THE MEASURE OF A MAN
“I’m glad you are going home with me to supper to-night,” was Harry’s
first speech as they left the assembly room that evening. As the boys
were obliged to line up for roll call before going home, the chums did
not now have to meet on the street corner. “I’ve a lot to tell you.”
“Good news?” questioned Teddy.
“No.” Harry’s face clouded. “I never have any good news to tell.” His
voice vibrated with bitterness.
“Go ahead. Tell me your troubles. After you’re done, I’ll tell you
something funny.”
Harry related the disheartening events of the afternoon. Teddy
listened, his elfish face unusually solemn.
“I wish I hadn’t called your aisle man ‘some crank,’” he deplored.
“That started the whole business.”
“No, I don’t believe so,” disagreed Harry. “If you hadn’t said a word
he would have treated me just the same. Miss Welch says he treats all
his boys that way. I can’t go on any more errands for him, it wouldn’t
be fair to Martin Brothers.”
“Suppose he asks you.”
“I’ll say ‘no,’” was Harry’s firm response, “but I’ll offer to do the
errand for him when the store closes.”
“You’re easy if you do anything of the kind,” burst forth Teddy. “Why,
he can’t say a single thing to you if you say you won’t go on his old
errands.”
“He can make it pretty hard for me in the department,” reminded Harry.
“He gave me three demerits for nothing, and Miss Leonard thinks I
deserved them. I know she does. He wasn’t even cross with me for
anything when he did that. What do you suppose he’d do if he really was
mad?”
“Try to get you fired, most likely.”
Harry nodded sadly. “Sometimes I think I’ll leave the store before
anything happens, and try to get work in an office. I hate to give up
my school, though. Miss Leonard is a splendid teacher. I’ve learned a
good deal in the little time I’ve gone to school to her.”
“So have I. She makes a fellow feel as if he wanted to study. I don’t
mind school so much now. But, Harry, you mustn’t leave the store. What
would I do without my chum?” Teddy’s thin hand fastened upon Harry’s
shoulder with a quick clutch of fellowship.
“I know. I’d miss you, too. Oh, I suppose I might as well stay and make
the best of things. Mother is so pleased to think I can work and still
go to school. Don’t say a word to her about Mr. Barton. I haven’t.”
“I won’t,” promised Teddy. “I wonder if your mother’ll like me!”
“Of course she will. She always likes my boy friends. You’ll like her.
You can’t help it.”
“My mother says I am to bring you home with me to supper. Any night
that suits you’ll suit us.”
“Does you mother----” Harry stopped. He was about to ask if Teddy’s
mother had become interested in her son’s progress as a business boy.
Then in fear of intruding upon what did not concern him, the rest of
the question died on his lips.
Teddy cast a swift, sidelong glance at him from under his long heavy
lashes. “My mother likes to hear about what happens to me in the store.
I kept telling her things, just the way you said you told your mother.
At first she didn’t seem to care, but now she does. We have lots of
talks, and last week she stayed home with me every night but one. That
was the night of her club meeting. She’s a vice-president, so she had
to go to it.”
“Isn’t that fine?” glowed Harry. “I’m glad she likes to hear about the
store.”
“I never had anything good to tell her about school,” returned Teddy,
“and I didn’t want her to know what a----” Teddy grinned--“a--menace
to the school I was. It’s different when you work. I feel more like a
man.” Teddy drew his slender body up to its fullest height and stalked
proudly along beside Harry, who was divided between laughter and
approbation of his small companion’s newly found dignity. He managed
to keep a sober face, however, for he was too fond of Teddy to run the
risk of wounding his pride.
“Seems funny not to go that way,” remarked Teddy as they passed the
corner where he usually bade Harry good night.
“Yes, it does seem queer for you to keep right on going with me,”
smiled Harry. “But you said you had something funny to tell me. Go
ahead with it.”
Smiling at the recollection of the puzzled Italian woman who had
plaintively begged to be conducted to Warren Street, and had been shown
a large part of Martin Brothers’ stock of house furnishings instead,
Teddy related the circumstance, interspersing the tale with frequent
giggles.
Harry’s boyish laugh rang out at the ridiculous incident. He laughed
still more when Teddy went on with the story of his spirited charge
down the aisle and its unlooked for consequences.
“It was square of you, Ted, to ask that man not to report the fat
boy.” Harry regarded Teddy with affection and appreciation. It didn’t
much matter, he thought, if Teddy couldn’t keep out of mischief. He
was truthful and honest, and that was what counted in a fellow who was
one’s best chum. “What did that Howard Randall say? I suppose he didn’t
say, ‘thank you?’”
“Well, he didn’t exactly say that, but--he--I--he isn’t such a mean
kid, after all. He said he was sorry he tried to stick me for a nickel,
and I’m not going to call him the elephant any more. We kind of made
up.”
“I’m surprised.” The corners of Harry’s mouth twitched. Then he burst
into laughter. “Don’t get mad, Ted,” he gasped, “but it’s so funny.
He’s the last fellow I know that I’d say you’d be friends with.”
“I’m not friends with him, yet,” retorted Teddy, flushing, “but I’m not
going to put him in the Zoo class again, unless he gets too smart. Say,
Harry, let’s go to the Zoo some Sunday afternoon, before it gets too
cold. How about next Sunday?”
“I’d like to go. I’ve never been there,” was the eager answer.
“You haven’t! Oh, I’ve been there slews of times. Once Miss Alton read
us a story about a funny little animal named Rickey Tickey Tavi, that
lived in a man’s house in India, and kept all the snakes away. There
are barrels of snakes in India. They get into the houses and even into
your bed and everything. This Rickey Tickey killed two big snakes named
Nag and Nagaina. They were cobras and had hoods on their heads.”
“Yes, I know,” nodded Harry. “I’ve seen pictures of them.”
“They’ve got two real ones at the Zoo. I stayed around their case one
whole afternoon, but the stingy old things hid in a log and wouldn’t
come out. I’m going to see ’em some time, though. There are lots of
other funny things. I like to tease the monkeys and there’s the seals
and a great big animal called a gnu. I always make faces at him. He
stares at me so funny.”
“Perhaps I can go next Sunday. I’ll let you know by Friday night.”
The walk to Harry’s home seemed very short to the chums. There was so
much to talk about. Being a boy, it did not occur to Teddy to draw a
comparison between the Harding’s tiny apartment and his mother’s large,
comfortable brick house. He knew only that, next to his mother, he was
sure Mrs. Harding was the nicest person in the world, and she certainly
knew what boys liked to eat. Teddy was by no means a shy, retiring
youngster, although he was not overbold. He was just a normal boy,
with a boy’s joy of living, ready to talk to anyone who wished to talk
to him on the subjects that lie nearest a boy’s heart.
After supper, Harry insisted that his mother go into the sitting-room
and read the paper while he and Teddy washed and wiped the dishes. It
was new work for Teddy, but he rather enjoyed it, and polished each
dish as he dried it with an energy worthy of a better cause. Far from
looking upon Harry with scorn because he was willing to perform a
household task that usually falls to a woman, Teddy thoroughly enjoyed
the novelty of his labor.
When the last knife and fork were put away, the boys repaired to
the sitting-room, where Mrs. Harding sat sewing industriously on a
gown for a customer. Harry brought out a combination checker and
backgammon-board, and the boys played several games of checkers. Harry
had begun to instruct Teddy in the mysteries of backgammon, when the
mission clock on the sitting-room wall struck nine.
“I’ll have to go. I promised my mother I wouldn’t stay later’n nine,”
said Teddy, with a little air of pride. “She’s at home to-night waiting
for me.”
“You must come to see us often, Teddy,” smiled Mrs. Harding.
“Yes’m, I will. I’d like to come to see you. I think my mother would
like to come, too.”
“I should be pleased to meet her,” was Mrs. Harding’s courteous
response, but she decided there was little possibility of Mrs. Burke
coming to visit any person in her humble circumstances. From what Teddy
had told her of his home and his mother, she concluded that the Burkes
were in far better circumstances than were she and Harry.
“Your friend Teddy is a dear, little fellow, Harry,” she remarked after
Teddy had gone. “I’m so glad his mother has waked up to it.” Harry had
repeated to her the story of Teddy’s home progress. “I had hard work
not to smile when he said he thought his mother would like to come
here. Very likely she wouldn’t look at us.”
“If Teddy’s mother ever comes here once, she’ll come again. She
couldn’t stay away, Mothery. She’d just have to.” Harry sidled over to
where his mother sat sewing and slid a loving, loyal arm about her neck.
Mrs. Harding dropped her work and gathered her boy into her arms. “I
don’t mind hard work and poverty as long as I have you, little son,”
she said tenderly.
“But we are not going to be poor always, Mothery. I’m going to keep
earning more money all the while. By the time I’m twenty-one, you won’t
have to do a single thing but keep house for me. I’m going to be a
business man by that time.”
Mrs. Harding stroked her son’s curly head. “Perhaps you will be. Who
knows? I’m so pleased that you are getting along so well in the store.
No one could help liking you, Harry, you are such a good, thoughtful
boy.”
Harry’s sensitive face clouded briefly. He felt as though he would like
to pour forth to his mother the whole cruel truth about his store life.
He wished she knew how unjustly he was being treated by Mr. Barton, yet
he had a curious conviction that he must bear his cross alone. He must
get used to being silent about the things which did not please him. No
great business man would publish the story of his hurts abroad, and as
he intended to become a truly great business man he must be silent,
too. Perhaps some day, when he had been promoted to a position of trust
in Martin Brothers’, he would tell his mother about these first unhappy
days, but while he was only number 45 of the store messenger force, he
would meet whatever came to him with a brave face and no whimpering.