. He was obliged to open the store in the morning, build the fires and sweep out, and he looked upon this as very degrading work. He grew more negligent and discontented every day, and always made it a point, after the store was closed for the night, to make up for the tiresome hours he had spent behind the counter. He often wished for Ned Ackerman. When the latter was in his father’s employ he had a companion who was always ready to join him in any thing; but Ned was in Texas, Bob had gone back on him, and Gus was very lonely.

Our discontented dry-goods clerk received a very severe blow, and the little ambition he had was all crushed out of him when his younger brother was placed over him. It was a disgrace that he could not put up with, and so he tried to run away from it. There was a news-depôt for sale in the city, and Gus could have purchased it on very advantageous terms, if he had only had the money; but he didn’t have it. Mr. Robbins, who knew more about his son’s habits than Gus thought he did, would not advance it, and so Gus was obliged to stay in the store. Everything seemed to be working against him, and Gus grew desperate. He spent his money as fast as it was paid to him, and when it gave out, he went as deeply in debt as he could go. He had always been able to satisfy his creditors by paying them a little every month; but now they were getting impatient, and were all presenting their bills at once.

“Fifteen dollars!” repeated Gus, as he walked toward his own counter. “To-morrow afternoon!” he murmured, as he chucked one of the bolts of calico spitefully upon the shelf. “Moses! won’t there be a row, unless I can think up some plausible story between this time and that! I must owe at least fifty dollars—almost three months’ wages. I wish I could leave here this very night, and never set eyes on this town again! But how can I get away without money? That’s the question.”

Just then Gus heard something fall on the counter, and looked up to see his brother Bob walking through the store, with a bundle of letters and papers in his hand. He had just returned from the post-office, and had thrown a letter for his brother on the counter, as he passed by.

“Just look at young Dignity!” said Gus, as his brother disappeared through the door that led into the office. “One would think, by the airs he throws on, that he owned the store! Who has been writing to me, I wonder!”

Gus allowed the letter to lie where it had fallen, until he had cleared the counter, folded all the goods and placed them on the shelves, where they belonged. Then he picked it up and glanced at the envelope, fully expecting to recognise the handwriting of some of his creditors, who not unfrequently wrote notes to him, to remind him that there was a little balance due them, which they would be happy to receive at the earliest possible moment that he could make it convenient to hand it to them. But this letter was not from a creditor. It was from Ned Ackerman, the very boy who had been in his thoughts a score of times that day. Gus ran his eyes hastily over the last few lines above the signature, and saw something in them that excited and delighted him.

“Hurrah!” said he to himself. “Plague take it!”

These two exclamations, so different in meaning, were called forth by very different emotions. He had read enough of the letter to learn that his old friend Ned was having a fine time down there in Texas; that he was lonely in spite of it, and wanted Gus and his brother to come on and pay him a long visit; and that the want of money need not prevent them from doing so, for Ned would send them enough to pay their fare and all other expenses. But before Gus could read any farther, he was interrupted by the entrance of two or three ladies, who came up to his counter. They proved to be very exacting, too, and Gus handed down a good many different kinds of cloth for their inspection. He fumed inwardly and used some hard words to himself, while he was doing it, and as soon as the ladies had departed, he caught up his letter and read it through.

“Of course I’ll go,” said he, so delighted with the idea that he hardly knew what he was about; “but Bob shan’t! We don’t want him, and so I’ll say nothing to him about this letter. I shan’t say anything to father either, for he would be sure to tell me to stay at home.”

Gus had found a way out of his troubles at last. He wrote a reply to Ned’s letter that very night, and was as impatient to hear from him again as Ned was to hear from Gus. He made no effort to raise money to pay his debts, and indeed he did not intend to pay them at all. He went to see all his creditors, as soon as he could find time, just to keep them from calling upon him at the store, and by making them some very fair promises, he succeeded in quieting them for a while. When that was done, he breathed easier, and the only thing he had to worry over and feel anxious about was the expected letter from Ned, which he hoped would bring a check for the money he needed, and contain instructions as to the route he was to travel, in order to reach Palos.

“And when I get there I’ll stay,” Gus often told himself. “I shall never come back. I’ve had enough of this miserable life. What will I do and where shall I go after I have finished my visit? I am sure I don’t know. That is a matter I will decide when the time comes. I do hope Ned will have no trouble in raising the money.”

Gus was not disappointed in his hopes. Ned was so anxious to have him there that he did not delay writing, and in due time the looked-for letter arrived. Gus could hardly control his exultation from those around him. He wrote to his friend at once, saying that he would start in a week, and that Ned must make his own calculations as to the time his visitor would reach Palos, as he (Gus) had not she slightest idea how long it would take him to make the journey, and Ned had forgotten to enlighten him on this point.

Gus wanted to wait a week longer in order that he might draw the twenty dollars and more that would then be due him from the store. It was the longest week he had ever lived through, and the hardest too; but it came to an end at last, and pay-day arrived. Gus drew his money when Bob did, and as soon as he had put it into his pocket, he slipped out the back door into an alley that ran behind the store, and started for home. He made his way to the room in which he and Bob slept, opened his trunk with a key he took from his pocket, deposited his money therein and took out the check which he had kept locked up in the trunk ever since it arrived.

“It is time to get this cashed now,” said he. “I put it off until the last moment because I didn’t want to give anybody a chance to talk about it. I don’t know what the cashier will think when I present it at the bank, and I don’t care either, if he will only give me the money. I hope Sam will have a good time getting what I owe him. He was waiting at the office door to catch me when I came out, and that was the reason I slipped into the alley.”

Gus locked his trunk, put the key and check carefully away in his pocket and hurriedly left the house. Time was precious (he had less than half an hour left in which to eat his dinner and return to the store) and he made all the haste he could. He was particularly anxious to get through with his business at the bank, for he had been dreading it all the week. What would the folks in there think when he approached the cashier’s desk and presented a check for a hundred dollars? He ran up the steps while he was thinking about it, and almost into the arms of the very person he most wished to avoid just then—the one who had waited to dun him when he came out of his father’s office. Sam had drawn his month’s wages and came to the bank to deposit them.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Sam. “Where did you go in such a hurry after you drew your money? I didn’t see you come out of the office.”

“But I did come out, you see; for if I had stayed in, I couldn’t be here, could I?”

“Hold on,” said Sam, as Gus tried to push him aside so that he could enter the door. “This is a good time to settle up.”

“I will settle with you this afternoon, sure pop,” returned Gus.

“Why can’t you do it now? You have got your money, for I saw you draw it.”

“I know it, but I haven’t got it now. I’ll be on hand this evening—sure.”

“You said this afternoon,” answered Sam, looking suspiciously at Gus.

“Well, this afternoon, then.”

So saying, Gus crowded past Sam and went into the bank. To his great relief there was no one in front of the cashier’s desk; no one present to see him receive his hundred dollars. With a beating heart and trembling hand he produced his check, and breathed a good deal easier when he saw that the cashier did not exhibit any surprise at its magnitude. He was in hopes that the man would be in a hurry about cashing it, but instead of that he was very deliberate in his movements. He looked at the check on all sides and then he looked at Gus.

“Who is this John Ackerman?” he asked.

“He used to be father’s book-keeper, you know,” said Gus.

“O, yes! Do you want us to collect this for you?”

“No, sir; I want the money on it now.”

“All right,” said the cashier, handing the check over the counter. “Write your name across the back of it, and then take it home and let your father sign it.”

“My father!” exclaimed Gus. “Not much. I mean—what do you want his signature for?” he added hastily, and in great confusion, for the cashier looked at him as if he were somewhat surprised at his earnestness.

“To make ourselves secure,” said the cashier, by way of explanation. “You see, Gus, this check is drawn by John Ackerman on the Planters’ Bank of Austin, Texas. He may have funds there, but he has none here, and neither have you; and it is our rule in such cases to require an endorsement other than that of the payee. You are the payee, you know—the one to whom the check is made payable. Your father will sign it.”

Gus felt like giving vent to his astonishment and rage in a series of the wildest kind of yells, and it was all he could do to choke back his tears. As soon as he had controlled himself so that he could speak, he said:

“I don’t want to ask my father to endorse it. This is my own private affair, and I don’t want you to say anything about it.”

“Of course not. We never talk about our business matters.”

“How long will it take to collect it?”

“Well, Austin is a long distance from here, and it will take two or three weeks at least.”

“Great Cæsar!” was Gus’s mental exclamation. “Can I stand it to stay in the store so much longer? Very well,” he said aloud, “I shall have to ask you to collect it for me, if that is the best I can do.”

Gus turned about and walked out of the bank like one in a dream. He had never in his life before been so badly disappointed. The reflection that if he remained in the store a month longer, and could save all the money he earned in that time, he would have twenty dollars more to be added to the sum he already possessed, did not encourage him in the least. He wanted his liberty more than he wanted a month’s wages, and besides he was by no means sure that he would be able to save what he earned. If his creditors became weary of having their debts paid by promises, and presented their bills to his father, Gus knew that they would be promptly settled, and that he could not draw a cent at the end of the month. He turned these matters over in his mind while he was eating his dinner, and the longer he pondered upon them the more he felt like yelling. There were no customers in the store when he returned, but Sam was leaning over the counter waiting for him.