THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.
“I’ve been robbed!” gasped Mrs. Hazard, a pleasant-featured little
woman of perhaps forty, sinking into a chair, her face the picture of
dismay.
“Mother,” exclaimed her daughter Annie, a slender, delicate girl of
fifteen, who sat in a cane rocker, feather-stitching an infant’s jacket
with blue silk, a small pile of the unfinished garments lying in a box
on a table before her, “what do you mean?”
“The rent money is gone. I had it in this corner of the bureau, waiting
for the agent, whom I expect at any moment. There were two fives and
five ones. They are not here now. Where could they have gone?”
“The money may have slipped under some article in the drawer, mother,”
suggested the girl, anxiously.
“No; I have searched and turned over everything. The money is gone. How
are we to face this fresh misfortune?”
Mother and daughter looked at one another in silent discouragement.
And well they might feel discouraged since, with the exception of
perhaps fifty cents in silver, the missing money had represented their
entire capital.
And Jack, the other member of the family, a particularly bright and
ambitious boy of sixteen years, had just lost his position, owing to
the failure of the firm with whom he had been employed ever since the
death of the husband and father, two years before, had thrown them upon
their own resources.
During the lifetime of Mr. Hazard the family had lived in a rented
house on a side street in a very respectable neighborhood uptown and
had been considered well off.
Jack and Annie had graduated from the public school and were expecting
to enter the high school with the next term, when their father died
suddenly, and it was found that Mr. Hazard, who had been a liberal
provider, had lived up to his means and, what was more unfortunate, had
neglected to insure his life.
Of course, Mrs. Hazard had to move to a cheaper home and neighborhood,
for the few dollars she found herself possessed of after the funeral
and other necessary expenses had been paid would not keep them for any
great length of time.
Jack soon found a position with a wholesale house down town, at five
dollars a week.
Annie, who was naturally quite expert at fine needlework and
embroidery, preferred to take in work to do at home to seeking a place
in a factory or in a store as a salesgirl, because she was not very
strong.
But home work was not very remunerative, so that the family really was
dependent upon Jack, who fortunately was strong and healthy.
Thus they managed to live--exist might perhaps be the better word--in a
very humble but contented way until the boy was unexpectedly thrown out
of work a few days before.
Fortunately Mrs. Hazard had got her rent together, for the first of the
month was at hand and the landlord’s agent was a strict man of business
and showed no favors to any of the tenants.
And now at the very last minute, as if to prove that misfortune never
comes singly, the money she had saved by many small sacrifices was
suddenly found to be missing.
It certainly was hard luck.
“Somebody must have taken it, mother,” said Annie, after a short
silence.
“The bills were there this morning after John went out, for I noticed
them,” said the little mother, sadly.
“And I’ve been in here all the time except a few minutes when I ran out
to the grocer’s. Was anyone here while I was out?”
“Only Maggie McFadden.”
Miss McFadden lived in the flat across the hall.
“You don’t think she could have taken the money, do you, mother?”
“I don’t want to think that she did,” replied Mrs. Hazard, mournfully.
“Maggie lost her position two weeks ago because there was some trouble
about her accounts,” said Annie, slowly, as though an unpleasant
suspicion was forcing itself in her mind.
The McFadden girl, who was somewhat airy and pert in her manners, was
conspicuous in the neighborhood for the number and variety of her gowns
and hats, and the gossips wondered where she got the money to pay for
them all.
When approached on the subject she invariably said that Denny, her
brother, made “slathers of dough on the races,” thereby intimating that
that was the source which produced much of her finery; but many of her
acquaintances knew Denny better than she had any idea of, and these
persons rather doubted Miss Maggie’s statement.
At any rate, when she lost her position as cashier of a large packing
house, the neighbors winked their eyes one at another and whispered, “I
told you so.”
Mrs. Hazard was at no loss to understand what her daughter meant, and
the sigh she uttered spoke her own thoughts as plainly as words.
“We never could accuse her,” continued Annie, dejectedly.
Mrs. Hazard shook her head.
“Poor Jack! What will he say when we tell him?” said Annie. “It will
be such a shock to him. He is so hopeful. He told me only this morning
that as long as we had next month’s rent in hand the future didn’t
worry him. He’d see we got along somehow. Isn’t he just the best and
dearest brother in the world?”
“I dread the agent’s visit, for he will surely be here to-day. He is
always so prompt. What shall I say to him?”
“I don’t know, mother.”
The crisis was too much for them, and mother and daughter wept silently
together.
At that moment there came a sharp rap on the door.
Mrs. Hazard started, hastily wiped her eyes, and with a nervous glance
at her daughter, answered the summons.
Mr. Grab, the agent for the premises, walked brusquely into the room.
“Good afternoon, madam. I presume you have been expecting me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Hazard, faintly.
“I never like to disappoint my tenants,” said the agent grimly. “Here
is your receipt, I suppose you have the money ready.”
“I am afraid, sir, I will have to ask you to wait a few days,” said
Mrs. Hazard, anxiously.
“Haven’t you the money, madam?” spoke the agent rather roughly.
“I did have it in my bureau drawer, but----”
“But what?” demanded Mr. Grab, sharply.
“It is gone,” said the little woman, with tears stealing down her
cheeks.
“Gone!” ejaculated the agent, lifting his shaggy brows, “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Mr. Grab rubbed his chin, on which had sprouted a three days’ growth of
bristly reddish hair, and a threatening look came into his eyes.
“Madam, this is a very lame excuse,” he said, angrily.
“It is the truth, sir.”
“You can’t pay, then?”
“No, sir; but if you will wait----”
“Wait, madam! I expect my tenants to pay up promptly. My experience
is that if one can’t pay on the first one can’t pay on the second or
third, and that if you trust a tenant once he always tries to take
advantage of your good nature.”
“But, sir, I have never failed to have the money ready before, and we
have lived here more than a year.”
“Quite right, madam; and in consideration of that fact I will on this
occasion allow three days’ grace. I will call at twelve o’clock on
Friday, and if you are not ready to pay then, I will have to serve you
with dispossess proceedings. Good day, madam.”
Mr. Grab thereupon took his departure, leaving his distressed tenants
in a sad state of perplexity as to where the needed fifteen dollars
would come from in so short a space of time.