PROBLEMS
Although temporarily buoyed up by the episode of the afternoon Carl
McGregor returned home with spirits at a lower ebb than they had been
for many a day. To be out of work was a very real tragedy in the world
in which he lived. He knew only too well how indispensable was money
and that the necessity of it was even greater in the Harling home than
in his own. The Harlings, alas, had no absent Uncle Frederick to fall
back upon. On the contrary the entire upkeep of their home and family
fell upon the young shoulders of the boy and girl who toiled at the
spinning mills. Now with Louise out of the race Hal would be left alone
with all the burden, and whether he would be able to carry so heavy a
one was a question. Undoubtedly he would not be forced to bear it for
long. Louise would find employment--she must find it. Did not the need
compel it? And was she not far too capable a worker to be out of a
place? Why, scores of people would seek her help eagerly when once it
was known her assistance was available.
Sound as these arguments were, however, facts did not bear them out.
Apparently nobody in Baileyville wished help, no matter how excellent
its quality. Every night the report from the Harlings was the
same--Louise could find nothing to do. Even Mrs. McGregor who was
ordinarily able to straighten out every sort of tangle had no remedy
for the present pitiable dilemma. The only employment it was in her
power to secure for the girl was fine sewing and Louise, restricted by
her factory training, could not sew. A week went by and still nothing
presented itself. Mrs. Harling and the aged grandfather, from whom the
calamity had been kept as long as it was possible to conceal it, at
length took up the worry.
"Whatever is going to become of us now?" bewailed each in turn.
"Where's the food and rent coming from?"
Hal fidgeted.
Every day he looked more harrowed and distressed, and the smile that
had formerly come so spontaneously came now with an effort. He had
taken on an extra job evenings, that of delivery boy for the local
grocer. It did not bring in much, to be sure, and it kept him on his
feet at the end of the day when often he was too tired to stand.
However, all these disadvantages were lost sight of in the few
additional dollars derived from the makeshift.
"Mother says you can't keep this up, old chap," remarked Carl dismally.
"She says you will be getting tired out and sick and then where will
you be?"
"But we've got to have the cash, kid! _Got to have it_, don't you see?
It was I who landed us in this plight and I'm the one to get us out.
It's nobody's fault but mine."
Carl sighed.
"I suppose Corcoran wouldn't----"
"Take Louise back if I were to humble myself," flared Hal. "Do you
think for a moment I'd ask him? Do you imagine I'd gratify him by
letting him know how hard he'd hit us? Not on your life! For all he
knows the Harlings are rich as mud and don't care a hurrah for his old
job. I want him to think that too. If he pictures me eating out of his
hand he's mistaken."
Carl looked grave.
"It is all very well to be proud," affirmed he, smiling at his friend's
characteristic attitude of mind. "But sometimes you can't afford to be
too cocky. If, as you say, you pitched into Corcoran and were wrong----"
"But I wasn't wrong," broke in Hal. "I meant every word I said; it was
the truth and I'd say it again if I got the chance. You'd have said the
same yourself if you'd been there. The thing that got his goat was that
it was true."
"But you can't go round telling people the truth about themselves, old
man," observed Carl with a wisdom far beyond his years. "They won't
stand for it."
"I'll bet I would. I'd a darn sight rather a person told me straight to
my face what he thought of me than whispered it behind my back."
"That's what I'm trying to do now," grinned Carl.
Young Harling's lips curved into a smile.
"Why, so you are, kid," returned he. "I didn't recognize the stunt at
first. You're a mighty white little chap, Carl. Maybe I was wrong to
light into Corcoran as I did. Of course he is my superior and I really
had no business to sarse him, even if he was wrong. But he is such a
cad! It made my blood boil to hear him berate that poor little Mayo
girl--and for something she did not do, too."
"I know."
"Well, if you were in this mess what would you do? Come now. Give me
some of your sage advice."
"You don't suppose you ought to go to----"
"Corcoran and apologize?" interrupted Hal hotly. "No, I don't. I'd
starve before I'd do that."
"But how about your grandfather, your mother, and Louise?"
"I shan't let them starve, if that's what you mean. You can bet your
life on that," cried Hal. "If anybody goes without it will be myself."
"You seem to be doing it all right."
"How do you know?"
"Don't you suppose I've eyes in my head? You're thin as a rail
already."
"Huh! That's only because I've been chasing round with bundles. I was
too fat, anyway; didn't get enough exercise at the mills."
"Hal Harling!"
"Straight goods, I didn't. Just stood and fed stuff into that loom from
morning till night. You don't call that exercise, do you?"
"I noticed that by night you were often all in, exercise or no
exercise," was the dry response. "Well, you've got to go your own gait,
I guess."
"I'll bet a hat _you_ wouldn't go and bow down to Corcoran."
The thrust told.
"Bow down to him? I'd crack his nut!"
Hal chuckled with satisfaction at his chum's loyalty.
"There you are, you see!" declared he. "You are every whit as rabid as
I am when it comes to the scratch."
"I'm afraid I'm more rabid when things hit you and Louise," murmured
Carl.
The two walked on without speaking, the mind of each busy with the
problem in hand.
Carl's imagination circled every mad avenue of escape from the
Harlings' financial crisis. If only he were rich! If only somebody
would suddenly leave him some money! If only--his brain halted in the
midst of its absurd gyrations.
If he were not rich; if he had no fairy fortune to pass over to Hal and
Louise, what was to hinder him from performing for them a far more
genuine service of friendship and affection? Instead of offering them
money that was dropped into his hand why should he not test out his
real regard for them by earning it? Many a boy his age, aye, younger
than he, earned money. Why should he be free of responsibility when
Hal, who was only a few years older, was weighed down with it?
Just why it had never occurred to him that if he earned money he might
with propriety hand it over to his own hard-working mother is a
question. Often with eyes fixed on the clouds we lose sight of the
things just beneath our noses. Perhaps that was the explanation of
Carl's lack of thought. Be that as it may, certain it was that he
parted from his chum afire with the generous impulse of making a
personal effort to reinforce the Harlings' slender income.
He was only a stone's throw from home and what led him to turn the
other way, pass into Beaver Street, and go south toward Orient Avenue
he could not have told. Possibly he was still thrilling with newly
awakened altruism and was not yet ready to have his roseate dreams
disturbed. Or he may have been pondering so deeply how to put his
impulses into action that he failed to heed just where he was going. At
any rate before he realized it there he was in the fashionable section
of the village, walking along between rows of bare and stately elms and
great rambling houses glimpsed from behind high brick walls.
He had not been in this part of Baileyville for months. There was
nothing to take him there. What connection had his life with those
fortunate lives that made leisure and luxury things to be taken for
granted? Even now he started at finding himself in a location so
incongruous; or rather at finding so incongruous a person as himself in
an environment so out of harmony with his thought and station.
He whirled about to start homeward and it was just at this instant that
a trim racing car drew up beside him and a man's voice inquired
pleasantly:
"Lost your way, youngster?"
Carl glanced at the speaker.
He was a gray-haired, clean-shaven man, with fresh color and keen blue
eyes. Although muffled to the chin in a raccoon coat that almost met
the fur of his cap there was a splendid vigor about him that breathed
health, energy, and the rewards a temperate life brings. Everything
about him seemed clearness personified--eye, complexion, voice.
"I've not lost my way, thank you, sir," Carl answered. "I just got to
thinking and have wandered farther from home than I meant to."
"Are you going back to town now?"
"Yes, sir."
"Jump in and I'll give you a lift."
Raising the fur robes invitingly the stranger reached to open the door.
Carl was almost too surprised to speak.
"You're very kind, sir," he contrived to stammer. "I should be glad of
a ride. I don't often get one. Besides, I ought to have been at home
long ago."
The honesty of the reply apparently pleased the motorist for, smiling,
he tucked the lad in and asked:
"Where do you live?"
"At Mulberry Court, sir."
"I'm afraid I don't quite know where that is."
"Very likely not. It's a little tenement house off Minton Street. Maybe
you never were there."
"I guess I never was," the man replied simply.
"It's a nice place to live," continued Carl, glowing with local pride.
"Of course it isn't like this. We've no trees. But in winter trees
aren't much good anyway; and in summer we can go to the parks."
To this philosophic observation his companion agreed with a nod and
they sped on in silence.
The vast stretches of snow, so unsightly in the city's narrow
thoroughfares, were on every hand white and sparkling, and each little
shrub rearing its head out of the spangled fields was laden with
ermine.
The boy drew a long breath, drinking in the crystal air.
"Gee!" he burst out impulsively. "This is great. I feel cheered up
already."
The man driving the car shot him a quiet smile.
"I'm glad to hear that," said he. "So you were out of spirits, were
you?"
"I was fussed within an inch of my life," owned Carl with engaging
candor.
"In wrong somewhere?"
"Oh, I'm not; but my chum is."
"What's the matter?"
"Why, you see his sister has just been fired from Davis and Coulter's
mills. It wasn't her fault at all, either. Her brother gave the
foreman, Corcoran, a jawing because he got too fresh with one of the
girls. Corcoran didn't say a word at the time but a couple of weeks
later he took out his spite on Hal Harling's sister, Louise. I suppose
he was mad and decided on this way to get even."
"Humph!"
"Maybe he thought he'd take Hal's pride down and make him come crawling
to him on his knees to get Louise back into the mills. It is a rotten
time to be out of work. Louise has tried and tried to get another job
and can't land a thing. But whether she does or not, her brother isn't
going crawling to Corcoran. He's not afraid of the old tyrant. Hal
Harling isn't afraid of anything. Why, only the other day he tore into
the street and saved a little runaway chap from being mashed to jelly
under a lot of automobiles. The baby was chasing a dog and got into the
middle of High Street before he realized it. He would certainly have
been killed had it not been for Hal."
"Whose baby was it?" questioned the man beside him in an odd voice.
"Oh, I don't know. We didn't wait to see. Hal was anxious to get out of
the crowd and we were late home anyway. So Harling gave the kid to the
nursemaid and lit out."
There was a muffled: "I see!" from his listener.
"And where do you come in in all this tangle?" queried the stranger
presently.
"I? Why, you see Hal Harling is my----" a sudden reserve fell upon the
lad. It was impossible to explain to anybody just what Hal Harling was
to him. "I chase round with the Harlings a lot," explained he. "They
are almost like my own family."
"Oh, so that's it!"
"I'd decided just now to hunt for a job and see if I couldn't make good
the money Louise is missing. She can't seem to find a darn thing to do,
poor kid. She's been out of work over a week now and they've got to
have money or Mrs. Harling and Grandfather Harling will starve to
death. Of course I'm not so much," continued Carl modestly. "But I'm
willing to work and I'm sure I could earn something."
The owner of the velvet-wheeled car did not speak at once. Then he
remarked abruptly:
"You don't go to school to-morrow, do you?"
"Saturday? Not on your--no, sir."
"Then you'd be free to come to my office to-morrow morning and see me,
wouldn't you?"
"Do you think you could give me a job? Sure I'd come!" ejaculated Carl
with zest.
"Good! Come to the Berwick building, Number 197 Dalby Street, to-morrow
at ten o'clock. Give your name and--by the by, what is your name?"
"Carl McGregor, sir."
"A fine old Scotch name. Well, you write it on a card or a piece of
paper and give it to the man you will find at the door. Maybe I shall
be able to do something for you."
The car rolled up to the curb and stopped.
"You've been mighty kind, sir," said Carl, as he leaped out. "You've
brought me nearly home."
"Oh, I was going this way anyway," smiled the man in the fur coat. "You
won't have far to walk now, will you?"
"Only a block. I'll be home in a jiffy."
"You won't forget about to-morrow."
"_Forget!_"
Laughing at something that evidently amused him very much the stranger
started his engine.
As for Carl, he raced home as fast as ever his feet would go. Already
he was late for supper, a fact always annoying to his mother, who
considered tardiness one of the most flagrant of sins. To be sure he
was not often late, for miss what other functions he might he seldom
missed his meals. To-night, however, the table had been cleared, the
dishes washed, and only a saucepan of corn-meal mush, steaming on the
back of the stove, remained as a souvenir of the feast.
"For goodness' sake, Carl, wherever have you been?" asked Mrs.
McGregor, as he entered, panting from his run up the long flights of
stairs. "I've been worried to death about you. Go wash your hands and
come and eat your supper right away. You know I don't like you out
after dark."
"I know it, Ma," the boy responded penitently. "I'm mighty sorry. I'd
no idea, though, that it was so late."
"Where've you been?"
"To walk."
"To walk? Just to walk? Mercy on us! Not just walking round for
nothing!"
"I'm afraid so, yes."
"Who was with you?"
"Nobody."
For an instant Mrs. McGregor looked searchingly at her son.
"Well, did you ever hear the like of that!" commented she, addressing
the younger children who clustered about their brother with curiosity.
"What set you to go walking?"
"I don't know, Ma. Just a freak, I guess."
"A foolish freak--worrying the whole family, delaying supper, and what
not. Now come and eat your porridge without more delay. Mary, go bring
the milk; and, Timmie, you fetch a clean saucer from the pantry.
Martin, stop pestering your brother until he eats something; he'll play
with you and Nell by and by. Such a noisy lot of bairns as you are! If
you're not careful you'll wake James Frederick."
Nevertheless, in spite of her grumbling, the mother regarded her brood
of clamoring youngsters with affectionate pride. They were indeed a
husky group, red-cheeked, high-spirited, and happy; their chatter, as
she well knew, was nothing more than the normal exuberance of
childhood.
While Carl hungrily devoured his big bowlful of cereal his mother
continued her sewing. She was working on a film of blue material
a-glitter with silver beads that twinkled from its folds like stars.
Every now and then little Nell, fascinated by the sparkle of the
fabric, would start toward the corner where her mother sat in the ring
of brilliant lamplight.
Instantly one of the older brothers or sisters would intercept the
child, catching up the wriggling mite and explaining softly:
"No, dearie, no! Nell must not trouble mother. Mother's working."
It was an old, oft-repeated formula which every one of the little group
had heard from the time he had been able to toddle. Familiar, too, was
the picture of their mother seated in the circle of light, her basket
of gayly hued spools beside her, and a cloud of shimmering splendor
wreathing her feet. Sometimes this glory was pink; sometimes it was
blue, lavender, or yellow; not infrequently it was black or a smoky
mist of gray. The children always delighted in the brighter colors,
crowding round with eagerness whenever a new gown was brought home to
see what hue the exciting parcel might contain.
"Oh, nothing but a sleepy old gray one this time!" Timmie would bewail.
"And gray beads, too! Do hurry up, Ma, and get it done so we can have
something else."
But let the paper disclose a brilliant blue or a red tulle and
instantly every child clapped his hands.
Exultantly they examined the scintillating jet or iridescent sequins.
"Oh, this is the best yet, Ma!" Carl would cry. "It's a peach of a
dress."
Their ingenious admiration did much to transform their mother's tedious
task into a fine art and helped her to regard it with dignity.
Certainly its influence on the characters of her children was
inestimable. Not alone did it answer their craving for beauty, but far
better than this aesthetic gratification was the education it gave them
in thoughtfulness and unselfishness. Consideration for their mother,
restraint, independence, all emerged out of the yards of foolish gauze
and the frivolous spangles.
Therefore Mrs. McGregor sewed on serene in spirit and if, as to-night,
her task barred her from secrets her children might amid greater
leisure have bestowed on her, the circumstance was accepted as one of
the unavoidable disadvantages attending constant occupation.
It was regrettable she had not more time to talk with her sons and
daughters separately. Confidences were shy and volatile things that
could not be delivered in a hurry or hastily fitted into the chinks of
a busy day. Confidences depended on mood and could not be regulated so
that they would be forthcoming in the few seconds snatched between one
duty and another.
As a result it came about that after Carl had swallowed his supper,
frolicked with the younger children and helped Mary put them to bed,
brought in the kindlings and coal for the morning fire, it was time for
him to tumble in between the sheets himself, and he did so without
mentioning to his mother or any one else his adventures of the
afternoon or his morrow's appointment with the stranger.
One does not always wish to relate his affairs before five small
brothers and sisters whose little ears drink in the story and whose
tiny tongues are liable artlessly to repeat it.
In the McGregor household there was affection and happiness; but, alas,
there was no such thing as privacy.