TEDDY COMES INTO HIS OWN
Their second day in the store passed much more quickly than the first,
for Harry Harding and Teddy Burke. In the first place everything did
not seem so new and strange. To Teddy, his realm of kettles and pans
looked fairly familiar, and he felt quite as though he had known Mr.
Hickson, the red-haired salesman, all his life. Harry, however, was
not at ease at the exchange desk. It seemed to him that Mr. Barton
perpetually hovered near the desk, ordering everyone about, his heavy,
black eyebrows almost meeting in a ferocious scowl. Even Miss Welch,
the pretty clerk, could not escape his fault-finding. Above the hum
of the busy departments his loud, strident voice was constantly
to be heard, and wherever he moved he left behind him a trail of
dissatisfaction and muttered rebellion.
Harry had fully determined to obey the crabbed man’s orders so promptly
that he should have no room for complaint. All day he was strictly
on the alert, and though Mr. Barton spoke sharply to him whenever he
demanded his services, he found no room to criticize the clear-eyed,
obedient lad.
Harry went to lunch earlier that day and made his way to the lunch
room with the feeling that if he kept on as he had done that morning,
Mr. Barton would understand that he was trying to do his best. As he
entered the long room he glanced quickly about to see if the fat boy
of his yesterday’s encounter had arrived. Yes, there he was at the
far end of the room, greedily gobbling his dinner, his head bent low
over his food. When Harry had secured his own tray of food, he took
good care to put the length of the room between them. Though far from
being afraid of the disagreeable youth, he had no desire to precipitate
another scene. Meanwhile, he kept one eye on the door for Teddy, who
was due in the lunch room some minutes later than himself. He intended
to go forward and meet his chum with the idea of steering him clear of
trouble. To his relief, however, the belligerent fat youth finally rose
and shuffled off, disappearing through the door that led to the stairs.
Five minutes later Teddy appeared, and hailing him, Harry pointed to a
place at his table which he had reserved for his chum.
“Did you meet that fat boy?” was Harry’s first question.
“Nope. Didn’t see the big baby,” replied Teddy contemptuously. “Did
you see him?”
“Yes; he just left here. I thought you might have met him in the hall.
I am glad you didn’t.”
“It’s a good thing for him. If I’d seen him and he’d said a word to me,
I’d have punched him, sure,” threatened Teddy.
“See here, Ted, you had better make up your mind here and now to let
that boy alone if you happen to meet him. He isn’t worth bothering
with. Certainly he isn’t worth losing your position for. If you get
into a fight with him, you’ll both be discharged. Even though he is so
hateful, he may have to work to help support his family. You wouldn’t
like to be the means of doing the boy’s mother out of her son’s help,
would you?”
“Aw, rats! He couldn’t support a mosquito,” jeered Teddy. “I’ll bet
he’s a great, big, spoiled kid, that got fired from school just as I
did. He’s no good.”
“Then if he’s no good, keep away from him,” retorted Harry sharply.
“Oh, I’m not going to chase after him,” grinned Teddy. “Don’t get
excited.”
“I sha’n’t. At least, not over anything like that.” Harry smiled in
sympathy with Teddy’s irresistible grin. Then he changed the subject
abruptly by saying, “To-morrow is our first day to go to school, Teddy.
Have you forgotten it?”
“No, I haven’t. I wish I had. I wish when to-morrow morning came I’d
forget every single thing about school until eleven o’clock. What’s
the use of going to an old school when you’ve got a job? I know enough
already.”
“I don’t,” said Harry earnestly. “I think it’s a splendid chance. Why,
Ted, we’re lucky to have it.”
“Then I’d rather be unlucky,” asserted Teddy stubbornly. “I’d rather
hang around with the old kettles and pans all my life than be chased
off to a silly school.”
There was a moment’s silence after Teddy’s grumbling speech. Then Harry
said, “I hope we are put in the same division.”
“We won’t be. You know more’n I do, and you use better grammar. How far
did you go in arithmetic?”
“I was just through percentage when I left school,” Harry made reply.
“You’ve got me beaten a mile. I only went as far as decimal fractions.
I don’t know much about ’em, either. Don’t know that I want to.”
“Yes, you do. You must try to do your best in school, as well as in
your department. I think if you’d try not to use so much slang, you’d
find your grammar improved.” Harry regarded the red-haired boy with an
anxious solicitude, that quite took away the impression that he was
attempting to dictate to his little companion.
“See here, Harry,” Teddy’s black eyes were fixed earnestly on the
other lad, “if any of the fellows I knew at school had handed me a lot
of goody-goody talk, I’d have told ’em to shut up pretty quick, but
somehow I don’t mind what you say to me. I guess it’s because I like
you, and I wouldn’t be su’prised if you are pretty near right. I’ll try
to get along in the old school, just because you want me to.”
“Will you shake hands on that?” asked Harry, extending his hand.
Teddy’s hand shot out instantly to meet Harry’s. His black eyes were
gentle with friendliness. Then he said almost sheepishly, “I gotta go.
I’ll see you on the same old corner to-night. If you get there first be
sure and wait for me.”
The rest of the day went by uneventfully and, as agreed, the boys met
after the store closed and walked part way home together. Both lads
found themselves a trifle more tired than on their first day. For once
Teddy had the supreme satisfaction of eating supper with his mother.
Strange to relate, she had no engagement for the evening, and heard
his tales of the day’s work with considerable interest. She listened
closely to Teddy’s description of Harry, and his eager assertion that
Harry’s mother “liked boys a lot” and had told Harry to bring him home
to supper some night. Teddy could hardly believe his ears when his
mother said, “Then you must invite this boy to our home to supper,
too.”
After the meal they sat together in the living room, Ted reading
one of the books in a favorite series of his, in which a wonderful
boy hero goes through all sorts of hair-raising adventures and bobs
up triumphantly at the end of the story, while his mother stitched
diligently on a doyley she had begun months before and neglected to
finish. Still more wonderful, when at nine o’clock he began to yawn
over his book and decided to go to bed, she called him to her and
kissed him good night.
After her son had gone happily to bed, Mrs. Burke began to consider him
more seriously than she had done for years. She felt a little piqued
over Teddy’s enthusiastic description of Harry and his mother. She
wondered if she had done right in allowing Teddy to leave school and
go to work, and she resolved that in future she would look after him a
little more closely than she had in the past.
Meanwhile, in his own humble home, Harry was going over the day’s
doings to his own mother, entirely unconscious of the blessed change
his admonition to Teddy Burke to cultivate his mother’s acquaintance
had wrought in two lives.