Alfred hastened ashore. The old National Hotel, Water and Smithfield
Streets, had sheltered him before. Therein he entered. Changing his
clothing he wandered forth aimlessly. He entered the Red Lion Hotel,
looked over the circus grounds and then to Ben Trimble's Theatre; from
there to the old Drury Theater, Wood and Fifth Avenue. He took in all
the sights of the big city.
Then he began to make plans as to the future. The hotel rate was one
dollar and a half a day. When Alfred settled, which he did at the end of
the first day, he had but thirty-five cents left. He left his baggage
with the hotel people and began a search for work.
Were you ever in a strange city, broke and without a friend, without the
price of a bed, without the price of a full meal? Did you ever feel the
loneliness, the forsakedness of this condition? You may say, "Well, I'd
get a job; I'd do anything; I'd dig ditches; I'd--" Well, they do not
dig ditches in winter, and when they do dig them you must have a vote
before you can get a job even at that labor and you cannot get a job at
any kind of laboring work unless your physique and clothes look the
part.
You say there's no excuse for any man being broke or out of a job these
times? Well, there may be no excuse that will satisfy you but there are
men in this condition all over this land--and good honest, willing men,
willing to do any kind of work to earn a living. When they apply to you
encourage them even though you do not hire them.
Alfred applied to a large concern that employed many men. He was told
there was nothing open. The wholesale drug stores were all supplied with
help. Another place had a sign out--"No help wanted." Alfred failed to
notice it as he entered. When he made his errand known the oily haired
youngster in the place impudently asked him if he could read, and
pointed to the sign.
At another place he felt sure he had landed when the boss told him they
wanted a married man and that he was too young looking. At the
headquarters of a great fraternal society, the principles and teachings
of which are mercy and charity toward all mankind, the officer or
secretary in charge was particularly unkind and actually spoke and
behaved towards the boy as though he had been guilty of some offense,
instead of seeking honest employment.
After walking more than four miles to a large factory, the head of which
stood high in the councils of one of the great political parties of the
day, one who had lately issued a statement to the country that the only
difficulty his firm was having was to secure men to do their work, he
met the great man coming from his office and appealed to him in person,
and was informed that they required no more men at that time, but
intimated that a factory in a city several hundred miles distant
required help. He did not mention that it required several dollars to
pay railroad fare to the town referred to.
His experience in seeking employment caused Alfred to resolve that no
man or woman, no weary soul, no matter what the conditions, applying to
him for employment or aid should be turned away without a word of
encouragement and advice. Some philosopher has likened kindness as
lighting a neighbor's candle by our own by which we impart something and
lose nothing. Try a little kindness upon the next applicant who calls
upon you.
Walking down Fifth Avenue Alfred read a sign hung on a door: "Wanted.
Two boys over fifteen years of age." It was the White House saloon.
Alfred walked in and asked for the position. He learned it was setting
up ten pins in a bowling alley. The proprietor, John O'Brien, was very
kindly spoken and, looking curiously at Alfred, he inquired: "How did
you come to ask for this job? You look too well groomed for such work?"
"Well, I'm broke and I've got to do something."
Alfred was given the job and started to work at once setting up the
pins. It was pay day in Pittsburg; the big, husky iron workers hurled
the balls down the alleys with such tremendous force that the pins were
scattered in every direction. At times the bowlers, in their haste and
excitement, would not wait for the pins to be set up before hurling the
balls and it required quick action on the part of Alfred to keep out of
harm's way.
Closing up time came and as the dollar and a half was passed to Alfred
he noticed that the game keeper was a brother of Eli's. Pulling his hat
over his eyes that he might not be recognized, the star of Eli's
minstrels fled the place.
The barkeeper at the National Hotel, Dick Cannon, had befriended Alfred
before. When he learned that Alfred was living on doughnuts and coffee
at the little stand in the market house, Cannon took him in and fed him
until he secured a position. It was through Cannon that Alfred finally
secured the position of night clerk in the hotel.
That a saloonkeeper and a bar-tender, the very people whom Alfred had
been so constantly warned against, should be the only ones who took an
interest in him when in distress, was most surprising to the boy. Surely
it was not from the fact that he patronized their establishments, as he
never entered the place of one and was in the house of the other for
only a few hours.
John W. Pittock, the founder of the _Pittsburg Leader_, was also
proprietor of a book store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield
Street. The _Leader_ was the first paper, that the writer has knowledge
of, to print a sporting page. Pittsburgh, then as now, was strong for
athletic sports. Aquatic sports were the most popular; Jimmy Hamill, the
champion single sculler of the world, was at the zenith of his career.
The day following Alfred's experience in the ten pin alley the city was
all excitement over a sporting event. Alfred was sent to the _Leader_
office to procure a number of copies of the paper for numerous guests of
the hotel. The following Sunday morning Alfred sold over two hundred
copies of the paper.
The superintendent of the Smithfield Street bridge was a friend of
Alfred's father. He permitted the boy to establish a news-stand at the
end of the bridge. From 5 a. m. until noon hundreds of copies of the
_Leader_ were sold. With his wages from the hotel the minstrel was
making and saving money.
Alfred was homesick often but determined in his mind not to return to
Brownsville until he had a stated amount of money. The father wrote him
to return at once. Alfred replied that he had a good position but would
return by a certain date.
It was a holiday in the smokey city. Alfred cleaned up over forty
dollars on papers alone. That night he visited Brimstone Corner, a
Methodist Church. No man or boy who ever lived in Pittsburgh but
remembers its location. It was a revival; the church was packed, the
sermon eloquent and it made a deep impression upon Alfred.
The minister read the text as follows: "And he said, A certain man had
two sons; and the younger of them said to the father: 'Father, give me
the portion of goods that falleth to me.' And he divided unto him his
living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together
and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance
with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land and he began to be in want. And he went and joined
himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to
feed swine. And he would feign have filled his belly with the husks that
the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to
himself, he said: 'How many hired servants of my father have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.' I will arise and go to
my father and will say unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as
one of thy hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But
when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and had compassion
and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him,
'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more
worthy to be called thy son.' But the father said to his servants,
'Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand
and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and
let us eat and be merry. For this, my son, was dead and is alive again;
he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry." The preacher
continued:
"Who can say what the causes that led to the young man's leaving the
luxurious home of his father to wander, an outcast, over the earth? The
vagaries of the human mind are beyond our understanding. The prodigal
son may have had illusions; he may have had ambitions. He may have been
induced by illusions born of ambitions to make something of himself
other than a plain farmer's boy. The dangers that lay along his pathway
were not known to him. That he fell in with evil associates and did not
have the will power to free himself from them is obvious.
"We cannot all live in one city; we cannot all live in one country or on
one farm. It is but natural that boys will stray away from the old
fireside. Read the history of this country; it was settled by hardy
yeomen, possessed of that desire for changed conditions. Look at the
great and growing West, settled by the descendants of those first
settlers of New England and Virginia.
"That boys leave home, as did the prodigal son; that boys fall from
grace, as did he who ate husks with the swine, should not shake our
faith in the future of a young man who has fallen by the wayside. He is
to be reclaimed, not by the mighty hand of the law, not by the
chastisement of the father, but by the love and pity that man should
exhibit not only for the good but for the lowest of God's creatures. We
should extend to them the helping hand; we should prove by our actions
that they have our love and pity.
"Pity is a mode, or a particular development, of benevolence. It is
sympathy for those who are weak and suffering. Hence, our compassion for
the erring one. We have affections for men who are good and noble, men
who are prosperous, strong and happy. But for those who have been beaten
down by the storms of life, for such we should feel that pity the father
displayed for the prodigal son.
"If those who have strayed and forgotten the father's advice and the
mother's prayers come to us, we should not receive them with reproaches
and rebuffs but with open arms; always remembering that the Father of
all has gladness for those who are glad and pity for those who are sad.
"When the erring one returned, envy filled the heart of one of the
family and he said to a brother of the prodigal: 'Thy brother is come
and thy father hath killed the fatted calf because he hath received him
safe and sound.' And the brother was angry and would not go in to the
feast. Therefore came his father out and entreated him to enter. And he
answering, said to his father: 'Lo, these many years do I serve thee,
neither transgressing at any time thy commandments and yet thou never
gavest me at any time a fatted kid that I might make merry with my
friends. But as soon as this, thy son, came, which has devoured thy
living, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.' And the father
answered, 'Wealth killeth the foolish man and envy slayeth the silly
one. There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
It is good for a man he beareth the yoke in youth.'
"It is sympathy in this world that must reclaim the fallen. It is
sympathy in the return of the erring that must reunite families and heal
the mother's sorrow for him who has wandered from the fireside and, like
the prodigal, returns to be elevated to a life that might been have
wasted had not the father's love prevailed to welcome his return.
"If this world is to be bettered, if the children of men are to be
uplifted, it must be by a love that is as strong as that of the father
for the son, the mother for her children.
"Young man, if you have wandered from home, if you have felt you were
abused, return to your family, start life over, reconcile yourself to
what you may have imagined were wrongs. If they have wronged you, their
love, won by your obedience, will atone for all. If you have wronged
anyone, make amends.
"Fathers, mothers, friends, stretch out your right hands for the
salvation and preservation of our young men, for in their hands lies the
greatness of the future."
The river was low, the boats were not running. The next morning a train
bore Alfred to Layton Station on the Youghiogheny. A stage coach landed
him at the door of his father's home in the middle of the afternoon.
There never before was the happiness in Alfred's heart that filled it on
his home coming. The father was proud of his boy, the mother overwhelmed
with her emotions. The children clung to him as though they feared he
would fly away from them. Lin baked and cooked as she never had before.
When it became known that Alfred had laid one hundred dollars in his
mother's hand and that he "hed plenty more," as Lin informed all, the
boy could feel a difference in the atmosphere when he mingled with the
people of the town.
Cousin Charley and Alfred hired a horse and buggy and drove out to
Merrittstown, passing the Thornton home, the old mill, the dam and the
home of the Youngs. The blind musicians were paid the five dollars yet
due with five dollars added for interest.
There was only one incident that marred the happy home-coming. Alfred
licked Morgan, Eli's agent. Eli was a very ill man; his excesses had
brought him near death's door. Alfred forgot the past and no more
attentive friend had Eli in his last illness.
The fight with Morgan was regrettable but, as Lin expressed it: "Hit let
the kat outen the bag an' klarified matters in general an' some mighty
big peepul tried to krawl into some mighty little holes, but they stuck
out wuss then ef they hed stood up an' sed, 'Well, we tuk Alfred's money
but we thought we wur right but we find we were wrong.'"
Of those who levied on the money at Redstone School-house, but one
returned the amount he had illegally received. Fred Chalfant, the
liveryman, was that man.