OUR HERO MEETS HIS DESTINY.
"Well, it _is_ charity," said Ben to himself, "but it is acceptable for
all that." He then strolled up the gaslit street,--for it had been dark
for some little time--and repeatedly asked himself what would be the
next move in the campaign he had undertaken.
The "prodigal" had spoken of riding; how was it to be done? Should he
enter a train, take a seat and wait until the conductor put him off? He
knew that that manner of proceeding would gain him but a short ride.
Perhaps he might tell the conductor a pathetic tale that would so work
upon that individual's generosity that he would allow him to continue
on the train. Alas, he knew the craft too well to attempt so futile an
undertaking. Not that conductors are a hard-hearted class of persons,
but their orders are strict, and permitting a free ride would subject
them to a peremptory discharge. In fact Ben was lost. At a distance
the simple matter of going from place to place looked easy enough of
accomplishment, but now that he was brought face to face with the
problem its solution became a difficult (indeed he was about thinking
an impossible) task. What to do or where to go he knew not. For a time
he gazed listlessly into the shop windows, and mechanically strolled
along. If he could only meet a tramp, he thought, he would ask him how
to proceed; and he kept a sharp lookout for one of the fraternity, but
none presented themselves. It soon grew late, and the streets lonely.
The pedestrians became fewer and fewer, and the shops, one by one, put
up their shutters. Ben thought he had never felt so lonesome in all
his life; and he was right. There is no situation in life more lonely,
than to be alone in a great city at night fall. In the woods a man
has Nature to listen to and commune with. On the prairies there are
the stars and the night breeze for companions. But in a metropolis, a
stranger among our fellow men, such a wretched, helpless feeling comes
over the traveller that his loneliness seats itself, not only on his
mind, but on his heart. This feeling was creeping with a dull, heavy
tread upon Ben, and he had already commenced to anxiously question
himself where he should pass the night that was now surrounding him,
when his attention was suddenly aroused by a youthful voice, in a dark
side street, close by, crying out:
"Let me alone! Let me alone, I say!" and then a gentle female voice
entreating:
"Do not strike the boy, Arthur. Do not beat him. He did not mean to; I
am sure he did not!"
"I'll teach you to pick a pocket, you young scoundrel!" exclaimed an
angry man; and there followed a blow, and a cry of pain.
By this time Ben, who had accelerated his step, reached the scene of
disturbance, and discovered by the dim light that crept from a street
lamp, half a block away, a large man grasping a boy by the arm, and
holding an uplifted cane, that a young lady was striving to prevent
again descending upon the captive. The face of the latter being
concealed by an old slouch hat jammed down over his eyes.
In Ben's nature was a strong love of justice. He had ever been a
champion of the weak, and an injury inflicted by a strong arm on one
incapable of resistance was an outrage on his own sensitiveness, that
had involved him in many a rough-and-tumble while a boy at school and
college. As the man shook off his fair companion's hand and the cane
was about descending again on the shrinking person of the boy, he
interposed his arm and caught the blow upon it.
"Don't strike the boy, sir. Please do not hit him. Even if he has done
wrong a beating will not improve him." As he thus expostulated with the
man he became conscious of a pair of great, glorious, grey eyes, that
fairly glowed in the dark, looking gratefully upon him from out the
folds of a snowy nubia, and a very melodious voice seconding his own
entreaties, with:
"I'm sure you are mistaken, Arthur. This gentleman is right. Pray do
not strike the boy again."
But Ben's observations reached no farther, for the man gave him a
stinging blow across the face with the cane, exclaiming fiercely:
"Confound your impudence, who asked you to interfere!" The next moment
the man lay at length in the gutter, having been sent there by a
powerful and well directed blow with which, in the heat of the moment,
Ben had resented the indignity received by him.
The next instant he repented such an act in the presence of a lady
and turned to apologize, when a warning voice cried, "Look out! He is
armed!" and he saw that his opponent had regained his feet and was
drawing a weapon from his pocket. What the result might have been, had
the man been allowed to use his revolver, is not difficult to surmise.
A shot at such close quarters would probably have suddenly terminated
Ben's tramp, had not the boy who gave the warning struck the man on the
head with a stone before he had an opportunity to use the weapon he was
uncovering. The blow was a severe one, and felled him senseless to the
pavement.
"Come, come!" cried the boy, "Let us get away from here!"
But Ben would not leave his fallen enemy without ascertaining the
extent of his injuries, and he immediately offered his assistance to
the young lady, who now stood beside her senseless escort, wringing her
hands, and vainly imploring him to arise. He had been only stunned,
however, and as Ben stooped over him showed signs of returning
consciousness. Attempting to rise to his feet, he found himself still
too dazed from the effects of the blow, and would have fallen had not
Cleveland supported him.
"I am very sorry this should have occurred, Miss, but realty this
gentleman is alone responsible for it," said Ben apologetically.
"Yes," she replied graciously. "No doubt you are right, sir. I do not
think the boy intended any wrong, but--but Arthur was ill tempered on
account of other matters, and--allowed his anger to vent itself on the
first object it came across."
And Ben thought he noticed, that, though nervous from the excitement,
she did not appear to evince much sympathy for her companion. The
latter soon recovered his senses sufficiently to keep his feet, and
supporting himself by the young lady's arm prepared to leave. As he was
moving off he turned upon Ben and said, with a malevolent scowl: "I
will remember you, sir."
"I trust, miss, you will pardon me for my rudeness," said our hero,
addressing the young lady and ignoring her companion. "I am very sorry
for what has occurred. Here is his pistol. I hope the next time he
draws it, it will be in defence of a more manly action than striking
one too small to defend himself." And he handed the revolver to the
young lady, who received it with a simple "thank you, sir." Ben
lifted his hat courteously, and the fair one returned a smile and an
inclination of her head; and the three separated.
Our friend stood watching the retreating figures of the lady and her
escort, until they were lost in the darkness, and then, instead of
resuming his walk, he leaned against a neighboring wall, while his
thoughts continued to follow the owner of the great, glorious, gray
eyes in the nubia.
Unconscious of his surroundings, his mind basked in the light of the
bewildering glances, and his ears danced to the music of the voice
that had proceeded from out the folds of the snowy nubia. Ben had
a large circle of young lady acquaintances, and, being a fellow of
culture and good looks, was a favorite with the fair sex. Among them
might have been numbered many attractive and _polished_ misses, some of
whom had treated our hero more than cordially. But for all he retained
the same simple feeling of friendship,--and, nothing deeper. There was
a latent feeling in the young man's composition that had never been
touched until that evening. A wonderful change had now come over him.
He felt that she of the nubia was a fragment (and a pretty large one)
of his own existence. And it is singular, yet true, should he never
again have set eyes upon her, there would have remained for life a
tender memory in his heart that nothing could have displaced.
There is many a heart, going about this world to-day, with just such an
uncompleted vision, locked up as a sacred secret within.
"Pshaw!" he said to himself, "we probably will never meet again." At
the same time there was a small voice, aiding and abetting a sanguine
hope, which kept saying: "Yes you will, Ben. Depend upon it, you will,
my boy!"
Happening to look up from his musings, he discovered the cause of the
recent encounter standing a few feet away, attentively observing him.
The lad, finding his presence noticed, approached closer and said in a
singularly soft, pleasant voice:
"I thank you ever so much. I chanced to run against that man in the
dark, and he called me a thief. I called him a liar. Then he struck
me. I'm no _thief_!"
"Do you know the man?" asked Ben.
There was considerable hesitancy in the boy's manner as he answered:
"No--no--I don't know him. But I _will_, if I see him again, and I
won't forget that he struck me, either."
"I wish you knew him," said Ben.
"Why?" asked the other in surprise.
Ben blushed all to himself in the dark, but, reasoning that it was
"only a boy," boldly answered:
"I should like to know whom his lady companion is."
"Oh! Is _that_ it!" and the way he said it sounded singular to Ben.
"Well, I suppose you live here and will have a chance to find out."
"No, I do not live here. I live in New York."
"Going home to-night?" inquired the lad.
"No," laughed Ben. "I'm going to St. Louis before I go home again."
"To St. Louis! I declare! There is where I'm going myself."
"Perhaps we may travel together," suggested Ben, laughing.
"No fear of that," replied the other. "I guess my way of travelling
wouldn't suit you. I go in a Pullman Palace box car," and the boy
laughed merrily.
"A what car?"
"A Pullman Palace Box!" returned the boy. "I'm going to beat my way."
At last, thought Ben, I see a way out of the woods!
"Are you indeed! That is identically the way I am going to travel. Do
you think you can get to St. Louis?"
"Get there!" exclaimed the patron of the palace box disdainfully. "Get
there! Well, I should say, I have just made it from Boston here, and I
made it from Montreal to Boston. I know all the ropes, now;--sure as
you live, I do. And are you broke too?"
"Yes," replied Cleveland; "and that is not the worst of it. I never was
broke before, and, to tell the truth, I'm a novice at beating my way,
and do not know just how to do it."
"Why, so far as that goes, beating one's way is like any other kind of
work. _It is work._ To be sure it's not quite so pleasant as _paying_
your way, and you have to put up with a good bit, but if you have the
nerve you may rest assured that you will get to your destination all
right. As we are going the same way, suppose we go together?"
"Agreed!" said Ben, glad to have fallen in with some one posted in the
vagabond life he was about entering upon.
"Then we're pards. Here's my hand on it!" and Ben grasped a warm, soft
hand in his and the compact was duly signed and sealed.
"Now, partner," said the boy, "as you say you are new to the business,
let me have the direction of affairs until you get your hand in. We
will have to stay here for to-night, because the yards and tracks are
watched so close that it is next to impossible to jump a train going
out of here. But to-morrow we will foot it down to Elizabeth, and
make some side track below that town, and jump a train in the evening.
To-morrow night, by this time, we can make Philadelphia. That will be a
good time to jump some coal flats and get out on the Central road."
"You speak as though you had been over the route," said Ben in
admiration of the practical manner in which his new acquaintance
handled the subject. He felt a great relief in having found a companion
who could tell him something about travelling in the new style, not at
that time being aware of the fact that had he followed the railroad he
could have picked up a score of free-riders going in any direction his
fancy may have desired.
The boy, however, denied having ever been over the road before.
"No, no," he said, "when you are on a tramp you learn to post yourself
on these matters. It's easy done;--see here! Here's the public and
employee's time-tables of all the roads that come into New York City."
And he showed Ben a pocket-full of railroad time-tables. "With these
you can keep posted just how the trains run, where there are good
jumping places, tanks, switches, and so on. All the bums carry them.
They are their _war maps_. At the next convention the tramps ought
to vote a set of thanks to the railroad companies for printing these
things for them. But now let's go to bed. Have you any wealth?"
"I have just twenty-five cents," replied Ben acknowledging the quarter
given him by the teamster.
"Good enough. Keep your money for tobacco. Are you hungry?"
"No."
"All right then. We will get some breakfast before we start in the
morning. Now let us go to bed. I've got the boss hangup. It's a shed
in a lumber-yard. There's lots of nice clean boards in it. You must go
quiet, or the watchman will see us getting in, though, after you get in
the shed he never comes by that way. Come on."
Ben followed the boy to a lumber-yard, and having scaled a padlocked
gate, they were about to make for the shed, which was dimly discernible
in the distance, when the quick ear of the lad detected footsteps.
Quietly he led Ben into a recess, made by projecting piles of lumber,
and then the two crouched down, awaiting the appearance of the person
approaching. That individual shortly came up in the shape of a man--and
a very ragged one--as seen through the starlight. Behind him limped a
comrade carrying a small bundle. They were outside of the fence, and
halted when they arrived at the gate.
"Let's get in here, Billy," said the foremost in a low voice.
"Oh, thunder, Peters! My foot's too sore to climb that there fence, and
if a dog got after us on the other side, I'd be gone up. Let's go to
the Station-house and have a good-night's rest."
"I tell you I aint agoing to the police station, like a slouch,"
replied he addressed as Peters.
"Oh, you're so durned high toned!" muttered 'Billy.' "There's as good
men goes to the station as you be, and if you get over into that yard
somebody may catch you and hand you over, and then you'd go up for a
vag for sixty days, mebbe. I wish we'd a camped out in the country and
not come in town to-night."
"We _had_ to come in to get some snipes. You said you was a dying for
a smoke. Come now, and shin over." And 'Peters' commenced scaling the
gate, when Ben's companion called out:
"Get away from this yard, you scoundrels, or I'll give you over!"
A sudden fall from the gate, was followed by a hasty shuffling of feet,
and the boy said to Ben:
"All right, now. We have got rid of them. This is my hangup, for I
discovered it, and I don't want any more lodgers. Come on."
When they were safely stowed away on the planks under the shed, Ben
asked:
"Were those tramps?"
"Yes," replied the other; "peach-plucks, I s'pose. The country's full
of them."
"What are 'peach-plucks'?"
"Fellows that tramp up and down Delaware and Jersey during the
peach season. They get work at from fifty cents to a dollar a day,
picking peaches. Sleep out on the ground and live on corn-dodgers and
sow-belly. It's a star time with the bums, and I suppose there's five
thousand or more of them ramble through the peach country. You see work
aint heavy and they can have all the peaches to eat they want."
"But I should think that even at those small wages they might earn
enough to keep them until they found better employment," said Ben.
"They're not after employment; they're out for an airing, and only work
two or three days at a time. After the peaches play out, lots of 'em
strike off through the country for the Wisconsin hop yards, where men
and women pick in the fields together, and dance all night. It is the
life they like. Money's no object. Let us go to sleep so that we can
get up early." And he lay down at full length on the boards as though
they were a bed of down. Ben followed his example; but the strangeness
of his new position kept him long awake, thinking thoughts that had
never before visited his mind. Once he gave his companion a gentle
push, and asked:
"Boy, what is your name?"
"Tommy."
"Tommy, what are 'snipes'?"
"Cigar butts!" and Tommy laughed a sleepy little laugh, and was soon
thereafter snoring.
Then came the sweet angel Sleep, and wrapped his arms around city and
woodland, palace and hovel, police station and lumber pile, and took
his weary devotees off on a tour through dreamland.
About two o'clock in the morning, Ben awoke shivering with cold. The
damp night air, warm enough in the early evening, had chilled and
aroused him. His restlessness startled Tommy who enquired what the
matter was.
"Ah, you were not tired enough to sleep sound." And then Tommy showed
him how to make a blanket of his coat and vest, by covering up his head
with the coat and rolling the other up on the breezy side of him, and
in a few moments Ben felt himself quite warm, and again dozed off.
That trick of making a blanket out of his coat and covering up his head
so as to retain all the heat of respiration was a valuable one that he
often thereafter made use of.