CHAPTER II
ON THE TRAIL OF A JOB
“I don’t know what we are going to do, Harry, if the cost of living goes any higher.” Mrs. Harding stared across the little center table at her sixteen-year-old son, an expression of deep worry looking out of her patient, brown eyes. “A dollar used to seem like quite a lot of money, but it doesn’t go far these days. I’ve spent every cent I dare this week for groceries, and we’ve still three days to go until I’ll have the money for this dress. I’ve got to sew every minute to get it done. Thank goodness, the rent’s paid for this month. But you must have a new pair of shoes and I don’t know where they are going to come from.” The little woman sighed, then attacked her sewing with fresh energy. “I can’t stop even to complain,” she added bravely.
“You’ll just _have_ to let me go to work, Mother.” Harry Harding laid the text-book he was studying on the table and regarded his mother with serious eyes.
“But I don’t want to take you out of school, Harry,” she protested. “You are getting along so well. Why, next year you’ll be in high school.”
“No, I won’t, Mother. Do you think that a great big boy like me is going to let his mother support him any longer? It’s time I went to work. Besides, I haven’t the money for clothes and books and all the other things high school fellows have to have. I’m past sixteen. Lots of boys have to go to work when they’re only fourteen. I guess it won’t hurt me any to begin now.”
“But I want you to have an education, Harry. If your father had lived, he intended to let you go through high school and then to college.” Mrs. Harding’s voice trembled a little. The sudden death of her husband two years previous had been a shock from which she had never quite recovered. It was hard for her even to mention his name without shedding tears.
“I’ll get an education, somehow, and work, too,” returned Harry confidently. “There are night schools where a fellow can go and learn things. Please let me quit school to-morrow and try,” he pleaded. “I can’t earn much at first, but even three dollars a week’ll help some. I’ve got to start some time, you know. If you won’t let me go to work I could sell papers after school.”
“No, you couldn’t,” retorted his mother with decision. “I’d rather have you leave school than see you racing around the city streets selling papers. That’s one thing you sha’n’t do.”
“Then let me go and hunt a job,” begged the boy.
“I’ll think it over. Now go on studying your lesson and don’t tease me any more about it.”
Harry took up his book obediently enough. His frequent pleading to leave school to go to work had always been promptly vetoed by his mother. She had struggled desperately to keep her son in school and was willing to go on with the struggle. It was Harry himself who had repeatedly begged her to allow him to take his place in the work-a-day world. She could never quite bring herself to the point of consenting to the boy’s plea. But, to-night, as she thought darkly of their poverty and of their continual fight against actual want she was nearer consent than she had ever been before.
Perhaps Harry felt this, for it was not long until the book went down on the table again. “Do say you’ll let me try, Mother,” he implored earnestly. “You don’t know how much it means to me. It isn’t as if I’d stop trying to learn things as soon as I started to work. I’d study harder than ever. Just think how much the money would help us after I’d been working awhile. Why, some of the greatest men that ever lived had to quit school and go to work when they were lots younger than I. Benjamin Franklin did, and so did Abraham Lincoln. Just yesterday the teacher read us a story of how Lincoln earned his first dollar when he was a boy.”
Mrs. Harding looked wistfully at her son’s eager face. “My little son, do you want to help mother so much?” she asked tenderly. Her voice trembled a little.
“You know I do. Oh, Mother, may I try? Are you going to say ‘yes’ at last?” Harry sprang from his chair and going to his mother’s chair slipped his arm around her neck.
“Well,” began the little woman reluctantly, “if you are so set on working, I guess you might as well try it. But remember, Harry, if you don’t like it, you can go back to school. We’ll get along some way.”
“But I shall like it,” protested Harry. “I’ve always said I was going to be a business man when I grew up. If I start right now maybe I’ll be one in a few years.”
“But where are you going to look for work, child?” asked Mrs. Harding. Now that she had given her son the longed-for sanction to make his own way, she began to feel something of his boyish enthusiasm.
“I don’t know,” returned Harry thoughtfully. Then, seized with a sudden inspiration, “I guess I’ll look in the _Journal_. That always has a lot of advertisements.”
Picking up the evening paper, which lay on the center table, Harry turned its leaves to the column of “Male Help Wanted,” and scanned it earnestly. “Here’s one, Mother. ‘Boy wanted for errands, good chance for advancement. Opportunity to learn business. 894 Tyler.’ That sounds good.” Taking the stub of a lead pencil from his pocket, Harry carefully marked it. “Oh, here’s another. ‘Bright boy for office work. 1684 Cameron.’” This advertisement was duly checked. Harry went eagerly down the column until he had marked six advertisements. “There, that will do to start with. If I don’t get a position at any of those places I’ll try again when to-morrow’s paper comes out. But surely some of them will have a chance for me. It’s nine o’clock. I guess I’ll go to bed right now, so as to be up bright and early in the morning.”
Piling his books on one arm, Harry went over to his mother and kissed her good night. “You must keep thinking hard that I’m going to get one of those positions, Mother,” he said brightly. Then he went into the tiny room that was really half of his mother’s room, curtained off for his use. Harry was very proud of his little room. It was so small it held nothing but his cot bed, one chair, a small table and a bamboo book-case of two shelves, which he had bought in a second-hand store for a quarter. This held the few books he owned and was dear to his heart.
After he had undressed and lay down on his bed he found that he was too much excited over the prospect of his new venture to sleep. Already he could see himself in a beautiful office, with soft rugs on the floor and shining oak furniture. He could imagine himself saying, “Yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” to his employer, and listening with alert respectfulness to his orders. He would prove himself so willing to work and perform whatever he was given to do so faithfully that in time he would be promoted to something better. His favorite story-book hero, Dick Reynolds, had begun work as an office boy and had done wonderful things. Why couldn’t the same things happen again to him?
When at ten o’clock his mother stole into the room, as was her nightly custom before going to bed, for a last look at her son, she saw two bright, wide-awake eyes peering at her. “This will never do, little man,” she said, patting his cheek. “You must go to sleep, if you are anxious to be up early to-morrow morning.”
“I’ll try, Mother,” sighed Harry, “but I just can’t help thinking about it.”
After his mother had kissed him again and gone to her own room, Harry shut his eyes tightly and resolved to go to sleep. When finally the sandman did visit him, he dreamed that he was Dick Reynolds and had secured a position in a bank. He was the president’s office boy, and the president had sent him to the City Hall with a bag full of bank notes. He ran all the way from the bank to the Hall and was just going in the door when two boys leaped out from behind it and tried to take the bag away from him. He fought like a tiger, but he had to hang on to the bag with one hand while he knocked down the thieves with the other. As fast as he knocked them down they bobbed up again. Finally, one of them hit him over the head with an arithmetic. It was his own book. He recognized it by the green paper cover he had put on it. He wondered as he fought how the boy happened to have his arithmetic. Then the other boy suddenly took a long coil of rope from under his coat and lassoed him. He felt himself falling, falling. He struck the pavement with a terrible crash. Then----
“Why, Harry, what is the matter?” The City Hall, the money bag, even the robbers had faded away, and Harry found himself sitting on the bare floor, blinking up at his mother, who bent anxiously over him.
“I guess I must have been asleep, Mother, and fell out of bed.” Harry eyed his mother sheepishly. “I dreamed I had a job in a bank and was fighting two fellows who tried to take a whole lot of money away from me. What time is it?”
“It’s ten minutes to twelve. Now, go straight to sleep, or I won’t call you early.”
Harry obediently climbed back into bed and was not heard from again that night. It seemed to him as though he had hardly gone to sleep before he heard his mother calling, “Six o’clock, Harry.” The boy was out of bed in an instant. He pattered to the window, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he went. The light of a perfect day in early October shone in as he raised the shade. If good weather were a happy omen, then surely he would obtain that which he was going forth so earnestly to seek.
His mother had taken special pains with his breakfast that morning, and though he was quivering with excitement over what was to be his first venture into the busy world of trade, he tried to show his appreciation of her tender thoughtfulness by eating a hearty meal. In his neat, blue serge suit, he had put on his Sunday best, his well-shined shoes and his clean, white shirt with its immaculate collar, he was above reproach as far as attire went, and his bright, boyish face with its clear, blue eyes and clean-cut, resolute mouth made him a boy to be proud of. So his mother thought as she looked approvingly at him across the table. She stifled the sigh of regret that her boy must so early take his place among the bread-winners, and listened to his eager plan of what he intended to do with an encouraging smile.
“Well, Mother, I’m off. That was a dandy breakfast. You know what I like, don’t you. I wish all the boys in the world had mothers like you. I don’t know when I’ll be back. If I don’t come home all day, you’ll know I’m working.” Reaching to the nail where he always hung his cap, Harry stood for an instant with it in his hand. Then he kissed his mother and went manfully down the two flights of stairs to the street.
He had clipped from the paper the section of the want column with the advertisements he had marked. Now he studied it earnestly and set out for the Tyler Street address. It was at least fifteen squares from his home, but the clock on a nearby church had just chimed out the hour of seven. In his pocket reposed twenty cents in small change. He had earned it by doing errands after school. But he made up his mind that not a penny of it should go for carfare if he could help it. He had plenty of time to walk. He would very likely reach the place he had selected for his first call before the office was open. He wondered what sort of building it would be, and whether it was an office building or a factory. More than one person glanced in friendly fashion at the erect, manly lad as he hurried along. There was something in his earnest young face that commanded attention and instant approbation.
“There it is,” he murmured as, after a half-hour’s brisk walk he came opposite a tall rather dingy-looking brick building. “That must be the office over there where the sign is hanging out.”
Hurrying across the street the boy approached the door over which hung the sign, “The Knickerbocker Worsted Mills.” He read it aloud, then looked a trifle disappointed. This did not exactly accord with his ideas of a position. Then he laughed at his own mental hesitation. “What do you care if it _is_ a mill office, Harry Harding,” he murmured. “It’s work you’re looking for, and you can’t expect to have everything just the way you want it.”
Turning the knob on the door that bore a small sign of “Office,” the boy opened it and stepped inside a long room that had the shining oak furniture of his dreams. This room was divided off into many compartments by little oak fences with swinging gates. Near the door, at a little desk, sat a boy of about his own age. As he stepped into the room the boy rose to meet him.
“Whada yuh want?” he asked superciliously.
“Good morning,” said Harry politely. “I came in answer to your advertisement in the _Journal_ for a boy. To whom do I go?”
“Yuh don’t _go_ unless I let yuh in,” declared the boy ill-naturedly. “Anyway, the position’s filled. The boss just hired a boy about ten minutes ago. That’s him over there.” He pointed to a black-haired lad, who had just emerged from a room adjoining the long office. “That’s the kid. Yuh better beat it. Nothin’ doin’ around here.”
“Can’t I see the manager or--or--someone?” persisted Harry.
“Naw, yuh can’t. Think I wanta get my head snapped off by buttin’ in where Mr. Warner’s openin’ his mail? Guess I know my business. Didn’t the boss just say, ‘Fred, if any more boys come here answerin’ our ad, tell ’em we’ve hired a boy?’ There’s nothin’ doin’, I tell yuh. Can’t yuh understand that?”
“Yes, I can understand that,” retorted Harry with spirit. “What I can’t understand is how a big firm like this happens to have such a rude office boy. Good morning.”
Harry walked away, his cheeks burning, eyes snapping, leaving the disagreeable boy to gaze after him in positive astonishment.
Once outside the office, Harry paused and taking out the section of newspaper he had marked, scanned it earnestly. The next nearest place he had selected was at least a mile and a half from where he stood. It was twenty minutes to eight o’clock. “I guess I’d better ride,” mused Harry. “The earlier I reach a place, the better my chance will be to get something to do. I hope all the places won’t be like that mill. Why, I didn’t have a chance to talk to a soul except that smart office boy.”
When, at a few minutes after eight o’clock, Harry climbed the steps of an imposing building of white stone, and was waved to a door on the right by a uniformed attendant, he entered a good-sized ante-room, only to find it filled with boys of anywhere from fourteen to eighteen years of age. They were not making so much noise as one might expect at least fifteen active boys to make, yet a distinct buzz of conversation was going on.
Harry paused irresolutely. His eyes met those of a thin, red-haired, black-eyed boy with a mischievous face who stood just to the right of the door. The black-eyed boy grinned in friendly fashion. “Hullo,” he said.
“Good-morning,” returned Harry, answering the grin with a pleasant smile. “Are all these boys looking for the same position?”
“Yep,” nodded the black-eyed boy. “I guess the fellow that’s in the office now is going to get it. He’s been there quite a while.”
He had hardly finished speaking when the door to the inner office opened and a tall, severe-looking man appeared. “We won’t need you, boys,” he said curtly. “The position is filled.” He waved his arm as though to shoo the waiting throng of lads out of the ante-room, then disappeared. The door closed after him with a reverberating bang that shattered the hopes of the fifteen waiting youngsters.
“Huh,” ejaculated the black-eyed boy in disgust, “no more offices like this for me. I’ve been to two before this, and every time I’m too late. I guess these fellows that get the jobs get up in the middle of the night. Me for Martin’s Department Store. That’s where I ought to have gone in the first place.”
“Do they need boys there?” asked Harry. He had walked beside his new acquaintance as far as the door. Here they paused. The attendant eyed them threateningly.
“I hope so. Come on. Let’s get out of here. That man in the uniform will hurt his eyes tryin’ to look a hole through us.” The thin little boy urged Harry out of the building and down the steps to the street. “Say, what’s your name?” he asked curiously.
“Harry Harding. What is yours?”
“My name’s Theodore Burke, but everybody calls me Ted or Teddy, and I just quit school to find a job.”
“I haven’t quit yet,” declared Harry, “but I’m going to as soon as I find work.”
“Then you didn’t get fired?”
“Oh, no. I am going to work to help my mother. I am obliged to find work.”
“I had a fight with the teacher,” related Teddy, with unabashed candor. “She said I was a menace to the West Park School, and she was going to have me put in a school for tough kids. So I gave the fellows my stuff and beat it at recess. Ma was mad, but she got over it right away and said I could go to work if I wanted to.”
“The teacher couldn’t put you in a school for tough boys, unless you did something pretty bad,” informed Harry.
“I put a rubber snake in a girl’s seat,” confessed Ted, “and she hollered like anything.” His black eyes twinkled.
Harry laughed. “Nobody could put you in a reform school for that,” he said wisely. “The teacher was trying to scare you. I guess you’re just full of mischief, that’s all.”
“I guess I am,” agreed Ted, “but, anyhow, I’m not goin’ back to West Park School again.”
“Was that your school? I’ve been going to the Winthrop School. It’s on the North Side. I’d be in high school next year if I kept on.”
“So would I,” nodded Teddy, “but not for mine. I’d rather work.”
“I’d rather go to school,” sighed Harry, “but I can’t.”
“Say, wouldn’t it be funny if we’d both get a job at Martins’?” queried Teddy.
“What makes you think they need boys there? There was no advertisement in the paper.”
“Oh, I know a boy that quit there yesterday for an office job, and he told me that there was always a chance there for a fellow that wasn’t afraid to work.”
“Is that so?” Harry brightened visibly. “Suppose we go down there right away,” he proposed. “What time does the store open?”
“Half past eight.” Teddy Burke took a dollar watch from his pocket and consulted it, saying, “It’s twenty after now. We can walk all right and be there by 8:45. That’s early enough.”
Without further parley the two boys set out for Martin Brothers’ Department Store, the largest retail concern of its kind in the city. Accustomed as they were to the roar of the city streets, they talked on earnestly in their boyish voices, oblivious to the noise.
“Here we are,” announced Teddy, at last, as they paused before a huge stone edifice that towered high above the neighboring buildings. “Let’s go in at that big middle door. Then we can ask someone the way to the office.”
“Suppose we ask that man standing in front of the elevators,” suggested Harry a moment later, as they threaded their way in and out of the crowded aisles. Suiting the action to the word, he approached the man and asked his question.
“All the way down, turn to your right, and four aisles over,” repeated the man mechanically.
“Thank you,” Harry replied doubtfully. “‘All the way down, turn to your right, and four aisles over,’” he repeated.
“That’s clear as mud,” was Teddy’s satirical comment.
“I guess we can find it. Let me see. We have to go clear down to that desk. Come on.” Harry led the way. From the desk they made the turning to the right and counted the aisles.
“I see it,” Teddy cried, pointing straight ahead.
“Yes, there it is.”
A dozen steps down a short, narrow aisle brought the boys to an enclosure railed off from the passage by a flat-topped, breast-high partition of oak. Within the enclosure were several desks. At these desks young men and women were seated. Beyond the enclosure they caught sight through half-opened doors of an inner office with a shining desk, before which a grave, middle-aged man was sitting. Along the wall, facing the outer office, were long, oak benches. These were but sparsely occupied. A gray-haired woman occupied the end of one of them. The length of a bench from her two young girls sat, talking in whispers and glancing furtively at the young man who received the aspirants for positions.
It seemed hours to both lads before their turn came. “Well, boys, what is it?” asked the young man kindly. He had a dark, alert face, and dark, penetrating eyes.
“We came to apply for work in the store, sir.” It was Harry who answered, at a nudge from Ted.
“How old are you?”
“He is fifteen and I am sixteen, sir,” replied Harry.
“You will have to go to Mr. Keene’s office to fill your application blanks. He has charge of the store messenger service, and of all the boys who work here.”
“Where is his office, sir?”
“On the third floor, Warren Street front; north-east corner.”
“Thank you, sir. Do you think Mr. Keene needs any boys?” Harry could not refrain from asking the question.
“I don’t know, my boy,” smiled the young man, “but if he does need any help, I shouldn’t be surprised if he gave you a trial.”
Harry’s eyes glowed with eagerness to know his fate. Thanking the young man, he nudged Ted to come on.
“Let’s not bother with the elevator,” he proposed. “That’s the way to the Warren Street side. As soon as we find the stairway we can go straight to Mr. Keene’s office.”
The prospective wage-earners skipped nimbly up the long flights of stairs, bent on reaching their goal as fast as sturdy young leg-power could carry them. After a little inquiry they managed to bring up at their goal. Here they found themselves standing before a large, railed-in space similar to that of the main office on the first floor. On a closed door at the left of this space appeared the magic words, “Mr. Keene.” The two lads brought up at the railing and looked uncertainly about them, not quite sure what their next move would be.
A pretty young woman with curly brown hair and pink cheeks rose from a nearby typewriter desk. “Well, boys?” she interrogated with an encouraging smile.
“We’d like to see Mr. Keene.” As before, Harry was spokesman.
“Sit down there and wait a few minutes.” She pointed to an oak settee. “Mr. Keene is busy with his mail just now. You can see him when he has finished. I will tell him about you when I go into his office for dictation.”
Just then there was a loud buzzing sound. The young woman picked up her notebook and hurried toward the office door marked “Mr. Keene,” leaving two anxious boys to wonder what fortune had in store for them.