A FRIEND IN NEED.
“I oughter gone home,” Josiah said to himself as he trudged slowly
along, his burden growing heavier each moment. “Now it begins to look
as if I stood a good chance of being lost, and what’ll become of me if
I don’t find Tom and Bob before dark?”
He made no attempt to answer his own question, but resolved to follow
implicitly the directions given by the policeman, taking advantage of
every opportunity to note the time, in order that he might not walk a
single minute less than the full number set by the officer.
The half-hour came to an end, however, and the dark shadows of evening
were beginning to lengthen, much to the young traveler’s uneasiness,
when he arrived at an open square, at one end of which could be seen
a number of cabs, and on either side horse-car after horse-car until
Josiah fancied all of these vehicles ever made had been brought here
for inspection.
He halted.
It was easier to wait for a policeman than to search for one; and he
remained at what he afterward learned was the junction of the Bowery
and Chatham Square, a long while without seeing any guardians of the
peace.
A short distance below his halting-place, gaudy transparencies already
lighted up the dime museums, and along the edge of the sidewalk was a
row of street vendors, who were crying their wares in such a variety of
tones as to make a most discordant noise.
The night was fast approaching.
It was necessary Josiah should ask some one to direct him to his
friend’s home.
He was on the point of speaking with an Italian chestnut vendor, when
a tiny girl, hardly more than ten years of age, clad in a ragged dress
which had originally been brown, with the remains of a faded shawl over
her shoulders, and the veriest apology of a straw hat on her head,
stepped in front of him as she asked:--
“Don’t you want to buy some matches?”
Josiah dropped his valise and looked at her in astonishment. That a
child so small should be out on the street at such an hour, was quite
as surprising to him as that she should be insufficiently clad on a
night when thick clothing seemed an absolute necessity.
He stood gazing at her as if she was some curiosity which had escaped
from the museum below, until she repeated the question, and then he
replied gravely:--
“I don’t believe so; you see, I haven’t learned to smoke, an’ what
would I do with ’em?”
The girl continued her search for customers, Josiah watching her
intently, forgetting for the time being his own forlorn condition as he
noted the many efforts and equally as many failures to dispose of her
wares.
Ten minutes passed, and she had not sold a single box.
Just for an instant there was a lull in the living tide, and the child
had again approached Josiah, but without paying any attention to him.
“Do you sell matches all the time?” he asked.
“That’s what I have to do now. I tried to get into the newspaper
business, but didn’t dare to jump on an’ off the cars same as the boys
do, so couldn’t make very much at it.”
“It don’t strike me you’re earnin’ a great sight of money at what
you’re doin’ now. Haven’t sold a thing since I’ve been standin’ here.”
“No,” she said with a half-suppressed sigh, “somehow people don’t seem
to want to buy matches on the street. I got rid of ten cents’ worth to
one man, though, this afternoon.’
“How much profit was there in the trade?”
The girl looked up at Josiah inquiringly.
The boy repeated his question in another form.
“How much money did you make when you sold that lot?”
“Oh! I get a couple of boxes for one cent an’ sell ’em for two, so half
I take in is mine.”
“Do your folks live ’round here?”
“I haven’t got any. If I had I don’t reckon I’d be sellin’ matches.”
“I s’pose you live somewhere, though?”
“Oh, yes, old Mother Hunter lets me stay to her house for fifty cents a
week.”
“S’pose you don’t have money enough to pay her?”
“Then I guess she’d make me leave, same as Miss Spear did.”
“Who’s Miss Spear?”
“She’s the woman I went to live with when mother died, and ’twas an
awful place. She used to drink terrible, an’ two or three times gave me
a downright good whippin’ ’cause I didn’t bring home as much money as
she thought I oughter make.”
“What right did she have to whip you? She ain’t any relation, is she?”
“Of course not; but you see I was livin’ with her, an’ had to pay what
I promised, though when trade was good she used to want more. So I got
a chance to go with Mother Hunter.”
“Do you like this sort of business?”
“Indeed I don’t.”
“Why not try something else?”
“I wish I could. I thought I’d like to get a place in a store as cash
girl, but I was so small nobody wanted me, an’ besides, I didn’t have
any decent clothes. You see, if a girl like me gets that kind of a job,
she’s got to dress up mighty fine.”
“Well,” Josiah said as he stepped back a few paces and surveyed her
critically, “there’s one thing certain, you ain’t dressed very fine
now.”
“I know it,” the girl said half apologetically, as she looked down at
her faded gown; “but when a feller’s got on the best she owns, what you
goin’ to do ’bout it?”
Josiah was unable to answer this question. He had never seen any
one who looked so thoroughly wretched, as far as outside appearance
was concerned, not even the tramps who occasionally stopped at the
farm-house for food, and instinctively his hand went to that portion of
his vest underneath which rested the huge pocket-book.
“I haven’t got much money,” he said slowly, as if weighing some
important question in his mind; “but I’ll tell you what it is, little
girl; I’m willin’ to give you some of it to help along, ’cause it don’t
seem to me as if you was goin’ to earn much of anything to-night.”
The match-girl looked at him a moment, as if determining whether he was
serious in making this generous offer, and then said with what might
have been a laugh:--
“If you’re goin’ to stay in New York very long I guess you’ll need all
the money you’ve brought, an’ I must take care of myself same’s I’ve
been doin’. Say, where do you live?”
“At Berry’s Corner.”
“Where’s that?”
“Oh, it’s a good ways from here. I come in on the cars to visit Tom an’
Bob. They wasn’t at the station, an’ I’ve been huntin’ ever since for
’em. Looks like I was goin’ to have a pretty hard job. A policeman told
me to keep right on walkin’ half an hour, an’ then ask the way, so I
reckon it wouldn’t do any harm to find out if you know where Baker’s
Court is?”
The girl stood for an instant as if in deepest thought, and then
replied slowly:--
“No, I’m sure I don’t know anything about it. What street is it near?”
“The policeman said it led out of West Broadway.”
“Oh, I know where that is. It may be quite a ways though, an’ I
wouldn’t like to leave here till business was over.”
“Will you go then?”
“Of course; there’s nothin’ else to do but to hang ’round Mother
Hunter’s, an’ that ain’t very pleasant.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sadie Mitchell.”
Just at that moment conversation was interrupted by the tide of travel,
which had set in once more past that particular spot; and Sadie bent
all her energies to the disposal of her wares, while Josiah looked
around for a convenient place in which to remain with his satchel until
the business for the day could be brought to a close.
Now that he had the promise of a guide, and one in whom he felt every
confidence, he no longer had any anxiety regarding his ability to find
the friends whom he proposed to visit.
Not until night had come was the girl willing to abandon her efforts
toward procuring the amount of money which Mother Hunter might demand;
and, despite his occupation of watching the ever changing sea of faces
before him, Josiah grew impatient.
“If we don’t start pretty soon I’m ’fraid we won’t get there before
mornin’,” he said, with just a shade of petulance in his tones. “Is it
very much of a walk from here?”
“It might be, an’ then again it mightn’t. You see, I don’t know how
far out West Broadway it is. I’d have started sooner; but it’s been
dreadful hard sellin’ matches to-night, an’ I expect there’ll be an
awful row when I get home.”
“When are you goin’?”
“Now; but I must stop into the house just a minute before we try to
find Baker’s Court.”
“When will you get supper?”
“Oh I’ll run across somethin’ by an’ by. I don’t s’pose Mother Hunter’s
got much of anything, so it won’t take me long to do my eatin’.”
Josiah, who had been accustomed to having his meals regularly, was
astonished at the indifference displayed by his new acquaintance
regarding this matter; and as he looked at her critically while trying
to learn whether she was attempting to make sport of him, the fact that
he was decidedly hungry presented itself.
Owing to the excitement of the morning his breakfast had been a light
one, and since then he had had nothing but candy with which to satisfy
the cravings of his stomach.
What seemed like a very happy thought occurred to him.
“Is there any place ’round here where we could get somethin’ to eat?”
he asked abruptly.
“Of course. You can go to the Jim Fisk restaurant an’ fill yourself
up for fifteen cents; but that’s a good deal of money to give for one
supper. When trade’s been good I sometimes pay a dime down to Mose
Pearson’s for a great big bowl of soup, an’ as much bread an’ butter as
I want.”
Josiah was silent a moment, and then said with the air of one who has
fully decided an important matter:--
“Look here, Sadie, if you an’ I can get a big supper for fifteen cents,
we’re goin’ to have it, though it will make me kinder short on the
presents I was thinkin’ of buyin’ for father an’ mother; but they won’t
care when I tell ’em how I spent it.”
The match-girl’s eyes opened wide with astonishment and delight.
“Do you really mean that?” she asked, evidently fancying he was making
sport of her, and then added almost in the same breath, “I don’t think
you’d better do anything of the kind. It’s too much to put out jest for
the sake of swellin’.”
“I guess I can stand it,” Josiah said loftily. “I never was to the
city before, an’ it ain’t likely’s I shall get here again very soon,
so we’ll make the most of it while I’m on a good time. Besides, I must
have somethin’ to eat, an’ I want you to stay with me so’s to show me
where Tom an’ Bob live.”
Sadie made no further objection, for to have spread before her a
fifteen-cent meal at the Jim Fisk restaurant seemed the acme of
happiness.
“What will I do with my matches?” she asked.
“You haven’t got so many but I can put ’em in my pocket.”
“An’ I’ll carry the tray in my hand. You see, if I’m goin’ there with
you I wouldn’t like folks to think I’d been standin’ out here since
mornin’ sellin’ matches, an’ was blowin’ in all I’d made.”
“There’s no danger of that; they’ll believe we just come from the
country, an’ have got more money than we know what to do with,” Josiah
said with a consequential air as he lifted the heavy valise, and stood
waiting for Sadie to lead the way.
With the prospect of such a meal before her the match-girl did not
delay; and as soon as Josiah signified that he was ready, she started
toward Chatham Street at a pace which caused the boy, burdened as he
was, no slight difficulty to equal.
Both the young people were a little timid at entering such a
magnificent establishment as this restaurant appeared to be; but, aided
by one of the waiters, for business was not very brisk just at this
time, they were soon seated at a table which might have looked more
inviting had it been less conspicuous for coffee stains on the cloth.
“What do you want?” the waiter asked, with the air of one who is not
disposed to spend too much time upon his customers.
“Bring us all you’ve got for fifteen cents apiece,” Josiah replied; and
the man repeated the order in what seemed to the boy from the country
like a foreign tongue.
“Ain’t this just gorgeous?” Sadie whispered when they were
comparatively alone. “I never was in here but twice before, an’ I’d be
perfectly happy if I could always eat in such a fine place.”
“You ought to come out to the farm an’ see how mother gets supper,”
Josiah said proudly. “We always have clean table-cloths, an’ the dishes
ain’t so heavy’s these; though I don’t know but the more they weigh the
more they cost,” he added reflectively.
Then he described to her his home at Berry’s Corner; told her of Towser
and the pet calf, until once more the sickness for home assailed him.
The sight of the food, however, had a beneficial effect upon his mind;
and in a very short time the vision of the Shindle Farm had faded away
in the distance, leaving before him the pleasing knowledge that he was
hungry, and had plenty with which to satisfy that desire.
To Sadie the half-hour spent in the restaurant was one of unalloyed
pleasure. She thought everything around her was magnificent, and
fancied that in no other place could food be prepared in such an
inviting and appetizing manner.
“There!” she said as she ate the last kernel of rice which had helped
to make up the pudding, and the meal was at an end, “Now I don’t care
what Mother Hunter says. I ain’t hungry any more, an’ it don’t seem as
if I ever will be agin. What a lucky thing for me you happened to come
along, an’ wanted to find your chums. I expect I’ll be waitin’ ’round
here every night hopin’ to see somebody from Berry’s Corner, so’s to
have such an awful good time as we’ve had.”
To Josiah the supper had not been particularly appetizing, owing to the
fact that he was contrasting the food with that prepared by his mother,
and the result was decidedly in favor of the meals at the Shindle Farm.
It made him very comfortable in mind that he had been able to give the
little match-girl so much pleasure, however; and, after emerging from
the restaurant to where the gaudy lights of the dime museum could be
seen, another brilliant scheme entered his mind.
“Say, how much do they charge to go in there?” he asked.
“Ten cents.”
“Then we’ll go.”
“That will make half a dollar you’ve spent since you saw me, an’ it’s
too much for one day,” Sadie said in a whisper, as if the enormous
amount terrified her.
“I don’t care if it’s a dollar, we’re goin’ into that circus,” Josiah
said resolutely, as he changed his valise from one hand to the other in
order to rest his arm, and walked rapidly toward what was announced by
the posters to be the “Oriental Palace of Wonders.”
[Illustration]