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.”