CHAPTER XIX.
PENNILESS WANDERERS IN A STRANGE CITY.
Friendless and penniless in a strange city; cold, wet, and hungry, with night near at hand. This was the present condition of little Prince Dusty and his Uncle Phin, as, realizing that they had been cruelly deceived and robbed by the stranger who had proposed to purchase their boat, they turned slowly away from the river. They knew not where to go; but, moved by the impulse that prompted them to seek shelter from the storm, they walked toward the buildings on a street that fronted the broad, sloping levee.
If they only had something to eat, their future might not seem so dark. Then they could talk over their situation and decide upon some plan. Now they could neither talk nor think of anything but the terrible hunger that turned their strength into weakness and drove every other thought from their minds.
It was now twenty-four hours since they had eaten a satisfactory meal; for their mouthful of breakfast had only whetted their appetite for more. Uncle Phin had known what hunger was before, and was thus somewhat prepared to bear its sufferings. Even Rusty’s patient dog nature enabled him to suffer in silence, only revealing his misery by an occasional whine, and by appealing glances at his young master’s face. To this same young master, however, the hunger wolf had never seemed so fierce, nor so terrible, as now. Many a night had the fatherless boy been sent to bed by his Aunt Nancy without any supper, and at such times he had been very hungry; but never had he imagined such a longing for food as he now experienced.
“Oh, Uncle Phin!” he moaned, “can’t you think of any way to get something to eat? Just a loaf of bread or some crackers. It doesn’t seem as if I could stand it much longer.”
“Well, Honey! my pore lil honey lamb! de ole man is a rackin his brain, an a projeckin, an a thinkin, and it’s mo’n likely he’ll strike up wif some plan dreckly. You see des yeah ’sperience hab kim up powerful sudden, an its umposserbilities hab tuk me by ’sprise. Now we might sell dat ar dorg Rusty fer ernough to buy a squar meal, ef we know’d whar to fin a pusson what wanted a dorg.”
“Sell Rusty, Uncle Phin! Sell my dear little dog! Why, I’d starve first.”
“Dats it! Dats jes de way I knowed ’t would be,” said the old man, shaking his head sadly. “Well, dars dat ar book ob yourn. We mighter——”
“My precious book, that the beautiful lady gave me!” cried the boy. “Why, Uncle Phin, that’s worse than Rusty. I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world; not even for a great heaping plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with maple syrup on them.”
“Or a fat possum roasted in a hole in de groun?” suggested the old man, his mouth watering at the thought.
“No, nor a beefsteak with baked sweet potatoes, and hot rolls,” said the boy, who, under the circumstances, was certainly placing a high value on his book.
“Or a big dish er hominy smoking frum de kittle wif a plenty er pok gravy,” added Uncle Phin eagerly, unable to conceive of anything more likely to tempt a hungry little boy than this.
“No, not for anything that was ever cooked, or ever will be, would I give up my own dear book,” said Arthur stoutly.
They had found a temporary refuge from the rain in a doorway, and stood within its shelter during this exchange of the tantalizing thoughts uppermost in their minds. Nearly opposite to them was a street lamp that had just been lighted, and they watched the lamplighter enviously, as he shouldered his flaming torch and walked away, whistling merrily, doubtless to a home and supper.
Now, as in answer to Arthur’s last remark, Uncle Phin was saying: “Well, den, Honey, I don see but what we’se got er go hungry twel to-morrer, when maybe I kin git er job er wood sawin,” there came a quick rush of feet on the wet flagging. Arthur turned to look at the flying figure, and gave a little cry of recognition, as the light from the street lamp fell on its face. At the same instant Rusty recognized in it his old persecutor, the boy with whom his young master had fought in the tramps’ camp. With a growl he sprang forward. Arthur still held the end of his rope, and the dog’s movement was so sudden that it nearly threw him down. As it was, he stumbled, and the precious book, so recently the subject of their conversation, fell to the sidewalk. The next moment another figure, and this time it was that of Sandy Grimes, the big tramp, rushed past, evidently in pursuit of his boy, and then all was again quiet.
Recovering himself, and taking a firmer hold on the rope that held the still excited Rusty, Arthur stepped forward and picked up his book of fairy tales. As he did so, a bit of dark paper, that seemed to fall from between its leaves, fluttered to the wet stones, and this the boy also picked up. Curious to see what it was, he held it to the light and uttered a cry of incredulous amazement.
It was a bank bill for five dollars; and, although Arthur did not know it at the time, it was the same one that his friend, Brace Barlow, had slipped between the leaves of the book on the night that he bade them farewell. Why Arthur had not discovered it long before, will always be a mystery that can only be accounted for by the fact that the book was a large one, and contained many stories, several of which he had not yet read. Between the leaves of one of these the bill had probably been all this time, and now, in the hour of the boy’s sorest need, it came to him as though it were indeed a gift from the fairy godmother who had written the inscription upon the fly-leaf of the volume.
Arthur’s excitement was fully shared by Uncle Phin, though with the old man it assumed a quieter and more reverent form. He said: “De good Lawd seen de fix we was in, Honey, an He sen dis yeah in place ob er raben, fer our suppah. Dats what we’se er wantin de mostes, an dats what we oughter to be gettin de fustes ting.”