It is not always pleasant to have to wait, but there are a great many things to be learned, sometimes, while one is waiting.

Jim was now studying the House of Refuge, all over, all the while, and at first even the officers seemed like a part of the barrier he would have to break through in order to get out. Then, as he thought of them, he found himself wishing he could tell them he was not intending to run away from them, not at all, but only from the idea of being shut up. He longed for freedom. The House had been a sort of home, for a long time, but he wanted to escape from its unchanging routine of work and school and drill, and firm, though kindly discipline. No such thing was known there as corporal punishment, but all the rules were rigidly enforced, and Jim wanted to get away from them. Most of all, however, he wanted to escape from the sting and shame of being in prison, and from the injustice of being there for something he did not do. More than once he half wished he could explain himself to one of the Managers, a gentleman who used to come and sit down with the boys and talk with them. They told that man everything, somehow, as if he were an older brother.

Not only Jim but his confederates grew a little feverish, as the days went by. They even ran risks of discovery, for night after night they were out in the corridor, minutes at a time, trying the lock of the great door and peering furtively into the passage-way beyond to see what the watchman was doing. Jim knew more, now, about the tug and the wharf, and he had had opportunities for examining both sides of the engine house.

“It’s too high to climb,” he said, “unless we can get something to climb with. They never leave out a ladder, anywhere. It’s nothing but walls, walls, walls!”

He could not solve that problem, yet, but one of Rodney Nelson’s had been solved for him. Mrs. Kirby had permitted Pat’s friend to take his pony and plow through her hall, and the garden had been thoroughly ploughed and harrowed. Rodney was having plenty of work, therefore, although he would rather have been learning a trade. Most of the ground was to be planted in potatoes, but Millie Kirby told Rodney that if it were hers she would make every inch of it grow something.

She was over there, at the house, one evening, just after supper and they were all out on the sidewalk, looking at the new door. Billy the goat was standing with his forefeet on the edge of the wall, near them, looking down as if he were anxious to see his new vegetables begin to come up in that garden.

“Mrs. Nelson,” came from behind them, “I want to spake to ye about another job.”

They All Stood Still While The Drum Beat.

“Pat,” she said, “but what a big door!”

“Isn’t it fine, ma’am?” replied Pat. “Now he’s painted it green, with red siding, and all the rest of the hoose white. It’s the good painter he is, for a b’ye——”

“But the doors big enough for the biggest kind of house——” began Millie.

“That’s it,” said Pat. “It kem out of an owld grocery-sthore front. It’s a sthore dure and not a hoose dure at all. What yez want, Mrs. Nelson, is to put a sthore behind that dure. The front room there is for that. Sure, the big, bay windy is there to show things in. Ye could sell all that comes from the garden, and hooks and eyes, and tay and coffee and sugar, and mebbe onything.”

“That’s it, mother,” shouted Rodney, but Pat had more to say and he went on:

“What yez want, now, is a counter and some shelvin’, and a whole lot of thim was thrown away from a place I know of, yisther-day. It’ll all go in, there, aisy, and the b’ye could paint it——”

“Fetch it right along,” said Rodney, and his mother repeated it.

“Fetch it along,” she said. “Why, we could keep a thread-needle store, and no rent to pay.”

“I’ll come and ’tend counter, too,” said Millie: “while you’re out and Rodney’s at work in the garden. Besides, he could carry newspapers——”

“I must go, now,” interrupted Pat, “but I’ll do that, at wanst, and by-and-bye yez can take out the middle partition, and have the whole flure in wan, and there’s your big sthore.”

He was off, leaving them to consider the matter, but the next remark was from Billy and it had a doubtful sound.

“Ba-a-ah-eh-beh!” he remarked.

The making of the new avenue and the laying of its neat, stone sidewalk, went rapidly on. It was already a thoroughfare, with wagons and foot passengers using it all the while. Only a few days later, Pat and Rodney spent an evening putting in the shelves and the counters. They would look shabby enough until they were painted, but there was a kind of promise in them.

“It’s the fine sthore ye’ll have,” said Pat, “and no trouble with ony landlord. Many’s the sthore’d do well, if it wasn’t for havin’ rint to pay.”

“It’ll be long before it pays us anything, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Nelson. “We mustn’t wait till Rodney can gather potatoes from that garden, though. I must see about getting something else.”

“I’m going to do that, myself,” remarked Rodney.

The bright, spring days were doing all they could for the gardens in the city and everywhere else, and there came one very bright day to Randall’s Island. The very water of the East River, on either side of the island, seemed to dance in the sunlight, and the mad rush of the tide through Little Hellgate channel, between that and Ward’s Island, northerly, was all one glitter. The great city of New York, over on Manhattan Island, was looking its very best, but the boys in the House of Refuge parade-ground could not see it. They could see nothing outside of their stone walled enclosure, but one boy saw something inside of it, just after the battalion broke ranks, which made him stand still and almost turn pale. The drums had ceased their beating, but his heart took up the business and went on, beating hard, for a full minute. He looked, he looked again, he stared earnestly at the roof of the engine house, and he exclaimed, aloud:

“That’s it!—That’ll do!”

Then he stooped and picked up a clutter of rope that lay upon the ground and threw it into a large, empty box, like a dry goods case, which stood near the corner of the base ball ground.

“I guess they won’t take it in,” he said, “and if they don’t, it’ll be there. I won’t say anything to the boys, yet.”

Precisely what he meant, he did not explain, but there was a flush on his face and a bright light in his eyes, all supper time.

Everything went on as usual, and in due season the long column of gray uniformed youngsters, larger and smaller, tramped into the dormitory and they were toled off to their sleeping cages. Not one was missing, for those who were still detained outside, on various duties, were all considered accounted for.

Jim was not one of these, and all he seemed to have to do was to get into bed and go to sleep. He got into his bed, indeed, in the most orderly way, but he did not go to sleep. No boy could do more than shut his eyes, by main force, when all the rest of him was in such a tingle.

Jim had a curious sensation of feeling very brave, himself, but of not being exactly sure of the pluck and steadiness of his comrades that were to be. His next idea was that he had enough and to spare for the whole party and that he could and would see them through.

He was their captain and the whole responsibility of success or failure rested upon him. It grew heavier, too, during three long hours that he deemed it well to wait, before he arranged his bed-battering ram and began to try his heels upon the springing steel rods of his grating.

The door seemed to open harder than usual, and he was afraid he was making a noise that would be heard by the wrong persons, but at that moment the lock-bolt clicked.

“It’s open!” he said to himself. “Now for the big door, before I stir ’em up. I must see how things are.”

O, how carefully he fingered the lock of that strong, wooden portal!

“They only turned it once!” he said. “It’s a slipping!”

It slipped silently back and he turned the knob and pulled. Then, as he peered furtively out, he drew a very long breath and wheeled around and darted along the corridor.

He opened one of the doors, but just behind it stood a boy, fully dressed, with a pair of shoes in one hand.

“How is it, Jim?”

“Murphy’s asleep! Come!”

Another door was visited and another boy stepped forth to hear the same news, with the order:

“Follow Joe! Wait at the door.”

Two more cages let out their actually trembling boys, and now all five of them stood in line at the main doorway.

Jim looked out and turned and raised his hand. In a moment more, that door was shut behind them and four of them had made their silent, stocking-footed way, to another, similar barrier, at the end of the hall. Their captain was leaning over the slumbering watchman, for in his relaxed hand, almost let go of, was a bunch of keys, and to take them away without waking him was a delicate piece of work. It was more than that, for Jim felt that it was something very like stealing. He would not have had one of the Managers see him do it for the world. He felt mean, even after he got the keys, but he seemed to get over it while he was opening the outer door with one of them. Then the hardest thing to do was to carry back the Whole bunch and put it silently down by the watchman, so that he need not miss them.

Jim did it, and he felt less like a thief after giving back those keys, but in a half minute more he and his friends were out on the parade-ground, clustering close to the shadowy wall of the engine house. They had accomplished a great deal, but they had not yet escaped, by any means.