WRITING THE WELCOME ADDRESS
The next morning, however, Harry could not escape testifying against
the two men. Once more he found himself in Mr. Prescott’s office, and
although he entered it reluctantly, it was only because of the pity he
felt for the men who had by their own wrong doing placed themselves in
the toils of the law. To his relief he found no one save Mr. Rexford
and Mr. Prescott in the office. To them he related everything that
bore on the case, from the first conversation he had overheard while
seated in the bin, to the moment when he had discovered the men in the
mail-order room and gone for Mr. Rexford.
“You’re a smart boy,” commented the detective when he had finished.
“I don’t believe I’d ever have kept on watching Mr. Farley, if it
hadn’t been for Miss Welch,” confessed Harry. “I hated to do it.”
“Is that the girl who jumped all over me the day Seymour sent you up
here?” asked the detective. “I wish the store had a lot more girls
like her.”
“Yes, sir, that was Miss Welch.” Harry treasured the compliment to
repeat to his friend. Then he added rather timidly, “Will Mr. Farley
and the other man have to go to prison? It’s too bad. I’m sorry they
weren’t honest.”
“I guess they’re sorry, too,” returned Mr. Prescott grimly. “I can’t
say what’ll be done with ’em. It’ll take a week to get all the facts.
Did you know that they belonged to a gang of thieves, all employees
here? You did a good job, boy.”
“I--wish--I hadn’t--I didn’t like to do it,” faltered Harry, “but when
I came here to work I promised on my application blank that I’d report
anyone I saw working against the store’s interest.”
“No true man likes to bring even deserved misfortune on others, Harry,”
broke in Mr. Rexford kindly. “We understand how you feel about it.”
“Will I have to--to----” Harry stopped.
“Appear against them?” interrupted the detective. “No; Farley has
confessed everything. You’re out of it from now on.”
After a little further conversation, Mr. Rexford and Harry left the
detective’s office and returned to the book department. During the
morning Harry was assailed with curious questions concerning the
affair, but he only shook his head and replied, “I can’t tell you.
Please don’t ask me.”
The news had traveled rapidly throughout the store, however, as at
least thirty salespersons in the various departments were implicated
in the thieving. Even Teddy, in his distant realm of kettles and
pans, heard the tale and besieged Harry with countless questions when
they met at the end of the day. But Harry told him nothing beyond the
barest details, and at home he was absolutely silent on the subject. He
was greatly relieved when at the end of the week he learned from Mr.
Rexford that the offenders had escaped prison. They were each compelled
to pay a sum to the store, set by the management, then discharged.
Martin Brothers were not vindictive. They did not care to prosecute.
After this unpleasant experience followed a delightful monotony for
Harry, in which he did his work faithfully, went to school, read the
books Mr. Rexford frequently lent him and considered himself the
luckiest boy alive. The friendship between him and Teddy had daily
grown and deepened, and the acquaintance between the boys’ mothers bade
fair to become intimacy. Harry spent frequent evenings at Teddy’s home,
and Teddy was a welcome visitor in the Harding’s humble rooms.
But while these pleasant friendships progressed, the year progressed
also, and before the lads realized the change, winter had given an
early place to spring and May arrived in all her flower-decked glory.
“Walking’s good these days,” remarked Teddy as he and Harry strolled
leisurely home one night through the warm spring sunshine. “Summer’s
coming pretty fast. I’m glad, but I’m sorry.”
“What!” exclaimed Harry, “aren’t you glad that vacation time is coming,
and school will soon close?” he added slyly.
Teddy’s freckled face grew red. Then he laughed. “You said that on
purpose,” he accused. “You know I hate to leave Miss Leonard.”
“So do I,” sighed Harry. “Still, if we don’t pass our examinations we
won’t have to leave her.”
“I guess I’ll fail,” grinned Teddy. “Maybe I will, anyhow. I know I
won’t pass in English. I never can remember how to parse and a lot of
other things. I know more’n Howard Randall does about grammar, though.
What do you s’pose he went and wrote the other day?”
“I don’t know. Tell me.” Harry’s eyes danced. Howard Randall’s lapses
in English were the joke of Company A.
“You know that ten-question test we had last week,” related Teddy.
“Well, Howard couldn’t answer a single question. Grammar won’t stay
in his head, somehow. He didn’t want to leave his paper blank so he
thought he’d try to answer one. He answered that one, ‘What is meant by
the first, second and third persons?’ He, he! This is what he wrote,
‘The first person was Adam, the second person was Eve and the third was
the children.’ Some answer, wasn’t it?” Teddy ended with a giggle.
Harry shouted with laughter at the fat boy’s strenuous attempt to prove
that he knew something about English.
“When are you going to take your vacation, Harry?” asked Teddy, as they
halted at the corner where they separated.
“The first week in July, I think. I’m not going away anywhere. I can’t
afford it. You know we won’t be paid for our vacation week, don’t you?”
“Yes. The fellows say you have to be in the store a year before you can
draw vacation money. That don’t hurt me any, though. My Mother says I
must take two weeks off. I’m going the first of July, too. She wants me
to take a month, but I’m not going to do it. I’m afraid I might lose
my job. Some of the boys of the West Park School are teasing me to go
camping with ’em, but I haven’t made up my mind about it. I thought
I’d see first if you’d go along.” Teddy eyed his chum wistfully. “The
fellows would like you, and I’d be tickled to have you.”
“You’re a loyal chum, Teddy.” Harry was deeply touched by the
red-haired boy’s thought of him. “I’d like to go, but I can’t afford to
spend a cent on a vacation trip. If I could I’d make Mother go away for
a week. She needs a rest more than I do.”
Teddy was silent in the face of this argument.
“I’m going to read and help Mother,” continued Harry cheerfully. “I’m
not going to let myself even think that I’d have a better time camping
or in the country, or at the seashore. Next year, if I live, and all
goes well, Mother and I will both go on a vacation trip. I’m going to
save every penny I can, just for that.”
Nevertheless, as the spring days lengthened and the weather went from
warm to hot, Harry could not repress an occasional wistful longing
that he had money enough to send his mother away to the country for a
week, while the merciless heat of summer rioted in all its scorching
fury. For himself the boy had no thought. The dull season for the book
department had begun. During the summer his work would be comparatively
light. There would be no school. Only one more week of study remained,
then a week of examinations. If he passed, it meant night school for
him the next fall. He was glad to think of advancing in his studies,
yet sorry to leave Miss Leonard. Since his transference from the
exchange desk to the book department his report card had remained
clean. Miss Leonard and he were now on the best of terms. It would be
hard to say good-bye to her.
This depressing thought made the boy’s face unduly solemn as he sat
watching his teacher on the last Monday morning of the regular study
session. She had just called the roll, but instead of proceeding with
the regular programme of school she rose and stepped down to the front
row of seats with, “I have something to say to you this morning, boys,
which I believe will interest all of you. Mr. Edwin Martin has offered
a prize of twenty dollars in gold to the boy who can write the best
welcome address. This address is to be learned and delivered by the boy
who wins the prize on the night of the store messengers’ commencement
exercises, to be given in Martin Hall. Your address must not contain
more than two hundred words. It must be neatly written on one side of
the paper only, with your name in the upper left-hand corner of the
first page. It must be handed to me one week from to-day. Mr. Keene,
Mr. Marsh and Miss Pierce are to be the judges. Every boy on the store
messenger force must write an address. Although only one boy can win
the prize, remember, that if you do your very best, you may be that
boy.”
Miss Leonard’s announcement met with a buzz of interest among the boys
of Company A. To many of them twenty dollars in gold seemed limitless
wealth. More than one pair of boyish eyes brightened at the prospect
just opened to them, and the majority of them made secret resolve to
try their hardest to win the golden prize.
“I’m not goin’ to try for that old prize,” Teddy confided to Harry as
they walked downstairs together after school was over that morning.
“I’m goin’ to sing a solo at the exercises and be in a duet and a
quartette. I’ve got to learn my songs. Let somebody else win the
money. Course, I’d get it, you know, if I tried for it,” he declared
waggishly. Then he added in a flash of inspiration, “You’re the boy who
can win it, Harry. You write the best compositions in Company A Class.
Miss Leonard’s always reading ’em out to us and saying how good they
are.”
“A welcome address is a good deal harder to write than a composition,”
demurred Harry. “I’m going to try to do my best to write a good one,
but not because of the money. I don’t expect to win that.”
“Yes, but if you could win the twenty dollars you could take your
mother away for a vacation,” reminded Teddy.
Harry felt himself grow hot and cold at these significant words. A
wave of determination swept over him to put forth the highest effort
that lay within him for his mother’s sake. Teddy’s reminder had acted
as a fresh spur to his ambition to write his best. He had, indeed, an
object in winning the gold piece.
That night after supper he sat at the little center table, pencil in
hand, a pad of paper before him, but try as he might he could not
compose a line that seemed in keeping with his idea of what a welcome
address should be.
“What are you writing, Harry?” his mother asked curiously, as the boy
wrote and erased, stripping off one sheet of paper after another from
the pad, only to tear it to bits.
“I’m writing--a--well--it’s a kind of composition.” Harry had decided
not to tell his mother of the prize competition until it was over. If
he won, it would be a glorious surprise. If he did not, then she would
never know, and thus escape being disappointed because the prize had
not been awarded her son.
Harry went to bed that night in a rather disheartened frame of mind. He
had not written a single line which he considered worthy. A constant
reader of good books, he had decided ideas as to literary style, and
was fairly competent to judge his own work. The next night he attacked
his task with renewed resolve, but the words of inspiration would not
come.
“I don’t believe I can write anything good enough for an every-day
composition, let alone a welcome address,” he confided to Teddy after
four evenings of hard, but futile effort at composing an address worth
while.
“Mine’s written and handed in,” grinned Teddy. “I wrote seven lines, so
I’ll sure get the prize. I couldn’t think of anything more. It’s seven
lines too much, anyhow.”
Harry’s sober face relaxed into a faint smile. He had a very fair idea
of Teddy’s welcome address.
“I’m going to keep on trying,” he declared, his pleasant face setting
in lines of dogged determination.
“To-day’s Friday. You’ve only Saturday and Sunday,” was Teddy’s
well-meant reminder.
That evening Harry went to his task divided between the desire to
write a fitting address and the despair of ever doing so. He read
over the one he had written the night before, then, with an impatient
exclamation tore it to bits. It was dull. It lacked force and
sincerity. He longed to put into it his gratitude toward the man who
had given so many boys not only work but the splendid chance to gain an
education as well. If only he could set down that gratitude in smooth,
elegant language!
He stared frowningly at the paper before him. All at once an idea
occurred to him. Why not write all that he felt in every-day fashion?
Then, perhaps, he could revise it and improve upon it. Seizing his
pencil he began to write just what he would have liked to say to Mr.
Martin had the opportunity come for him to tell this great man how
much his goodness had meant to one boy. He wrote on and on, filling one
sheet of paper, then another and still another.
Finally, he laid down his pencil and began to read what he had written.
It seemed very crude and boyish to him, but it had come straight from
his heart. Whether he won the money or not he could write nothing else.
He had said his say. All that remained to be done was to copy his
address and write his name upon it. He had done his best.