HE SAVES FOR "FOUR ROOMS FURNISHED COMPLETE"
The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear
autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other
members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and
recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How
pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how
delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first
gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.
He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at
him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're
a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar
and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"
Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which
followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the
park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts
and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was
the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking
of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on
fat, saucy park squirrels.
He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased
instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?
Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for
the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the
yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.
He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy
markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn
money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson
Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family
war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?
Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If
twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents
would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring
the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five
errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a
quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?
In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it
must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run,"
or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be
earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay
the achievement of that heart's desire.
The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours.
As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in
his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his
first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.
"Oh, John-e-e-e!"
"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.
"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll
be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the
quarter-back kick! Come along?"
John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited
them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he
haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and
he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early
games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of
water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his
pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.
"Can't," said he finally.
"Why?"
"Got to work--sell papers."
Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk
with one sadly abused shoe.
"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars
by the time I'm twenty-one."
"What for?"
"Get married."
"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny.
Just once won't hurt."
"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't
any more time for kid foolishness!"
"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum
turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"
As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had
Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.
Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite
the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the
cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost
in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park
museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long
succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with
a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only
the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in
order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and
often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires
which were always starting to consume it.
Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It
was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon,
and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing
to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.
"Want another bloody nose?"
John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive
up?"
The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do
you want to know for?"
"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"
"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in
the paper business according to his simple mind.
John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the
cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair
would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the
easiest way out of the dilemma.
"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly,
throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like
everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill,
so I'm going to work."
All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and
as such John was to be aided in every possible way.
"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay
here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How
many are you going to buy?"
"Dime's worth."
"Think you can sell 'em all?"
"Easy."
Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better
learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John
wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.
At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the
side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step.
Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and
pointed to his pupil.
"New kid, Joe."
"What's his name?"
"John."
"All right, John, how many?"
He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return.
The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while
John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper
boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.
An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam
hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke
arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound,
pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the
turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.
"Pa--a--"
A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word
became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was
nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't
arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell
at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.
The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky.
Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and
glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on
either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the
macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle,
paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped
away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went.
Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past.
Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along.
Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch
showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and
John counted his papers.
Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket.
Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished,
but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of
Shultz's question--and supper impended.
He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at
the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented
such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a
glaring headline on the first page held his attention.
Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But
John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead,
that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the
school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the
plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone,
many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he
had marked as his goal.
This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station
that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take
them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house,
would be still on his way home, and this difference between the
expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of
the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible.
What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?
He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down
the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,
"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per
here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"
Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to
catch his words.
"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"
A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front
lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.
"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"
She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.
"Extras are a nickel!"
"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"
"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's,
discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper,
just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel.
Always is."
He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house
for the stipulated coin.
The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture,
the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people
who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He
resumed his stroll down the street.
"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry,
extry, extre-e-e-e!"
Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure.
At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.
A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in
her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel
into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and
started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands
and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more
copies! At least sixty could have been sold.
Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank--a dime was to be reserved
for the morrow's capital--wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half
could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as
easy as rolling off a log.
John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for
school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along
the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for
a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front
door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the
threshold, panting and very much excited.
"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me
all about it!"
Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before
the fire. "About what?" she asked.
"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the
dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.
"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice,
"said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell
papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had
lost his position." She would have added further details as to the
straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that
lady's manner had not prevented her.
"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from
across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and
that I'd run right over to ask you."
"John told _what_?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal
torrent had halted.
The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter.
"I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as
she leaned forward to explain matters.
But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than
he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of
affairs to be anything else.
Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper
venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so
regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon.
Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown
until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of
financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to
swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one.
But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such
side issues.
His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and
seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he
was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he
remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year
from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!
"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when
that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak,
overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't
accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner
was singularly convincing.
Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her
from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the
park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the
science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch,
tomorrow."
He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers
spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?
Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang
it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which
was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his
afternoons?
Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy
streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small
boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were
returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store
window caught his eye.
Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the
walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a
dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped
around it.
He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently,
as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.
"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to _three hundred and sixty-five
dollars_."
He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser
and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on
them! Then came the appalling thought: _"How far would a thousand
dollars last with such prices?"_
All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on
the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected
problem. If bedroom furniture _alone_ cost that much and the pictures
and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four
hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs,
a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the
dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there
were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least
he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered
half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks
usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough
to marry Louise?
Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately
preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed
after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be
given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the
cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were
grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A
supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth,
borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded,
gave still greater festivity to the room.
There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too
much interested to absent themselves.
Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl
whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled
complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning:
Only a grain of corn, Moth_ur_,
Only a grain of corn.
Then the class sang one of the songs in the fourth-grade music book and
settled back expectantly, for the feature piece of the afternoon.
Silvey and Red Brown dragged a long, green curtain along a wire which
ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was
hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the
coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A
boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a
last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain
was pulled back against the wall again.
[Illustration: _It was Sid and Louise!_]
It was Sid and Louise! He'd thrown aside the long cloak (insisted upon
because he'd feel like a fool if the class saw him in costume while
waiting for the play to begin), and stood forth in high, paper cuffs
hiding his coat sleeves well up to his elbows, and a queerly shaped,
high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any
moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father
to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make
believe threw them back into those tempestuous early days along the
Atlantic Coast.
John heard not a word of the scenes which followed. He was sorely
disturbed. There was Sid on the platform with his beloved, waving his
arms back and forth in fervid, pump-handle motions which Louise seemed
to mind not a bit. Hang it all, that kid must be trying to cut him out!
But he'd show him. Just wait until his thousand dollars was earned.
Then his calculations of that Saturday evening came back to throw an icy
feeling into the pit of his stomach. What right had he to hope when
housefurnishings were at such a figure?
Mrs. Fletcher set him to picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he
came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto,
mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully
conscious of four long holidays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
in which he could sleep as late as he wanted--besides, he could see a
little more of Louise. He didn't like the way she had acted on the
platform. Perhaps he had been a little neglectful, but just wait a few
years. Then he'd--but the thought of that costly furniture put an end to
his dreams.
Thanksgiving morning he haunted the kitchen incessantly, dancing now to
the little pantry to swing back the doors and feast his eyes on the huge
mince pie which waited on the bottom shelf, and then back to the kitchen
where he pestered his mother with innumerable questions until she drove
him out into the snappy, late November air. He scampered up to Bill's
house, where the two boys retired to the chilly seclusion of the shack
and compared notes.
"We've got a fifteen-pound turkey," said John boastfully.
"That's nothing," Silvey dug scornfully into the hard dirt floor with
his heel. "You ought to see ours. Twenty pounds, and my, such a big
fellow! Cranberry sauce an' roast potatoes, an' squash to go with him.
Umm-m-m."
"So've we," retorted John, undaunted by this itemized account. "Your
turkey may be bigger'n ours, but it won't taste as good, for my ma (he'd
forgotten his assertion regarding Louise) is the best cook in the whole
world and there isn't anyone can beat her."
Certain empty pangs in nature's alarm clock brought him home half an
hour early to inquire about dinner. He was most starved to death.
Wouldn't mother hurry it up? Mother couldn't--expert cookery was not to
be hurried. He'd better go out again for a while.
Instead, he carried the morning paper into the parlor and lounged in the
big easy chair. The minutes slipped past as he devoured news items, the
fiction supplement, and miraculous patent medicine announcements with
amusing impartiality. He turned to an inner page and found a huge
advertisement staring him in the face. At the top, floated a streamer
with the legend, "You furnish the girl, we furnish the house!" Further
down the page were furniture bargains innumerable, for sale on a plan of
"One dollar down, seventy-five cents per week," and in the center,
between heavy rules, was the announcement, "Four rooms, furnished
complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
"John," called his father from the dining-room. "Come to dinner!"
He threw the paper from him in sudden exultation, and danced in to the
dining-table. His eye took in each detail of the evenly browned national
bird, the long, slender stalks of celery in the dainty china dish, the
deep-red cranberry jelly, the appetizing roasted potatoes, and the
golden squash, and he smiled happily.
"Jiminy, that looks good, Mother!" He plumped into his seat. "Hurry up,
dad, I'm most ready to eat the house!"
But through his brain, as he attacked a third helping of turkey and its
accessories, there still ran the exultant echo of "Four rooms, furnished
complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
Thus did the day become a real Thanksgiving to him.