TODE'S AMBITION.
Mr. Hastings' elegant carriage was drawn up at a safe distance from the
puffing iron animal who had just screeched his way into the depot. The
coachman on the box managed with dextrous hand the two black horses who
seemed disposed to resent the coming of their puffing rival, while with
his hand resting on the knob of the carriage door, looking right and
left for somebody, and finally springing forward to welcome his father,
was Master Pliny Hastings, older by fourteen years than when that dinner
party was given in honor of his birthday.
"Tumble up there with the driver," was Mr. Hastings' direction to Tode,
who stood and looked with open-eyed delight on carriage, horses, driver,
_everything_, while father and son exchanged greeting.
Pliny _did_ wait until the carriage door was closed before he burst
forth with:
"Father, where on earth did you pick up that bundle of rags, and what
did you bring him home for?"
"He brought me, I believe," answered Mr. Hastings, laughing at the droll
remembrance. "At least I think you'll find that's his version of the
matter."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"More than I know. I'm entirely at his disposal."
"Father, how queer you are. What's his name?"
"Upon my word I don't know. I never thought to inquire. You may question
him to your heart's content when you get home. There is a funny story
connected with him, which I will tell you sometime. Meantime let me rest
and tell me the news."
"He is a very smart specimen, Augusta," explained Mr. Hastings to his
wife that evening, when she looked aghast at the idea of harboring Tode
for the night.
"A remarkable boy in some respects, and I fancy he may really become a
prize in the way of a waiter at one of the hotels. These fellows who
have brought themselves up on the street do sometimes develop a
surprising aptitude for business, and I am greatly mistaken if this one
is not of that stamp. I'll take him off your hands in the morning,
Augusta, and he can't demoralize Pliny in one evening. Besides," he
added as a lofty afterthought, "if my son can be injured by coming in
contact with evil in any shape, I am ashamed of him."
In very much the same style was Tode introduced at one of the grand
hotels the next morning.
"The boy is sharp enough for _anything_," explained Mr. Hastings to the
landlord. "I don't believe you will find his match in the city. Suppose
you take him in, and see what you can do for him?"
The landlord eyed the very ragged, and very roguish, and very doubtful
looking personage thus introduced with a not particularly hopeful face;
but Mr. Hastings was a person to be pleased first and foremost under all
circumstances, so the answer was prompt.
"Well, sir, if you wish it we will give him a trial, of course; but what
can we set him at in that plight?"
"Um," remarked Mr. Hastings, thoughtfully, "I hadn't thought of that. Oh
well, he means to earn some better clothes at once. Isn't that so, my
lad?"
Tode nodded. He hadn't thought of such a thing--his aim was still only
a warm place to sleep in; but he immediately set down better clothes as
another hight to be attained.
"Meantime, Mr. Roberts, hasn't Tom some old clothes that he has
outgrown? This fellow is shorter than Tom, I should think. He'll work
for his board and clothes, of course, for the present. Can you make it
go, Mr. Roberts?"
Mr. Roberts thought he could, and as Mr. Hastings drew on his gloves he
remarked to that gentleman aside:
"I've taken a most unaccountable interest in the young scamp. He's a
_scamp_, no mistake about that, and he'll have to be looked after very
closely. But then he's sharp, sharp as steel; just the sort to develop
into a business man with the right kind of training, such as he will
receive here. The way in which he wheedled me into bringing him home
with me was a most astonishing proceeding. I shall have to tell you all
about it when we are more at leisure. Good-morning, sir."
And Mr. Hastings bowed himself out.
By noon Tode was fairly launched upon his new life, and made such good
use of his eyes and ears that in some respects he knew more about the
business than did the new errand boy who had been there for a week. For
the first time in his life he was going to earn his living.
Mr. Hastings was correct in his opinion. Tode was sharp; yet he was
after all, not unlike a piece of soft putty, ready to be molded into
almost any shape, ready to take an impression from anything that he
chanced to touch. If the people who dined at that great hotel on the
Avenue during those following weeks could have known how the chance
words which they let drop, and in dropping forgot, were gathered up by
that round-eyed boy, how startled they would have been! There was one
memory which stood out sharply in Tode's life--it was of his mother's
death. The boy had never in his fifteen years of life heard but one
prayer, that was his mother's, it was for him: "O Lord, don't let Tode
ever drink a drop of rum." He had very vague ideas in regard to prayer,
very bewildering notions concerning the Being to whom this prayer was
addressed; but he knew what rum was--he had excellent reason to know;
and he knew that these words of his mother's had been terribly earnest
ones--they had burned themselves into his brain. He remembered his
mother as one who had given him what little care and kindness he had
ever received. Finally he had a sturdy, positive, emphatic will of his
own, which is not a bad thing to have if one takes proper care of it. So
without any sort of idea as to the right or wrong of the matter, with
perfect indifference as to whether this thing came under either head, he
had sturdily resolved that he would never, no never, so long as he
lived, drink a drop of rum. In this resolution he had been strengthened
by the constant jeers and gibes and offerings of his father not only but
of his boon companions.
There are natures which grow stronger by opposition. Tode had one of
these; so the very forces which would have met to ruin nine boys out of
ten, came and rallied around him to strengthen his purpose. So Tode,
having been brought up, or rather having come up, thus far in one of the
lowest of low grog-shops, had steadily and defiantly adhered to his
determination. It was seven years since his mother's prayer had gone up
to God; Tode, only seven at that time, but older by almost a dozen years
than are those boys of seven who have been tenderly and carefully reared
in happy homes, had taken in the full force of that one oft-repeated
sentence and had lived it ever since.
Behold him now, the caterpillar transformed into the butterfly. He had
shuffled off the grog-shop, and fluttered into one of the brightest of
Cleveland hotels. The bright-winged moth singes itself in the brilliant
gaslight sometimes where the caterpillar never comes.
Queer thoughts came into Tode's head with that suit of new clothes with
which he presently arrayed himself. Not particularly new, either. Tom
Roberts was in college, and they were his cast-off attire, worn before
he, too, in his way became a butterfly; and he would not have been seen
in them--no, nor have had it enter into the mind of one of his college
mates that he ever _had_ been seen in them, for a considerable sum even
of spending money.
Different eyes have such different ways of looking at the same thing.
Tode will never forget how that suit of clothes looked to _his_ eyes,
nor how, when arrayed in them, he stood before his bit of glass, and
took a calm, full, deliberate survey of himself. To be sure, Tom being a
chunk and Tode being long limbed, notwithstanding Mr. Hastings'
supposition to the contrary, pants and jacket sleeves were somewhat
lacking in length; moreover there was a patch on each knee, and you have
no idea how nice those patches looked to Tode. Why, bless you! he was
used to seeing great jagged, unseemly holes where these same neat
patches now were. Also he had on a shirt! A real, honest white shirt;
and so persistently does one improvement urge upon us the necessity of
another in this world, that Tode had already been obliged to doff his
shirt once in order to bring his face and hair into something like
propriety, that the contrast might not be too sharp.
There was a stirring of new emotions in his heart. Perhaps he then and
there resolved to be a genius, to be the president, or at least the
governor; perhaps he did, but he only gave his thoughts utterance after
this fashion:
"Jemima Jane! Do you tell the truth, you young upstart in the glass
there? Be you Tode Mall, no mistake? Well now, for the land's sake, a
fellow _does_ look better in a shirt, that's as true as whistling. I
mean to have a shirt of my own, I do now. S'pose these are mine after I
earn 'em. Oh, ho; _me_ earn a shirt for myself. Ain't that rich now?
What you s'pose Jerry would think of that, hey, old fellow in the glass?
Well, why not? Like enough I'll earn a pair of boots some day. I will
now, true's you live; it's real jolly. I wonder a fellow never thought
of it before. Oh I'll be some; I'll have a yellow bow one of these days
for a cravat, see if I don't!"
And this was the hight and end and aim of Tode's ambition.