PADDY'S RESOLVE.
Over the pleasant little dinner table Dick's heart was quite won. The
room was so clean and pretty, and the hot meal so good after the meagre
fare of the last fortnight. And the new friends were so kind and
sympathising, it was easy to tell them about the long march from
Venley, and all his hopes about the future. Only there was no uncle
Dick to help him in his heart's desire to become an engineer, and he
would have to fight his own way.
But Mr. Dainton was quite disposed to be a true friend.
"I like your pluck, my boy, and I'll see what I can do, for my old
friend's sake, and for your kindness to a little kitten. I may be able
to get you into our yard, though you'll have to be content with rough
work and very small wages at first. I suppose you haven't a reference
or testimonial of any sort?"
Dick suddenly remembered the slip of paper given him by the gentleman
on horseback, and he gave it silently into Mr. Dainton's hand.
"Why, this is first-rate, my boy! Couldn't be better. Sir Dale
Melville is one of the directors of the line we do so much work for,
and it was luck, or something better, that brought you in his way."
"Something better, I should say," Mrs. Dainton remarked softly, and
Dick answered her smile with one as bright.
"You're right, wife, it strikes me God has been guiding Dick here right
to our door, and I can see he thinks so, too."
"He could stop here, couldn't he mother, till Teddy comes back from
grandma's, and have his little room?" said Nellie, eagerly. "Then Pat
and Kitty could quite make friends, and have such fun together."
"That's not a bad notion, pet, if mother is willing."
And Mrs. Dainton at once said "Yes," and so Dick found himself with
home and food and friends, before he had been an hour in Ironboro'.
How wonderfully God had answered his prayers!
"Hulloa, you young hopeful, what do you mean by sleeping all through
dinner, and then waking just as we've cleared the dishes?" And Mr.
Dainton stooped to the cradle by the hearth, where a bonny six-month's
old baby had wakened with a cry.
"What, fretty, little man? Those teeth do bother you, don't they? And
I can't stop to take you now."
"Let me have him!" cried Dick, quickly, holding out his arms. "I've
had a lot to do with babies."
And to their great surprise, baby Jack went to him at once with a
contented chuckle, and settled down as if he had known him always.
"I like that, now," said the father as he took his cap to go. "He's
mostly so shy with strangers."
Mrs. Dainton nodded her head as if to say "He'll do." And before the
day was over she was inclined to think they had indeed entertained an
angel unawares.
"He's as handy in the house as a woman," she told her husband that
night, "and a master-hand with baby. I think we had better keep him,
instead of the nurse-girl you've been wanting me to have."
"Too late, wifie. I'm hoping to get him into the starting shed
to-morrow or Monday. Anyhow, the loco. manager will see him. We'll
keep him here this week and rig him out with clothes, if only for
Richard's sake."
"And for Christ's sake," said the mother softly. "It will be a case
for 'Inasmuch' I know. He says his teacher used to call him
'Lionheart' and he means to earn the name."
"I rather think he's done that already, judging by the way he stood up
to those bullies on the Waste. We'll see if old Mrs. Garth can give
him a lodging. He'll be comfortable there, and we can have him round
often, and I hope he and Teddy will be chums. I believe he's going to
do well."
The next day it was settled, and Dick was seen by the manager and
engaged as handy-boy for the cleaning shed. The small wages he would
have at first seemed wealth indeed to Dick, though anybody else might
have wondered how lodging and food and clothing could be managed on
such an income. But Mr. Dainton had a private understanding with the
tidy old woman where Dick's uncle had lodged, and she agreed to find
board and lodging for what he could afford to pay, if he would carry
coal and chop sticks and do errands for her, for a little while every
day, now that she was growing old.
It was a good bargain for both, and Dick faithfully kept his share of
the compact, spending half-an-hour morning and evening in helping her,
while Pat fitted into the little household as if he had belonged there
always. It was the proudest moment of Dick's life when he entered the
great gates of the engine works on Monday morning.
The crowd of men going in at the summons of the hooter was not so large
as on other days. So many of the workmen were keeping Saint Monday
after drinking hard on Saturday and Sunday, and of those who came some
looked sleepy and muddled as if, they, too, had been having too much.
But Dick was not in a critical mood. Everything looked strange and
delightful to the eager boy, and even the dirty work he was ordered to
do seemed pleasant because there were engines everywhere, and mysteries
of cogs and wheels that he would be able to find out, as the days went
by.
The all-pervading smell of oil and grease reminded him of Paddy's
boiler-house, and he resolved to spend his first evening in writing to
him.
There were three other boys in the shed, all older than himself, and
half-a-dozen men, and Dick was fairly bewildered by the orders they
gave him.
As a new hand and the youngest it was quite evident he would be
expected to fag for all, and long before night his back and legs were
very tired.
But Mrs. Garth had a good tea all ready, and Pat, who had been
disconsolate all day, nearly wagged off his short tail for joy when he
got home.
And then he wrote a letter.
"DEAR PADDY,
"We got to Ironboro' quite safely, after a lot of ups and downs on the
road. Pat was nearly lost, so many people wanted to steal, or beg, or
buy him, and no wonder.
"My uncle Richard is gone to Klondyke, and I am going to write him a
letter.
"His friend, Mr. Dainton, found me, or I found his little girl, and
they have been so kind. He is a foreman at Lisle & Co.'s, and he knew
uncle ever so well. He has got me a place in their sheds, and I began
work to-day.
"Our firm is splendid, I should think six times as big as the tin
works, and I am going to try so hard there.
"Ironboro' is very dirty, and there are publics everywhere. The men
drink a great deal here, and it is such a pity. Mr. Dainton says they
could do well if they liked, because the pay is so good.
"One of the men offered me a drink of beer to-day, but of course I said
'No.' When I told him I never meant to touch it the others laughed,
and said they'd soon make me know better. But I mean to be Lionheart
still.
"Pat sends his love to you. He has a box for a kennel in Mrs. Garth's
wood shed where I lodge.
"Dear Paddy, I know God _does_ hear when we pray, because he brought me
here, and made people so kind to me coming along, and gave me friends
and work directly. I wish you would come here, too, that Pat and I
could see you again. He is so knowing. Everybody likes him. Do come.
"Your loving friend,
DICK."
"I've got slops and overalls just like the other men, to work in, and
I'm going to a night school and a technical class, and Mr. Dainton has
lent me a big book about engines, with pictures all through.
"I should like to know how baby Lily is at Mrs. Fowley's, if you could
find out, and whether they were vexed at my running away. But please
don't tell them I am here.
"DICK."
This letter gave Paddy so much pleasure when it reached him that his
first impulse was to take it to the "Brown Bear" and read it to some of
his cronies there, just for the joy of sharing it.
But better thoughts came.
"And shure if I hearkened to the good book he was reading that night
and what he says here about the drink I should never touch the beer
again at all, at all. He said we could all be Lionhearts, and that God
wouldn't like to go into them places with me. And he says again here
that God does answer when we pray. Maybe if I went round to Dick's
teacher and signed the pledge the Almighty would help me to keep it,
and then I could save a bit of money and go to Ironboro' too."
Paddy had been sitting by his little fire after tea when the letter
came, and he sat on for a long while, staring into the bright coals and
seeing in fancy Dick's pleading face again. Suddenly he got down
awkwardly upon his knees, and with the letter in his hand prayed his
first real prayer.
And that night he signed the pledge and hung up the card over his
mantelpiece where all might see it, and the sight of his own name, put
to such a promise, was a continual help to him in the fight that lay
before him.