He clenched his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside to admit her.
She returned from the sanctum composedly. He waited a moment that they might not reappear together, and came out with eyes shining and heart a-beat.
The entrance of Mrs. Martin and the maid, the one bearing heaping dishes of ice cream, and the other, as he had unwittingly prophesied, a luscious, heavily-frosted chocolate cake, brought him down to more mundane thoughts with alacrity. Indeed, he devoted himself to his portion with such earnestness that he was able to finish and place his empty plate innocently under his chair, and wait until his plight caught the servant's eye.
"Why, haven't you had any, little boy?"
He shook his head mournfully.
"How did Mrs. Martin ever come to skip you? I'll bring you some right away!"
When she reappeared, he winked heartily at his amazed companions and settled to the second helping of ice cream.
At last the party came to an end, as all such joyous occasions must, and he found himself on the sidewalk, looking up once more at the now darkened parlor. Far up the street came the hooting and jeering of a gang—possibly his own—although the voices seemed older and strange, and the gate of the house next the apartment building had disappeared, leaving empty hinges as mute testimony that some band of witches had done their work thoroughly and well.
In response to his prolonged ring and joyous kicks on the home door, Mrs. Fletcher let him in. "Don't pound so hard, son," she cautioned. "We're not deaf."
"Might a' thought it was some Halloween gang if I didn't," he defended himself as he threw his hat on the nearest chair.
"Have a good time?" she queried.
"Did I?" The earnestness of his voice left little doubt as to his sentiments. "Did I? You just bet I did!"
The family always slept late on Sunday morning, but at that, John, worn out by the excitement of the preceding evening, stirred drowsily when his father appeared in the doorway.
"Come on, John; time to get up."
"Yes, dad," gazing at him with lackluster eyes. As Mr. Fletcher left, he turned his face promptly toward the wall and dropped off to sleep again.
"John!" It was his mother's voice this time.
"Uhu."
"Why didn't you get up when your father called you?"
"Aw, let me alone. I don't want any breakfast. Honest, I don't."
"Nonsense! You can take a nap in the afternoon if you want. Come on. I won't go down stairs until I see you up."
He might as well, then. Mrs. Fletcher was pretty well versed in his tricks, thanks to long years of experience, and there was little chance of further delay. So John sat up and dangled his legs over the side of the bed, while he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes with his fists.
"Need a wet washrag?"
No. He was wide awake now. He listened to her steps on the stairs, and to the opening of the front door as his father brought in the morning paper. Then he fingered one stocking abstractedly.
Half an hour later, prompted by Mrs. Fletcher's remonstrances, her husband came up and found the boy staring with unseeing eyes far over the railroad tracks into the park. In his hand was the same stocking which he had picked up so many minutes before.
At last he appeared in the dining-room, to find that his father and mother had eaten their meal. His hair was half brushed, and his face and neck untouched by cleansing water (hadn't they been soaped the night before?), but he set to work on the nearly cold breakfast with a will. He removed his empty grain saucer from the bread and butter plate and looked up suddenly.
"Mother," he said irresolutely.
"Yes, son?"
"Say, Mother—how old does a fellow have to be to get married, anyway?"
His father chortled with merriment. John flushed an embarrassed red. His mother restrained a smile as she answered:
"About twenty-one, dear, and lots of people wait until they're older. Why?"
"Nothing. Does it cost very much?"
"Cost much?" Mr. Fletcher dropped the Sunday paper to the floor and looked at his son and heir attentively. "Why, I should say it does. You ought to have at least a thousand dollars saved before you even think of marrying."
"John," cautioned Mrs. Fletcher reprovingly. "Don't torment the child."
"Let's see," went on her husband, unheeding. "You're ten now. If you want to marry by the time you're twenty-one, that means you'll have to earn about a hundred dollars a year from now on. Better begin right away."
"Raise my allowance, will you, dad?" came the unexpected retort. "I'm only getting a quarter a week now, and Sid DuPree's father gives him a whole dollar."
"Young man," was the grave reply. "If you want to support a family, you'll have to do it of your own accord. You and your mother keep me busy as it is."
"Give me a quarter, then," the boy persisted. "That's all I want. Please!"
His father dug into his pockets and brought out the desired coin. "The nest-egg for the second generation of Fletchers," he grinned. "Catch, son."
A few minutes later John disappeared in the direction of a little stationery and toy shop which lay some blocks to the north. But not a word could Mr. Fletcher draw from him as to the aim of the expedition. He returned with a mysterious package which he took up to his room and then sauntered out to Silvey's house.
A little later his mother, who had gone upstairs to dress herself for dinner, came down to the dining-room where John, senior, still sat reading.
"John," she said.
"Yes, dear?" with a hasty glance away from the news sheet.
"Do you know," her smile was tender, "there's a big, china pig bank up on that boy's bureau? I believe he's taken your words in earnest!"
The Thursday date for the game with the "Jeffersons" had been selected in early September, and there had been a tacit truce between the two factions as a result. For three afternoons of that first week in November, the "Tigers" sacrificed their games of tops and "Run, sheep, run" on the altar of the football god, and trooped over to the big lot as soon as school was dismissed. There, Silvey, self-appointed coach of the team, expounded the rudiments and the higher attributes of the sport as culled from a series of ten-cent hand books, and ran the team through signals and trick formations in a way that would have amused a university football coach.
Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a dime and an agate shooter. Presently Sid appeared with the football, and they trooped towards the lot in a compact, determined little group.
As they climbed over the railroad fence on the opposite side of the tracks, the "Jeffersons," who were as badly equipped as their rivals, greeted them defiantly. There was a moment or so of conference between Silvey and the Shultz boy before they tossed for sides on the field. Then the teams lined up, kicked off, and sweated and toiled and wrangled through one half of the game without result. Towards the end of the second period, the heavier invaders began a slow march over the cinder-strewn ground toward their opponents' goal and victory.
Onward, onward, inch by inch, first down, five (this was the day of unreformed football), second, three, third, one yard to gain, while the "Tigers" shouted "Ho-o-old 'em! Ho-o-old 'em!" in desperation. On the ten-yard line, indicated by stakes driven in the ground at each side of the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the "Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive touchdown of the game.
"Time," called Silvey, striving vainly to make himself heard above the exultant shouts. "Time, I tell you!" Captain Shultz of the "Jeffersons" drew out a watch, borrowed from a friend for the occasion, and compared it with the one in Bill's possession.
The game was over and the "Jeffersons" had lost.
The victors swaggered woodenly around by the ice cream soda shop and art stores to the home street. No cutting across the tracks for them now; this was a march of triumph! The vanquished trailed sulkily along, some twenty feet behind, giving vent now and then to cat-calls of defiance and disgruntled suggestions that the game would have ended differently if this or that member had played better. At the corner, Silvey turned.
"We licked you!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We licked you! We licked you!"
Shultz raised his voice above the clamor of his team. "Just wait until we catch you alone. You'll be sorry!"
John shrugged his shoulders. "We'll all stick together coming home from school. And if they catch just one of us, why, we can maul them, too." For Shultz's declaration meant that the guerrilla warfare was in full swing again.
Sid's muscles stiffened and his back began to ache. Silvey owned a discolored spot over one eye where an opponent had tried to disable him during a tense moment of the game. John's shin was badly bruised, and Perry Alford had wrenched his ankle. The other members had minor hurts. Only Red Brown had, by some miracle, come through the battle unscathed.
"We won," said Silvey happily, as they stopped in front of his house. "Come on, now, all together!"
They broke into the "Tigers'" exultant war cry, which is very much the same as that of the football team to which you belonged as a boy:
Then they left for their several homes, too worn out to do anything but rest.
Up in his room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured leg hurt terribly—but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping, anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness.
He turned over wearily and found the yellow pig bank leering at him from the bureau with hungry, malignant eyes. Where was that apportioned two dollars which he was to earn by the end of the week? Four days had already elapsed, and the beast's interior was as empty as it had been on the toy-shop shelf. Why had he bought those lemon drops on Monday? And the marbles and his rubber spear top? Was there anything left after the shin-guard purchase? He sat up on the edge of the bed and rummaged in his pockets. One lonely penny remained from his weekly allowance of a quarter.
He dropped the coin into the long slot and shook the pig disgustedly. Two dollars could never be earned by Saturday night. Not even if three lawns were to be cut, and a half-dozen errands run for the neighbors. He slammed the big china animal back on the bureau and went down to supper. The lonely copper had seemed to make the beast sound more hollow than ever as it rattled against the unglazed interior.
That night the wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood which held over from the night before.
He scanned the front yards on the street as he sulked along to school. How slowly grass grew in the fall! Not a lawn needed trimming, and as for freeing them from leaves, the nearly denuded boughs made such operations unnecessary. Coin of the realm seemed further away than ever.
In the afternoon, the haze thickened and hinted of rain. As he and Louise sauntered homeward, a drop of water spattered on her cheek. Another hit him on the nose, and it was but a short time before the cement sidewalks were covered with rapidly merging mosaics of a darker hue.
What luck! Dimes and even quarters, quickly and easily earned, were within his grasp. He left Louise at the apartment entrance and dashed into his own front hall in great excitement.
"I've got the umbrellas," he shouted, as he struggled into his raincoat. "I'm going out with them."
"Don't take my good one," Mrs. Fletcher cautioned. But he was beyond earshot, best umbrella and all, before the words were out of her mouth.
Down the water-glazed street he ran, its dust now laid by the refreshing, pounding torrent, past the barrier of the railroad ticket office, thanks to the friendly agent, and up the worn steps to the station platform. Other boys were there, each with two or three umbrellas, who viewed the newcomer with disfavor. Ere long, each suburban train from town would discharge its quota of daintily dressed shoppers, pallid office clerks and stenographers and prosperous business men. Not one of them would carry protection from the soaking rain, and competition between the juvenile vendors threatened to become acute.
A lean, light suburban engine pulled in amid a cloud of escaping steam and a hissing of airbrakes. John spied a tall slender woman in a car doorway arranging a paper over her hat, and raced along beside the platform until it came to a halt.
"Umbrella home, lady?"
She nodded. "To the hotel."
Behind her loomed a tall, slightly bowed, black-haired lawyer whom John had seen on the long, wooden veranda of that substitute for home more times than he could count on his ten fingers. He, too, took advantage of a rented shelter. Together the couple made their way down the dripping steps while John followed exultantly. Two at once—and the hotel but a scant block and a half away! At the broad entrance, they paused.
"How much do I owe you, little boy?" asked the lady, with a smile.
"Dime," was the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at once. That was luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at top speed.
No double fare the next time, but the helpless stenographer lived a street farther west, and each additional block meant another nickel according to the unwritten umbrella tariff.
"Fifteen cents, madam," he demanded.
She retreated discreetly to the shadow of the apartment hallway to dive into her stocking bank, while he watched two bedraggled sparrows on the sidewalk until she reappeared.
On his return, he found the trains running on the five-minute, rush-hour schedule. Each carried its revenue of small change for the eager, clamoring boys. Once, a gray-haired, kindly-eyed man gave John a quarter and would receive no change, and another time a friend of his mother's did likewise. But for the most part, ten- and fifteen-cent fees were his lot.
Rifts in the misty clouds to the west appeared, which hinted of an end to the rain. Nevertheless, he jingled the change in his pocket light-heartedly. He had made more in the brief eighty minutes than he could cutting the Langley's lawn, or by other juvenile chores which would consume a like time. And, if he were fortunate, there was still time for another customer before the storm ceased.
He found her. She was dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny folks. Nevertheless, he approached her.
"Umbrella home, lady? Can I take you home under an umbrella?"
He could. Instantly all criticism of her personal appearance vanished. True, she might be trying to keep up appearances like the old-maid teacher who scolded knowledge into the eighth-grade class, but she was willing to spend money for his benefit, and that made all the difference in the world.
Past the hotel they went, and down the five long, successive blocks of gray stone university buildings which flanked that side of the boulevard. John's spirits rose. His last was to be a quarter customer, at the least. Then they turned southward and dodged pools of water in the muddy street crossings and on the walks for another two squares. She halted at a grimy, run-down apartment building and closed the umbrella. Thirty-five cents! He opened his mouth to name the fee, but she interrupted him.
"Here's the umbrella, little boy." She stepped into the stuffy, badly-lighted hallway. "Thank you very much for taking me home."
Before he could say a word of protest, the weather-beaten oak door swung to in his face and the lady fled up the stairs.
When he had recovered from his surprise, he stamped angrily in after her. What should he do? He wanted that money. He didn't care if she had disappeared. He'd ring the bell and keep on ringing it until she answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been tricked, and tricked nicely, and he might as well go back.
When he was a block from the station the rain changed to a sudden fine drizzle and halted. The umbrella business was ended for the afternoon. Nevertheless, he had been fairly successful. If that old maid had paid what was due him, the small change in his pocket would have totaled a dollar and thirty cents. But ninety-five cents wasn't bad, as it was.
He sauntered in from the dark street a few minutes later and stacked the dripping umbrellas in the rack in the hallway. Then he burst into the kitchen to tell his mother the news.
"What will you do with all that money, son?"
He blinked a moment at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of seeing right into fellows, and he might as well tell her now.
"Louise and I are going to be married when I'm twenty-one," he blurted. "I'm starting to save now, and she's going to get her mother to teach her how to cook beefsteaks and keep house."
Then he ducked from her amused kisses and ran up to his room. Down came the pig bank from the resting place on the bureau, and out on the white coverlet came the result of his work. Piece by piece the money disappeared in the narrow slot, until not even a nickel was left for lemon drops at the school store. Then he shook the porker with satisfaction. It didn't sound so empty now, and the hungry look seemed to have disappeared from the yellow china face. The eyes held an expression of sleepy content, if an insensate bit of china could do such a thing.
Ninety-six cents was a good start. But he'd have to hustle every minute of Saturday morning. The advent of autumn had so discouraged the growth of grass on the home street that he would have to invade Southern Avenue. Surely he could find some sort of a job on that long, well-groomed street.
After breakfast he sneaked off to drag the lawn-mower from its storage place in the basement. The rattle and bang of the iron frame against the area steps caught Mrs. Fletcher's alert ear. She raised the little side-pantry window and looked out as he lifted the implement up on the walk.
"John!"
"Yes, Mother?" A sheepish note crept into his voice. "Taking the mower out of the basement; that's all."
"Where are you going with it?"
Oh, nowhere in particular. He hoped to earn a little money; that was all.
"Is your room picked up?"
"No."
"And the front porch has to be hosed off for Sunday; never mind the neighbors until my work's finished, son."
Mothers must have forty-'leven pairs of ears to catch fellows the way they did. He stopped to argue with her, but she shook her head impatiently.
"That won't do a bit of good, John. You're just wasting time when you're talking this way."
She was right. And wasting time meant just so many minutes less in which to earn a dollar and four cents. He scampered upstairs and pitched the book which had lain under the bed since a certain clandestine night-reading session into the case. Next, his odds and ends of clothing and ties were thrown on the closet floor with a prayer that they might not be discovered before he made his escape. With his bureau top set hastily in order, he reported for duty below. Out with the hose-reel and up with the nozzle on the porch. A twist of the key, and the water spurted forth while his mother watched the procedure in amazement. He was taking five minutes for work which consumed twenty-five, ordinarily!
But when the water splashed against the sun-blistered clapboards of the veranda wall, his spurt of energy diminished. He adjusted the nozzle until the fine spray came from the hose and watched the miniature rainbow in the bright sunlight. An earnest spider was repairing a web up under the eaves in anticipation of coming storms, and John shifted back to the hard stream to dislodge the industrious spinner. The old cat trotted around from the back porch and made faces at a squirrel which had strayed from the park to enjoy the more munificent bounty which the kind-hearted housewives and children on the street offered. He shot the quarrel-quelling stream in their direction, and the pair scampered away to safety. As yet a good half of the porch was untouched by water, and he dropped the hose to the floor with the nozzle pointed toward the baseboard, while little rivulets trickled over the dust-strewn boards until they joined larger streams, just as the little black river lines in his school maps did.
There was a sudden, sharp tapping at the window which fronted the porch. Mrs. Fletcher's voice jerked him from the clouds of miniature geographical research to the realities of his task.
"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"
A few hasty strokes of the broom—his mother's best, taken unknown to her—obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to find Silvey.
A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.
"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be back until dinner time."
Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have to pitch in alone.
Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he found a prospect of employment.
He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door opened.
"Want the lawn cut?" he asked of the wrinkled, tremulous dame who faced him.
She shook her head, angry at being disturbed. He walked down the walk mournfully.
It was clear that there was no revenue to be gained this day. So he turned toward the home street and dropped the mower into the area way just loudly enough to bring Mrs. Fletcher to the side window.
"That you, son? Run up to the corner and get some lamb chops, that's a good boy." She tossed him a half-dollar. "And get ready for dinner when you come back."
He set off thoughtfully, for the problem of earning still annoyed him. He hated to fall down on the newly made resolution the very first week. If it were only winter and a heavy snow falling! Then he'd make money quickly enough, but in late autumn—why folks wanted to walk to the corner for groceries themselves because the tang in the clear, snappy weather made the errand enjoyable!
As the door of the butcher shop closed behind him, he saw Shultz, leader of the "Jeffersons" and sworn enemy, tugging at a heavy suitcase as he struggled to keep pace with the athletic young lady to whom it belonged.
Why couldn't he do likewise? Three ten-cent suitcase jobs would bring his capital to a dollar and twenty-four cents, and that was better than nothing.
As soon as he had eaten, he left the house on the trot for the suburban station, where he had seen his football rival. He waited in front of the three iron turnstiles, now dancing up and down, now watching the ants in a hill which was forming between two paving blocks, and now scanning the thrice reread headlines of the papers on the unpainted news stand by the station entrance. A gentleman came with golf sticks bound for the park links; there came ladies innumerable who had been delayed on their shopping expedition—and still no sign of employment. Locals came and went, and expresses followed on twenty-minute runs until his memory failed in counting them, before a puffy, white-moustached gentleman in tweeds grunted a noisy passage down the platform steps.
"Satchel carried, sir?"
"How far is it to the hotel."
John explained. The traveler should have left the train at the station three blocks to the south. But it wasn't so very far, even at that. "Shall I carry it for you?" he concluded.
The man nodded jerkily and paused to light a cigarette. As they left, Shultz sauntered up and stood aghast at this invasion of his territory.
"Hey!" he ejaculated finally.
John held his course, grip in either hand. He was a little nervous, but his business rival dared not take revenge while his patron was with him. After that—well, he guessed he could take care of himself if that "tough"—a term of endearment used by the "Tigers"—bothered him.
A lapse of ten minutes found him fingering a quarter as he stood on the broad hotel steps. Would he go back, when such fees were in prospect? You bet. That dirty-faced kid had no mortgage on the place. He'd like to see any trouble between them. He would call out the "Tigers," he would!
Shultz was pacing up and down in front of the station when John came up. The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz glared at him angrily.
"What you trying to do?"
John explained. He wanted to make a little pocket money.
"Well you can't here. G'wan home before I smash your face!"
"Won't," stubbornly. "Got just as much right as you here."
There was a pause. "Well are you going?" asked the "Jefferson's" captain.
"No!"
"I'll make you." He advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to the mark—John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad, brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm.
"Cheese it, the cop!"
They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the fleeing figures.
Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose. That kid had certainly hit it. The organ hurt like the mischief, and felt as if it were three sizes too big. He hoped it wouldn't be like that at school, Monday.
He heard a familiar voice, "Hello!"
He turned quickly. Louise, and at this, of all times!
"What you been doing?" She looked at his face curiously.
He forced a smile. "Fight, that's all."
"Did he hurt you much?"
"Only here." John pointed to the injured appendage and added, "Gee, you ought to see him. Black eye, and his lip's bleeding something fierce!" His lady must never know that he came out second best in the battle.
Suddenly he turned a-tremble from the reaction of his feelings. He wished his feminine playmate down town, over in the park, any place where she couldn't talk to him. He wanted to get home, to have mother's gentle hands lay cooling bandages on his nose, and his eyes began to fill with tears. For in spite of his air of defiance, he had been beaten and the knowledge stung him into a poignant longing for sympathy.
Louise, with the intuition of her sex, changed the subject.
"Look what I've got," she held a brown package at arm's length. "Sugar from the grocer's. Mother's going to teach me how to bake, this afternoon. Want to watch?"
He nodded gratefully and went with her to the flat where that memorable party had been held. In the airy kitchen, Mrs. Martin instructed Louise in the mysteries of mixing flour, spices, and molasses into that sticky mass which composes the dough for delicious, old-fashioned gingerbread. John stood at the young lady's side and watched dreamily. Just wait until he had that thousand dollars saved and could rent a kitchen of his own!
After the mixture was poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and decided that the effort would prove a huge success.
"Wait until it's baked," said Louise, "and you can have a piece."
John was transported into a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and followed her into the parlor. They sat on the floor and played dominoes while the minutes flew past.
"That's five games for me," Louise broke out exultantly. John nodded and gazed listlessly around the room. On the bottom shelf of the magazine table was a red and black checkerboard.
"Let's play that," he pointed with one grimy finger.
Louise demurred. "I don't know how."
"I'll teach you," her victim said eagerly. So she did penance for her victories until Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway and smiled down at them.
"Come, kiddies. It's ready now."
They broke for the kitchen in a wild dash, leaving boards and men on the carpet as they had finished with them.
Half an hour later, John sauntered into the house, his hat cocked exultantly over one ear, and his mouth redolent of savory spices. He heard voices in the dining-room and stuck his head in between the portières.
"That you, John?" asked his mother. "Where on earth have you been?"
"Up at Louise's." His spirits were too high to notice the admonitory note in her voice. "She baked a cake all by herself, and when it was done, I had a great big piece. And Mother," his voice rose proudly at the memory of that effort, "it was better'n any ginger cake you ever made in all your life!"
When he had placed his napkin in his ring and gone out on the front porch, Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband and her husband smiled back at her.
"The little imp," she murmured finally.
But it was the first foretaste of the time when another woman should dispossess her of her son's love, and she liked this touch in the childish comedy not at all.
The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.
He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"
Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on fat, saucy park squirrels.
He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?
Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.
He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?
Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?
In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run," or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay the achievement of that heart's desire.
The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours. As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.
"Oh, John-e-e-e!"
"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.
"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the quarter-back kick! Come along?"
John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.
"Can't," said he finally.
"Why?"
"Got to work—sell papers."
Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk with one sadly abused shoe.
"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars by the time I'm twenty-one."
"What for?"
"Get married."
"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny. Just once won't hurt."
"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't any more time for kid foolishness!"
"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"
As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.
Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires which were always starting to consume it.
Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon, and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.
"Want another bloody nose?"
John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive up?"
The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do you want to know for?"
"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"
"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in the paper business according to his simple mind.
John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the easiest way out of the dilemma.
"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly, throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill, so I'm going to work."
All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and as such John was to be aided in every possible way.
"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How many are you going to buy?"
"Dime's worth."
"Think you can sell 'em all?"
"Easy."
Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.
At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step. Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and pointed to his pupil.
"New kid, Joe."
"What's his name?"
"John."
"All right, John, how many?"
He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return. The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.
An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound, pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.
"Pa—a—"
A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.
The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky. Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle, paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went. Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past. Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along. Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and John counted his papers.
Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket. Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished, but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of Shultz's question—and supper impended.
He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a glaring headline on the first page held his attention.
Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead, that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone, many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he had marked as his goal.
This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house, would be still on his way home, and this difference between the expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible. What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?
He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,
"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"
Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to catch his words.
"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"
A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.
"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"
She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.
"Extras are a nickel!"
"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"
"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's, discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper, just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel. Always is."
He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house for the stipulated coin.
The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture, the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He resumed his stroll down the street.
"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry, extry, extre-e-e-e!"
Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure. At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.
A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more copies! At least sixty could have been sold.
Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank—a dime was to be reserved for the morrow's capital—wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as easy as rolling off a log.
John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the threshold, panting and very much excited.
"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me all about it!"
Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before the fire. "About what?" she asked.
"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.
"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice, "said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had lost his position." She would have added further details as to the straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that lady's manner had not prevented her.
"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and that I'd run right over to ask you."
"John told what?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal torrent had halted.
The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter. "I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as she leaned forward to explain matters.
But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of affairs to be anything else.
Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon. Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one. But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such side issues.
His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!
"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak, overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner was singularly convincing.
Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch, tomorrow."
He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?
Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his afternoons?
Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store window caught his eye.
Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped around it.
He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently, as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.
"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to three hundred and sixty-five dollars."
He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on them! Then came the appalling thought: "How far would a thousand dollars last with such prices?"
All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected problem. If bedroom furniture alone cost that much and the pictures and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs, a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough to marry Louise?
Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth, borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded, gave still greater festivity to the room.
There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too much interested to absent themselves.
Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning: