As soon as the train had left Oswego, Skinny took from his pocket the
written instructions that Mr. Korwein had given him and devoted a
quarter of an hour to a close study of it. Then he put it back in his
pocket, consulted a time table of the road and found that there was a
station next to Rocky Point and not more than three miles distant from
it. At this station the boy determined to alight and perform the
remainder of his journey on foot. It would look suspicious, he thought,
for a boy of his size and raggedness to arrive in a village by any such
luxurious mode of travel as a railroad train. He felt that he would be
expected to go at once from the depot to the best hotel in the town and
if he started out in quest of a job he would instantly be looked upon by
the authorities as a suspicious character. It would be more in keeping
with his appearance as well as his purpose to arrive on foot by way of
the high road.
Therefore he left the train at the station next the one he was
journeying to, and started to finish the distance on foot. It was a cool
autumn morning with just enough warmth in the sun’s rays to make walking
enjoyable. The road which he took afforded him a view of Lake Ontario,
as it ran parallel with the shore of that great inland sea. Skinny
thought it was salt water; in fact he thought all large bodies of water
were salt, and although he soon found himself very thirsty it never
occurred to him to go down to the beach which in some places was within
fifty yards of the road and take a drink. So he trudged patiently along,
hoping to find some well or spring, and while he was walking and
whistling he was surprised to see lying by the roadside a new red shawl
which had evidently been dropped from some passing vehicle. He picked it
up instantly for it was his habit to pick up whatever he could find in
his way. It was a good shawl of a bright pattern and apparently had not
been worn much. Skinny examined it carefully, wondering what use he
could make of it. Then he shook his head doubtfully, tucked the shawl
under his arm and trudged on as before. He had not gone far before he
saw a carriage approaching, and as it drew near he noticed that it was
driven by a lady who looked anxiously about her on both sides of the
road while she urged her horse rapidly forward. Skinny, who at this
moment was enjoying a short rest on a big stone under an oak tree,
remarked the lady’s appearance and said to himself “Dat must be de one
dat lost de shawl.”
His first impulse was to conceal it behind the stone upon which he sat,
but another idea—one that was more honest and more politic as well—came
into his head, and as she was about to drive past him he started up from
his seat and called to her, at the same time displaying the red garment
in his hand. The lady stopped her horse suddenly and Skinny stepped over
to the carriage and said “I found dat shawl up de road, but I guess it’s
yours.”
As he said this he found that he was speaking to a young buxom and
healthy woman who looked as if she might be the wife of some prosperous
farmer. He saw also that she had been driving very fast, for her horse
was panting and wheezing very much after the manner of the horses of New
York that were used to bring the afternoon papers from Park Row to the
upper part of the city. She looked down at the ragged boy who stood by
her wheel with the red shawl thrown over his arm and then she smiled in
what the little newsboy thought was a wonderfully sweet and winning way,
and still smiling, she said: “Yes that is my shawl. I lost it about
three quarters of an hour ago and I was so afraid that somebody would
pick it up and make off with it that I just drove back as fast as I
could, to get it. Where did you find it?”
“Along dere a little ways,” replied the boy indicating with his right
hand the direction from which he had come.
“And who are you little boy, and where do you come from?” continued the
lady still smiling pleasantly.
“Oh I was just out for a walk,” replied Skinny with his accustomed air
of careless bravado, but just then he happened to remember the role that
he was assuming, and he added with great haste “I taut mebbe I could get
a job some’rs around here. I want work, dat’s wot I want.”
Having said this he politely handed his new acquaintance her shawl and
stood regarding her critically through his keen blue eyes. The young
lady in her turn subjected the boy to a scrutiny that was as careful as
that with which he regarded her and in a moment or two she said “If you
will get into the carriage with me I will take you down to my house and
perhaps my husband will find something for you to do. At any rate, he
will give you something for finding the shawl.”
“I don’t want nuthin’ for lettin’ go de shawl. I wanter get a job of
some kind ernuther. I tink I’d like ter try a little country life.”
“Well, jump in with me and I’ll see what can be done for you” rejoined
his new acquaintance, and Skinny accepted her invitation without another
word. He climbed up to the seat beside her and waited quietly while she
turned her horse around and started in the direction of Rocky Point. The
boy enjoyed the ride very much, but although it was full of wonderful
surprises to him, he did not show by his face or manner that it was the
first time in his life that he had ever been more than twenty miles away
from New York. As for the broad expanse of water that lay stretched out
before him he was sure it was either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of
Mexico or the Pacific, he did not know which and he did not care enough
to ask. As they rode along they passed field after field of ripened corn
and wide orchards in which men were busy shaking the fruit from the
trees and gathering it in great heaps on the grass ready for packing in
barrels. Occasionally they passed bits of woodland in which the trees,
touched by the early frosts, were brilliant in red, yellow and scarlet.
Farmers passed them on the road, riding in wagons piled high with corn
and apples, and once Skinny saw a load of yellow pumpkins, the like of
which he had never set eyes on before. It was all very new and strange
to the city boy, and his keen eyes took in everything about him, but not
a word escaped his lips that betrayed his utter ignorance of country
life.
He made up his mind, however, that it would be best for him to tell his
companion that he had come from New York, because, he argued, she would
be sure to find it out herself even if she had not already noticed the
difference between a boy from the city and the “jayhawkers,” as he
denominated them whom he judged constituted the bulk of the population
of the neighborhood. Therefore he told her that he had made his way from
New York by easy stages—“dey wuz easy too” he said to himself with a
chuckle—and that he wanted to get work on a farm or in a country hotel.
To the lady who rode beside him, the boy’s desire to get out of the city
into the country seemed but a natural one, while his honesty in
restoring her lost shawl and his avowed purpose to get work of some kind
commended him strongly to her, and she determined to give him whatever
help she could. On the outskirts of the village of Rocky Point she drew
up in front of a large, comfortable looking farm house and bade her
companion descend and open the gate. A tall, sunburned and bearded man
who was standing in his shirt sleeves by the barn door now came forward
to greet his wife.
“I’ve brought a boy home for you Silas,” she remarked pointing to Skinny
who was standing holding the gate open for her to enter, “what do you
think of him?” The husband smiled pleasantly in response but the glance
which he bestowed on the new arrival was one of curiosity blended with a
degree of suspicion.
“Where did you pick him up,” he said as he helped his wife to alight.
It was a strange thing to the newsboy, whose life had been spent in the
streets of the great city, to find himself awaking the next morning in a
clean, wholesome bed in a room which, if not elegant, was at least
comfortable, neat and redolent of old fashioned country herbs. Of course
he did not question the honesty of his host or hostess but from sheer
force of habit and as a precautionary measure, too, he examined the roll
of bills in his inside pocket and assured himself that they were all
there. Then he dressed himself, stole quietly down stairs and found Mrs.
Wolcott busy in her big kitchen.
Her husband was out in the barn, and there Skinny found him, giving the
horses and cattle their morning meal. There was plenty about the farm
for a boy to turn his hand to, and Skinny’s first job was driving the
cows out to the pasture where there was still to be found a good deal of
grass that had defied the cold weather. It was an easy and not
unpleasant task strolling along the road, letting down the bars of the
pasture lot, watching the cattle as they streamed through, and then
putting up the bars and walking back to the farm house where Mrs.
Wolcott had just put the breakfast on the table. The boy found, too,
that his walk had given him an excellent appetite and he consumed such
an amount of country luxuries as fairly surprised himself. Breakfast
over he helped the farmer put the two horses in the big wagon, then
climbed in and accompanied him to the corn field a mile away.
By the exercise of his customary and habitual silence, and by carefully
watching the farmer and the hired man, Skinny managed not only to acquit
himself with credit in their eyes but to impress them with the idea,
that it might be a handy thing to have a boy of his sort about the farm
all the time, or at least until the harvesting was over.
During that day Skinny did more solid work, ate more good food, and
breathed more pure air than in any other one day of his career, and when
night came he fell asleep and did not stir again until he was aroused by
the farmer early in the morning. Then he repeated his experience of the
day before, and by the time Sunday came around he had come to the
conclusion that country life was not so bad, after all, and that there
were worse people in the world than “jayhawkers,” as he called them. On
Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott started, in their best clothes, for
church, a proceeding which seemed so remarkable to Skinny that he
inquired why they went there. They would have taken him with them, too,
if his clothes had been more presentable, but although Mrs. Wolcott had
made some repairs in his torn jacket, and provided him with a new and
clean shirt, he was still unmistakably a ragged New York street boy, and
would have been out of place in the village church, where all the
country lads were taken, neatly washed and combed, and with their boots
well greased and their clothes carefully brushed.
So Skinny remained at home with the hired man, who promptly went to
sleep on the hay in the barn, after the fashion of all hired men,
leaving the strange boy to his own devices. That was exactly what he
wanted, and taking a piece of paper and a pencil from the parlor table,
he seated himself in a corner of the kitchen, and addressed the
following letter to his employer, at the same time congratulating
himself on the diligence which he had displayed at the night school in
the Newsboys’ lodging-house, which had enabled him to write so freely
and elegantly. This was what he had to say:
“MR. KORWEIN—
SIR:—I have got a job on a farm, and will do what you told me when I
get the chance. No more at present, from
SKINNY.”
The chance which he had been looking for came to him rather unexpectedly
that very afternoon, when Mrs. Wolcott asked him to take a letter to the
post-office for her, and suggested at the same time that he should take
a little walk around the village.
“Wot sort uv tings is dere ter see in dis place?” asked the boy.
“Well,” replied the other, smiling, “the usual afternoon walk is down
over the bridge to the cemetery, and if you keep up along that road a
mile further, you’ll find some very pretty woods that go down to the
shore.”
“All right,” replied the boy, “I’ll take in all de sights.”
Stopping at the post-office, he mailed his own letter as well as the
other, and then kept on down the village street, across the bridge and
up the hill to the old burying-ground, in which a number of rustic
couples were enjoying their regular Sunday afternoon stroll. These
looked with some surprise and a little amusement, at the ragged boy, who
was prowling about from one headstone to the other, reading the
panegyrics and inscriptions, and evidently hunting for some particular
grave. But although he searched diligently for nearly an hour, he could
find no grave-stone that answered the description given him by Mr.
Korwein, and, fearing that he was attracting more attention than he
desired, he started to leave, with the intention of returning at some
future day, when to his intense surprise, he heard his name called in a
familiar voice, and on looking up saw some one whom he knew rapidly
approaching him.
Like other boys of his class, born and brought up in the streets of New
York, and accustomed from the earliest period of infancy to take part in
the great struggle of life, Skinny possessed a degree of stoicism that
would have done credit to an Indian warrior, and it was seldom, indeed,
that he was taken off his guard, no matter what happened. But this time
his surprise was so great that he forgot himself, and standing stark
still in the path, exclaimed “Hully gee!”
The next moment Bruce Decker was wringing him by the hand, and saying:
“What in the world brings you up here?”
Skinny grinned broadly, and replied: “I’m a haymaker now, workin’ on a
farm here. Dere’s lots to eat, and a good place to sleep. I tink I’ll
stay here all winter. But I taut you wuz in New York.”
“This is the town I used to live in when I was a small boy,” replied
Bruce, “and I’ve just come back here for a short visit. This is the
first time I’ve been here since I went into the fire department, and
it’s great to get out in the country again. But when did you leave the
city? I wanted to see you, and I went down to that lodging-house, but
you were not there. I was afraid I wouldn’t run across you again.”
“I s’pose yer taut that I wuz goin’ ter sneak wid dat money, but I
wa’nt. I’m earnin’ it up here.”
[Illustration: “My mother is buried here.”—_Page 248._]
“Never mind about that money,” rejoined Bruce hastily. “I wanted to see
you about some other things. I wanted to find out some more about that
man with the scarred face you told me about who sent you on the errands
up to Harlem. Have you seen him since we parted?”
For a moment the other boy hesitated, remembering his instructions to
observe secrecy. Then he remembered that he owed his life to Bruce, and
that, according to his code, he was bound to him, rather than to a man
who was nothing more than his employer. “Yes,” he said, hesitatingly, “I
seen him de odder day, but he didn’t say nuthin’ about you.”
“No, of course he wouldn’t,” answered Bruce, “and I don’t want you to
say anything to him about me, either, but for all that, I want to get on
his track and find out who he is, just for reasons of my own, and as
soon as I get back to the city I want you to take me where I can find
him.”
Skinny made no reply, but continued to regard the other with his keen,
light-blue eyes, and then Bruce went on in softer tones: “My mother is
buried here, and I came out to see her grave. Come over here, and I’ll
show it to you.” Leading the way, across an empty bit of grass, he
stopped in front of a small gray headstone, and there the New York
street boy read a name which caused him to forget himself for the second
time that afternoon, and to exclaim once more “Hully gee!”
Never, up to that moment, had he in any way connected Bruce, whom he
knew only by his first name, with the mission on which he had been sent,
but now a sudden gleam of comprehension lit up his mind, for he saw on
the grave-stone before him the inscription:
+----------------------------------+
| |
| SACRED TO THE MEMORY |
| |
| OF |
| |
| MARY, WIFE OF FRANK DECKER, |
| |
| BORN DEC. 1ST, 1855, |
| |
| DIED SEPT. 5TH, 1877. |
| |
+----------------------------------+