[Illustration: 9141]
RIGHT and early on the Monday succeeding the Van Vleet tea-party, Harry
Starlight set out for his call upon Colonel Hamilton. It proved to be a
clear, bracing morning, the kind of a morning to inspire hope in hearts
five times as old as Harry's, only fortunately there are _some_ hearts
that never grow old at all, and to whom hope is just as true and
beautiful-at sixty as sixteen. The moment he closed the door of the
kitchen behind him, he drew one great, deep breath, as though longing
to take in, in a permanent way if possible, all the exhilaration of the
invigorating air, all the marvellous beauty of the wonderful out-of-door
world. There had been a heavy frost the night before, but almost the
first flash of sunrise had transformed it into an army of glistening
drops, save where here and there, under the protecting chill of sombre
shadows, the grass-blades still were cased in sheaths of crystal. The
river was gray and white-capped, for the west wind would not leave it
still enough to reflect the cloudless blue overhead, and the “Gretchen”
tugged at her chain with various little creaks and groans, as though an
anchor and a furled sail were more than sail-boat nature could endure
when such a breeze was blowing. Indeed, as Harry freed her from her
moorings, she fairly seemed to bound out into the river with the keen
enjoyment of a creature alive in every part. It is hard to picture that
East River as it looked a hundred years ago, with wooded and grass-grown
banks in place of wharves and warehouses, and with only an occasional
sail, where to-day the great, unwieldy ferry-boats plow from shore to
shore, and an army of smaller craft steam noisily hither and thither.
Now and then Harry would pass a market-boat loaded to the water's edge
with a tempting array of vegetables, and rowed by a marketwoman in her
close-fitting Dutch cap, who would either wish him a cheery good-morning
in matronly fashion, or bend lower over her oars, as became a young
maiden. Half reluctantly did Harry hear the “Gretchen's” keel scrape the
pebbly shore, and exchange the breezy breadth of the river for the
city street, notwithstanding that street led straight up to Colonel
Hamilton's office. Then, somehow or other, he did not feel quite so
buoyant as at the start, for hope has a trick of wavering a little,
as she actually nears the verge of any decision. What if some one had
already secured the place? What if the Colonel should not take to him?
for Harry had great faith in and great respect for what may be called
“taking to people.”
It so happened that he found only a boy in the Colonel's office, a very
dark little specimen of the negro race, who was brushing and dusting
away in a manner that said very plainly, “I's behin' time dis mornin',”
which, by the way, was the rule and not the exception in the life of
lazy little John Thomas.
“What time does Colonel Hamilton usually come in? asked Harry, when he
saw that the boy was by far too busy to pay any attention to him.
“'Long any minit; dat's how I's so flustered,” he replied, breathlessly,
and with that sort of haste which invariably makes waste, he
succeeded in upsetting all the contents of a generous scrap-basket
exactly in the middle of the office floor. “Glory me!” was his one
inelegant exclamation, and, dropping on to his knees, he began punching
the accumulation of trash back into the basket, but with an energy that
landed half of it upon the floor again.
“Look here, I'll tend to that,” laughed Harry. “You see to your other
work.” John Thomas looked up surprised, but seeing the offer was made
in good faith, took Harry at his word, and flew to the office washstand,
which was sadly in need of attention.
Just at this point there was a step in the hall, and glancing up from
his homely, self-appointed task, Harry's eyes met those of Colonel
Hamilton, while the color flushed over his face.
“Well, my young friend,” said the Colonel, evidently much amused, “who
set you at that work?”
“I was waiting for you, sir,” said Harry, putting the basket at one
side, “and as your boy seemed to have been delayed, I was trying to lend
a hand.”
“Very kind of you, sir; and as John has a way of being delayed every
morning, he would no doubt like to make a permanent engagement with
you.”
“I had rather you would do that, sir,” was on Harry's lips, but he
feared it might sound familiar; but Colonel Hamilton seemed to read his
thoughts.
“Possibly you came to see about making an engagement with me,” he said,
kindly, looking for the moment most intently at Harry in a way that
showed he was mentally taking his measure. Meanwhile he had hung up
his coat and hat, and dropped into a high-backed, uncomfortable and
unpainted wooden chair, very different from the upholstered, revolving
contrivances that we find in offices nowadays.
“Yes, sir,” said Harry, in answer to the Colonel's question, and
still standing; “I heard that you wanted a clerk, and I should be very
grateful if you would let me see if I could fill the place.”
“What is your name?”
“Harry Starlight Avery, if you wish it in full, sir.”
“Will you be seated, Mr. Avery?” said the Colonel, with his habitual
kindly courtesy; whereupon John Thomas flourished a bedraggled feather
brush over a dusty chair--the same one upon which Hazel had sat during
her recent important interview--and placed it near the Colonel's, with
all the importance of a drum-major on parade.
“I have heard the name of Starlight before,” Colonel Hamilton said
thoughtfully, “but where I cannot remember.” Then, and as though he had
no time to devote to mere rumination at that hour of the morning, he
asked, “Are you a native of New York, Mr. Avery?”
“No, sir; my home is in New London.”
“Then you are a long ways from it now” (for distances were distances in
those days); “how does that happen?”
“I enlisted on a privateer,” Harry answered, coloring slightly.
“So that is how,” and the Colonel gave him the benefit of another
scrutinizing look.
“Have you ever had a position in a lawyer's office?”
“No, sir; I am sorry to say I haven't; but it's just the sort of
position I have always wanted. Of course you would have to tell me just
about everything at the start, but not more than once, I hope, sir.”
This is the right sort of spirit, thought the Colonel, beginning to run
through some papers on a letter-file, for, as usual, he had a very busy
day before him.
“How long ago did you enlist on the privateer?” making a little
memorandum of some other matters on a sheet of paper as he spoke.
“Nearly two years ago.”
“How long were you aboard of her?”
“Only a month, sir.”
“And where were you the remainder of the time?”
“On the 'Jersey,' sir.”
There was no dividing of attention now, and the Colonel laid aside the
quill pen he had just filled with ink.
“Do you mean to say you were a prisoner aboard of her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For nearly two years?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is enough for me. Any poor fellow that has braved the horrors of
that den for even a month ought to have the best sort of a chance. I
will engage you on the spot, Mr. Avery. If you have been a 'Jersey'
prisoner, that is enough for me. I am willing to try a 'green hand,' who
has had to endure that experience.”
“You are very kind, Colonel Hamilton,” and Harry's grateful appreciation
showed plainly in his face.
“Could you stay to-day,” asked the Colonel, “and let me set you right to
work at some copying? I think we can come to a satisfactory arrangement
about terms when I am not so hurried.”
Of course Harry stayed--stayed through one of the busiest and happiest
days of his life; and not until twilight had long settled down on the
river did he step aboard of the “Gretchen” and set sail for the old Van
Vleet Farm.
When the wind is right in your favor, and you have little to do but mind
your helm, you have a fine chance for a quiet think--that is, if you
are any sort of a sailor; and Harry improved the opportunity and thought
hard--thought of all that the day's good fortune might mean to him: of
ability to pay his own way for the first time in his life; of a little
money to be sent off now and then to the younger brothers in New London,
and then, in a vague sort of a way, of a home of his own some day.
Meantime all the while there would be the constant daily companionship
with Colonel Hamilton himself, who seemed to him (as indeed to many
another, and in the face, too, of his extreme youthfulness) at once the
noblest, the kindest, and by far the greatest man he had ever met. What
a pity, he thought, that he should have sided against Aunt Frances!
But of one thing Harry felt sure, which was that he had certainly “taken
to” Colonel Alexander Hamilton; and there was another thing just as sure
which he did not know about, and that was that the Colonel had decidedly
“taken to” Harry.