THE SEARCH FOR WORK
Two hours later the boys, followed by Sam, left the lunch-wagon,
possessed of thirty cents in money and with all liabilities discharged.
Wayne, declaring that, although he had never washed a window in his
life, it was time he learned how, had, to June’s disgust, taken a
hand in the work, and, while he had done only three windows to June’s
five, had proved his ability. Afterward, Mr. Dennis Connor--for that,
as they later learned, was his real name--had provided a collation of
sandwiches and coffee and dismissed them with his good wishes and an
invitation to drop in again when they were passing.
It was mid-morning now, and the sunshine had warmed the early March
day to a temperature more kindly than any they had experienced for a
week. Wayne led the way to a sheltered nook in the lee of an empty
shed near the railroad and seated himself on a discarded wheelbarrow.
June followed suit and Sam began an excited search for rats. The town
was wide-awake and very busy now. Smoke poured from neighbouring
stacks and chimneys and the roar of machinery came to them from the big
factory close by. Trains passed and locomotives shrieked and clanged
their brazen bells. Drays and trucks moved noisily along the cobbled
street in the direction of the freight yard, piled high with goods in
bales and boxes.
“Reckon,” said June, “this is a right smart town, Mas’ Wayne.”
Wayne nodded. He was still regretting the loss of his money and now he
reverted to the question of how and where he had parted from it. They
discussed it at some length and eventually decided that it had somehow
got out of his pocket last night in the freight car. To be quite, quite
certain that it was really gone, Wayne once more emptied his pockets
and turned them all inside out. But the money was not there and June
shook his kinky head in silent sympathy. Sam gave up his rat hunt and
threw himself, panting, in the sunlight at the boys’ feet.
“Well, it’s gone,” said Wayne finally. “And there’s no use crying about
it. But what I want to know is how we’re to get to New York on thirty
cents. That man said it was about a hundred and fifty miles and I
reckon it’ll take us ’most a week, don’t you?”
“Depends,” said June. “If we’s lucky and gets plenty of free rides----”
“They’re too particular around here,” interrupted Wayne sadly. “I
reckon it’ll be mighty hard to get into freight cars after this, June.
We’ll just have to foot it, and thirty cents won’t last long on the
road. Folks ain’t awfully hospitable up North, I’ve heard, and we can’t
depend on getting meals free. Anyway, I don’t want to. It’s too much
like begging. That man as much as called us tramps, and that woman said
we _were_ tramps. Well, we aren’t. We’ve paid for everything anyone
would let us pay for, so far, excepting the rides we stole, and those
don’t count, I reckon. Seems to me like the only thing to do now, June,
is to stay right here and earn some money before we go any further.
There’s no use trying to walk to New York with only thirty cents.”
June agreed cheerfully enough to that proposition. After all, it made
little difference to him. New York City or Medfield, it was all one. To
be sure, they had started out for New York, but it was Wayne who had
settled on that place as their destination, and June would have been
just as well satisfied if Wayne had decided for Reykjavik, Iceland.
Besides, it was now almost three weeks since they had stolen away from
Sleepersville, Georgia, and June’s first enthusiasm for wandering had
faded sadly. In short, the idea of remaining stationary in one place
for a while struck him as being very attractive. And perhaps the same
thought came to Wayne, for, having reached the decision, he sighed as
if with relief. It may have been, probably was, merely a coincidence,
but Sam, stretched flat on the ground at Wayne’s feet, echoed the sigh.
Perhaps no better opportunity will present itself for a study of our
hero and his companions and so we will make the most of it. Wayne Sloan
was seventeen years old; to be exact, seventeen years and nineteen
days. It had been the arrival of his seventeenth birthday that had
decided him to cast off the yoke of thraldom and become his own master.
He was a capable-looking youth, fairly large for his age. He had
wide shoulders and carried himself straightly, a fact largely due, I
fancy, to many hours spent in the saddle in his younger days. After
the death of his mother, which had occurred four years ago, there had
been neither saddle nor horse for him, nor, had there been a horse,
would there have been opportunity for riding. His stepfather had his
own notions regarding the proper occupations for a boy, notions that
were at wide variance with Wayne’s. Handsome the boy was not, but you
would have called him nice-looking. You’d have liked his eyes, which
were so deeply brown that they seemed black, and the oval smoothness
of his face which lacked the colourlessness of so many Southern faces.
His hair was fully as dark as his eyes and as straight as an Indian’s,
and just now, by reason of not having been cut for a month or so, was
rather untidy about ears and neck. His nose was--well, it was just a
plain, everyday affair, meriting no especial mention. And his mouth
was no more remarkable. In fact, there was nothing to emphasise, from
head to toes. He was just a nice-appearing, well-built Southern boy. At
present his appearance was rather handicapped by his attire, for even
the best of clothes will look shabby after nearly three weeks of dusty
roads and dirty box cars, and Wayne’s apparel had not been anything
to brag about in the beginning. A pair of gray trousers that only the
most charitable would have called woolen, a vest of the same, a coat
of blue serge, and a gray sweater comprised the more important part
of his outfit. A black felt hat of the Fedora variety, ridiculously
old-looking for the boyish face beneath, dark-blue cotton socks showing
above a pair of rusty, dusty, scuffed-toed shoes, and a wispy blue
string tie peering from under the wrinkled collar of a blue-and-white
cotton shirt completed as much of his wardrobe as met the world’s gaze.
But in the matter of wardrobe Wayne at least had the better of his
companion. Junius Brutus Bartow Tasker was never a dandy. Just
something to cover him up more or less was all June asked. His
shoes, which had been new just before the beginning of the present
pilgrimage, were the most presentable item of his attire. They only
needed blacking. The other things he wore needed about everything,
including patches, buttons, and cleaning! His cheap cotton trousers
would have proved an embarrassment to anyone of a less philosophical
nature, his shirt was sadly torn and his coat--well, that coat had been
a wreck a year ago and had not improved any since! Between the tops of
his shoes and the frayed bottoms of his trousers appeared a crinkled
expanse of gray yarn socks, to the public all that socks should be,
but to June only two hollow mockeries. Below his ankle bones lay ruin
and desolation. On his kinky head was a brown felt, or what had once
been a brown felt. It no longer deserved serious consideration as a
head covering. But all this didn’t bother June much. As I have already
hinted, he was a philosopher, and a cheerful one. You had only to
look at him to realise that. He had a perfectly round face, as round
as a cannon ball--and lots blacker--a pair of merry brown eyes which
rolled ludicrously under the stress of emotion, a wide, vividly red
mouth filled with startlingly white teeth, a nose no flatter than was
appropriate to one of his race, and ears that stood out inquiringly at
right angles. He looked and was intelligent, and, barring the colour of
his skin, was not greatly different in essentials from the white boy
beside him. June was sixteen, as near as he could tell; his mother’s
memory for ages was uncertain, and June couldn’t consult his father on
the question for the simple reason that his father had disappeared very
soon after June’s arrival in the world. Besides, there were five other
youthful Taskers, some older and some younger, and June’s mother might
well be excused for uncertainty as to the exact age of any one of them.
We have left only one member of the trio to be described, and his
outward appearance may be told in few words. Sam was small, yellowish
and alert. He had been intended for a fox terrier, perhaps, but had
received the wrong colouring. In Missouri or Mississippi he would
have been labelled “fice,” which is equivalent to saying that he was
a terrier-like dog of no particular breed. But like many of his sort,
Sam made up for his lack of aristocracy by possessing all the virtues
that one demands in a dog. That small head of his contained a brain
that must have felt absolutely crowded! I dare say that that is the
way the Lord makes it up to little, no-account yellow dogs like Sam.
He gives them big brains and big hearts, and so they get through life
without ever feeling the want of blue ribbons on their collars. It
would, I think, have been a frightful shock to Sam if anyone had tied
a ribbon on him, blue or any other colour! He wouldn’t have approved
a bit. In fact, he would have been most unhappy until he had gotten
it off and tried the taste of it. So far no one had ever attempted
such an indignity. Even a collar was something that Sam had his doubts
about. When he had one he put up with it uncomplainingly, but you could
see that it didn’t make him a bit happier. Just now he wore a leather
strap about his neck. It had once been used to hold Wayne’s schoolbooks
together, but Sam didn’t know that, and wouldn’t have cared if he had.
I forgot to say that a perfectly good tail had been early sacrificed
to the dictates of an inhuman fashion, and that now only a scant two
inches remained. To see Sam wag that two inches made you realise what a
perfectly glorious time he could have had with the whole appendage had
it been left to him. Sometimes in moments of strong mental excitement
his keen, affectionate brown eyes seemed trying to say something like
that! But my few words have grown too many, and I find that I have
devoted nearly as much space to Sam as to his master. But as Sam is not
likely to receive much attention hereafter let us not begrudge it to
him.
Meanwhile Wayne had laid his plans. If thirty cents was not sufficient
to finance the journey to New York, neither was it sufficient
to provide food and lodging for them indefinitely in Medfield.
Consequently, it behooved them to add to that sum by hook or by crook,
and it was decided that they should begin right away and look for work
to do. With that object in view they presently left the sunny side of
the little shed and set off, Wayne and Sam in one direction and June
in another, to reassemble at twilight. Wayne wanted June to take ten
of the precious thirty cents to buy luncheon with, but June scoffed.
“I don’t need no ten cents, Mas’ Wayne,” he declared. “I can find me
somethin’ to eat without no ten cents. An’ I don’t need nothin’ else,
anyhow, not before night. I’m jus’ plumb full of food now!”
Wayne’s experiences that day were disheartening. Medfield was a town
of nearly thirty thousand inhabitants, but not one of that number, it
appeared, was in need of Wayne’s services, nor cared whether he lived
or starved. He made his way to the centre of the town and visited store
after store, and office after office, climbing many weary flights and
knocking at many inhospitable doors while Sam waited outside in patient
resignation. At noon Wayne lunched in a shabby and none-too-clean
little restaurant on five cents’ worth of beef stew and two pieces of
bread, feeling a bit panicky as he did so, because five from thirty
left only what June would have called “two bits” and Wayne a quarter,
and which, no matter what you called it, was a frighteningly small
amount of money to have between you and nothing. But he felt a heap
better after that stew and went back to his task with more courage. Sam
felt better, too, for he had had a whole slice of bread dipped in gravy
and a nice gristly bone.
The trouble was that when, as happened very infrequently, to be sure,
but did happen, he was asked what he could do he had to answer either
“Anything” or “Nothing.” Of course he chose to say “Anything,” but
the result was always disappointing. As one crabbed, much-bewhiskered
man in a hardware store told him, “Anything means nothing.” After
that Wayne boldly presented himself at the busy office of a dry-goods
emporium and offered himself as a bookkeeper. It was more a relief than
a disappointment when the dapper man in charge informed him, after a
dubious examination of his attire, that there was no present vacancy.
Wayne was conscious of the amused glances of the men at the desks as
he hurried out. It was almost dusk when he finally gave up and turned
his steps toward the deserted shed near the railway. He had trouble in
finding it, walking many blocks out of his way and for a space fearing
that darkness would overtake him before he reached it. In the end it
was Sam who kept him from making a second mistake, for Wayne was for
passing the shed a block away until the dog’s insistence on turning
down a dim, cobble-paved street brought the search to an end.
June was already on hand, squatting comfortably on the wheelbarrow
and crooning to himself in the twilight. Sam showed his delight in
the reunion by licking June’s face while Wayne discouragedly lowered
himself to a seat at the darkey’s side.
“Any luck?” he asked tiredly.
“Nothin’ permanent, Mas’ Wayne, but I done earned us another two bits.
This is a right smart town, this is. Nobody don’t have to go hungry in
this town, no, sir!”
Wayne tried to keep the envy out of his voice as he answered: “That’s
great, June. How did you do it?”
“Man was rollin’ barrels up a board to a wagon and every time he got a
barrel half-way up the board his horses would start a-movin’ off an’
he’d jus’ have to drop that barrel an’ run to their heads. I ask him,
‘Please, sir, don’t you want me to hold ’em for you?’ An’ he ’lowed
he did. An’ I say, ‘How much you goin’ to give me, sir?’ And he say
if I hold ’em till he got his wagon loaded he’d give me a quarter.
’Twan’t no time till he had the barrels on an’ I had his ol’ quarter
in my jeans. Then I see a funny little man with gold rings in his ears
sittin’ on a step sellin’ candy, an’ funny twisty pieces of bread
an’ apples, an’ things. An’ I say to him, ‘How much are your apples,
Boss?’ An’ he say, ‘They’re two for five cents.’ ‘Huh,’ I say, ‘they
give ’em poor old apples away where I come from.’ An’ he want to know
where was I come from, an’ I tell him, an’ we had a right sociable time
a-talkin’ an’ all, an’ pretty soon he find a apple had a rotten spot
on it an’ give it to me. An’ after a while I say, ‘Boss, what you-all
call them funny, curly things you got on that stick?’ An’ he ’lows
they’s--they’s----” June wrinkled his forehead until it had almost as
many corrugations as a washboard--“I reckon I forget what he call them,
Mas’ Wayne.”
“What were they like, June?”
“Well, sir, they was bow-knots made of bread, an’ they tasted mighty
scrumptious. Seems like they was called ‘pistols’ or somethin’.”
“Pretzels, June?”
“That’s it! Pretzels! You know them things, Mas’ Wayne?” Wayne shook
his head. “Well, sir, they’s mighty good eatin’.”
“Did he give you one?” asked Wayne smiling.
“Yes, sir, he surely did. I say I ain’ never eat one an’ he say if I
have a penny I could have one. ‘Go long, Mister Man,’ I say, ‘I ain’
got no penny. How come you ’spects I got all that money?’ An’ he laugh
an’ say, ‘Well, maybe I give you one, Black Boy, if you don’ tell
someone elses.’ He had funny way of talkin’, that man. So I say I won’t
ever tell----”
“But you have told,” laughed Wayne.
June rolled his eyes. “That’s so! I plumb forget!”
“Was that all the lunch you had?” asked Wayne.
June nodded. “Was all I wanted,” he declared stoutly. “Apples is
powerful fillin’ fruit, Mas’ Wayne. What-all did you have?”
Wayne told him and June pretended to think very little of it. “That
ain’ white man’s food,” he declared. “Old stewed-up beef ain’ fit
rations for you. No, sir, ’tain’! Don’t you go insultin’ your stomach
like that no more, Mas’ Wayne, ’cause if you do you’re goin’ to be sick
an’ me an’ Sam’ll have to nurse you. Now you tell me what-all did you
do, please.”
Wayne soon told him and June shook his head and made sympathetic noises
in his throat during the brief recital. “Don’t you mind ’em, Mas’
Wayne,” he said when the other had finished. “Somebody’s goin’ to be
powerful glad to give you a job tomorrow. You wait an’ see if they
ain’.”
“I can’t do anything, I’m afraid,” said Wayne despondently. “They all
ask me what I can do and I have to tell them ‘Nothing.’ I can’t even
wash windows decently!”
“Who say you can do nothin’?” demanded June indignantly. “I reckon
you’re a heap smarter than these yere Northerners! Ain’ you been to
school an’ learn all about everythin’? Geography an’ ’rithmatic an’
algebrum an’ all? What for you say you don’ know nothin’?”
Wayne laughed wanly. “Arithmetic and those things aren’t much use to
a fellow, it seems to me, when he’s looking for work. If I’d learned
bookkeeping I might get a job.”
“You done kep’ them books for your stepdaddy.”
“That wasn’t real bookkeeping, June. Anyone could do that. The only
things I can do aren’t much use up here; like ride and shoot a little
and----”
“An’ knock the leather off’n a baseball,” added June.
“I guess no one’s going to pay me for doing that,” commented Wayne,
with a smile. “Well, there’s no use borrowing trouble, I reckon. There
must be something I can do, June, and I’ll find it sooner or later. I
reckon I made a mistake in going around to the offices. If I’d tried
the warehouses and factories I might have found something. That’s what
I’ll do tomorrow.”
“You goin’ to set yourself some mighty hard work, Mas’ Wayne, if you
get foolin’ ’roun’ the factories. Better leave that kind of work for
me, sir. That’s nigger work, that is.”
“It’s white men’s work up here in the North, June. I’m strong enough
and I’m willing, and I’m just going to find something tomorrow.
Question now is, June, where are we going to get our supper and where
are we going to sleep? Fifty cents will buy supper but it won’t buy
beds, too.”
“I been thinkin’ about that sleepin’ business,” answered June. “I
reckon we can’ do no better than stay right where we is.”
“Here?” asked Wayne. “Someone would come along and arrest us or
something. Besides, a wheelbarrow----”
“No, sir, I don’ mean out here. I mean in yonder.” June nodded toward
the old shed beside them. “I was projeckin’ roun’ before you-all come
back an’ there ain’ nothin’ wrong with this yere little house, Mas’
Wayne.”
“Oh,” said Wayne. “Is it empty?”
“Yes, sir, it surely is empty. There ain’ nothin’ in there but empty.
It ’pears like it used to be a store, ’cause there’s shelves up the
walls. An’ there’s a floor, too.”
“Do we sleep on the floor or the shelves?” asked Wayne.
“Shelves is too narrow,” chuckled June. “If we jus’ had a blanket or
two, now, I reckon we’d be mighty comfortable.”
“Might as well wish for a bed with a hair mattress and pillows and
sheets,” answered Wayne. “But I’d rather sleep under a roof tonight
than outdoors, so we’ll just be glad of the shed, June. Now let’s go
and find us some supper. Come on, Sam, you rascal!”