IN BUSINESS FOR HIMSELF.
Only strong characters are able to lift themselves out of poverty and
adversity by sheer force of will, unaided by any one. Such a character
Herbert Randolph proved himself to be. For nearly three months he had
faced the most discouraging prospects. With education, with a knowledge
of accounts, with splendid intelligence, with manly pride and noble
ambition, he went from luxurious banking apartments to the cold wintry
streets, down, down the cheerless and grim descent, till he reached
the bottom, where he found himself in competition with the dregs of
humanity--one of them, as far as his employment went. Imagine this proud
spirited boy humbled to the degree of bidding side by side for work with
a ragged Italian, a broken down and blear eyed drunkard, a cruel faced
refugee from the penitentiary, or a wretched, unkempt tramp. How his
young, brave heart must have ached as he found himself working on
the hoist or in the street with loathsome characters of this
sort--characters that purity and self respect could only shun as
a pestilence.
But this he was forced to do--either this, or to acknowledge his city
career a failure, and return home with crushed spirits and shattered
pride, a disappointment to his father and mother and the butt of rude
rural jokes for his more or less envious neighbors.
The latter is just what most boys would have done, but not so young
Randolph. His eyes were closed to any such escape from his present
wretched condition. Herein he showed his superior strength. But how
little he realized, as he worked with dogged determination at these
cheerless tasks, that this very employment would lead him into the
light, as it ultimately did. Boys see nothing but drudgery in such
employment, or in any humble position. They want to commence work at
something genteel. An easy clerical position like the one young Randolph
had with Mr. Goldwin appeals strongly to their taste. Fine clothes,
white hands, little work and short hours--these are in great demand
among boys. Young Randolph, indeed, was no exception to the rule. He
sought a position in a bank and got it. Fortunately for him, however,
the bank failed, and he was thrown into the streets. But for this he
would have been a clerk still--a little three dollar machine, which
bears no patent, and possesses no especial value over the ten thousand
other machines capable of performing similar work. His dream of wealth
and position would in all probability never have materialized. He would
doubtless have in time become a head clerk at a respectable salary. But
how little this would have satisfied his ambition! His desire to be at
the head of the firm could never have been realized, for he would not
have had the money to place himself there. The result would have been
clerking, clerking, miserable, aimless clerking, and nothing more.
But now, through what seemed to him his misfortune had come good
fortune--through the drudgery of the hoist had come a business of his
own--a growing, paying, business--_a business of great possibilities_.
The suffering he had undergone did him no permanent harm. On the
contrary it enabled him to appreciate more keenly the opportunity he
now had for making money and supplying himself with the necessaries, and
some of the luxuries, of life.
Young Randolph's brokerage business grew day by day as he added new
customers and learned how to manage it more successfully. In a little
time he saw the necessity of having a place where his customers could
reach him by mail or messenger. He therefore arranged with a party on
Nassau Street to allow him desk room. Then followed this card:
+------------------------------------------------+
| HERBERT RANDOLPH, |
| |
| 111 NASSAU STREET, |
| |
| BUYS AND SELLS NEW YORK. |
| ALL KINDS OF FOREIGN COIN AND PAPER. |
| |
| United States Silver and Postage |
| Stamps a Specialty. |
+------------------------------------------------+
It was with much pleasure that he studied these neatly printed cards.
The first thing he did after receiving them from the printer was to
inclose one in a letter to his mother. He had already written her
glowing accounts of his growing business, and he felt that this card
would give a realism to his pen pictures that he had been unable to
impart. He thought long and with pride how sacredly that little bit of
pasteboard would be treasured by his parents--how proudly they would
show it to their neighbors, and the comments that it would bring forth.
Then he took one over to Bob Hunter, who exhibited no little surprise as
he read it admiringly.
Later in the evening he and the newsboy went as usual to visit Tom
Flannery, who now, poor boy, seemed to be yielding to that dread
disease--consumption. How his face brightened up as he looked at the
card with scarcely less pride than if it had been his own!
"I wish I could get into that business, Herbert, when I get well," said
he, turning the card languidly in his thin, emaciated fingers; "you'n'
me'n' Bob. Yes, I would like that, for we always had such good times
together, didn't we, Bob?"
"Yes, we did, Tom," answered Bob, tenderly. "I guess as good times as
anybody ever had, even if we didn't have much money."
"So I think, Bob. I've thought of it a good many times while I've been
sick here--of the detective business and all, and how grand you managed
the whole thing. But then you always done everything grand, Bob. None er
the boys could do it like you."
"You do some things much better than I could, Tom," said Bob.
"No, Bob. I never could do nothing like you."
"You bear your sickness more patiently than I could, and that is harder
to do than anything I ever did," replied Bob.
"Well, I have to do it, you know, Bob. There ain't no other way, is
there, Herb----"
The last part of the word was lost in violent coughing that racked the
boy's feeble frame terribly.
"I am afraid you are talking too much, Tom," said Herbert. "We must not
allow you to say any more at present."
Ten days later, and Tom had grown too weak to be dressed. Part of the
time he lay bolstered up in bed, but even this taxed his strength too
heavily. He had become very much wasted, and was little more than a
skeleton. All hope of his recovery had been given up, and it was now
simply a question of how long he could be kept alive. Bob and Herbert
brought him choice fruits, and drew liberally from their slender purses,
to buy for him whatever would tend to make him more comfortable or would
gratify his fancy.
Poor Mrs. Flannery was almost overcome with sorrow as she saw her boy
wasting away and sinking lower and lower as each day passed by. He was
her only child, and she loved him with all the force of her great
mother's heart.
At length the end came. Bob and Herbert were present with the
grief-stricken mother, trying to comfort her and struggling to repress
the sorrow each felt at the close approach of death.
For several hours the sick boy had been in a sort of stupor from which
it seemed probable that he would never rally. He lay like one dead,
scarcely breathing. Towards midnight, however, he opened his eyes and
looked upon the three tear stained faces beside his bed. An expression
of deepest pity settled upon his countenance, and he spoke with much
effort, saying:
"Don't cry, mother; don't feel so bad for me. You have Bob and Herbert
left. They will look out for you when I am gone," whispered the dying
boy faintly, and he turned his eyes for confirmation to the friend who
had never failed him.
"Yes," answered Bob, pressing the sufferer's hand warmly. "We will do
everything you could wish us to for your mother--you would have done it
for either of us, Tom."
The latter's eyes moistened and grew bright with a feeling of joy at
this assurance from Bob--this last proof of his true friendship.
"I knew it before, mother," he said, nerving himself for the effort,
"but it makes me happy to hear him say it before you--to hear him say it
before I go."
"And you may rely upon me also, Tom, to join Bob in doing for your
mother whatever would please you most," said Herbert, unable to keep
back the hot tears.
"Yes, I am sure of that, Herbert. You and Bob are just alike, and can do
more than I could if I had lived. I am so glad I knew you, Herbert,"
continued the dying boy, his face flushing with momentary animation as
he recalled the past. "What good times we have had, you and me and Bob!
I thought they would last always, but--but--well I wish I might have
lived to go into business with you. I would have tried my best to please
you, and----"
"What is it?" asked Herbert, noticing the sufferer's hesitation.
"I was going to ask you if the business, your new business, wouldn't get
big enough to take Bob in with you--to make him a partner, so he can
make a lot of money, too. I was almost afraid to ask you, but----"
"That is already fixed," said Bob hoarsely, almost overcome by the
solicitude of his dying friend. "Herbert gave me an interest in the
business today, and I shall commence working with him as soon as I am
needed."
"I am so glad, so glad," responded the sufferer faintly, and with a
smile that told plainly the joy this knowledge gave him. "It's all right
now," he continued slowly, and with greater effort, for the little
strength he had left was fast leaving him. "You will be taken care of,
mother, and Bob will be taken care of by Herbert," he went on, sinking
into a half unconscious state. "I know they will do well and will make
rich men and have everything in the world that they want. I wish I
could see them then with a big banking house and clerks and private
offices and errand boys and electric bells and fine carriages and horses
and a brown stone house in the avenue, may be."
[Illustration: TOM FLANNERY'S DEATHBED.]
In a little while he regained full consciousness as if by a powerful
effort, and said in a faint whisper:
"There is one thing more, mother--my knife, my little brass knife."
Mrs. Flannery brought it and placed it in his thin hands.
He looked at it with such a strange expression of affection--a little
well worn knife of inexpensive make. How long he had carried it in his
pocket, how many times he had held it in his hand, and now--yes, now, he
held it for the last time--only this little knife, yet his all, his only
legacy.
"You won't want it, will you, mother?" said he, with moist eyes and
struggling with emotion.
"No, no, Tommy," sobbed the broken hearted mother.
"I knew you wouldn't," said he, "for I want to give it to Bob. It ain't
much, I know, Bob," he continued, addressing the latter; "but it's all I
have. You will keep it, won't you, to remember me by? When you get to be
a man--a rich business man with fine offices and a house of your own,
look at this knife sometimes--my knife, and think of me, and how we used
to work together. Yes, you will do so, won't you, Bob?"
"I will, Tom, I will," answered Bob, as he took the little knife into
his own hands. "I will keep it always to remind me of you," and he bowed
his head upon the bed beside his dying friend and cried with sincere
grief.
"It's all right now," responded the sufferer. "All right," he repeated,
as his mother pressed her lips to his forehead.
"All right," again, so feebly that the last word fainted half spoken by
his dying lips.
In a few moments the last death struggle was over. He was gone,
poor Tom, the honest, trustful boy with a pure heart and noble
friendship--cut off in the morning of his life by a sickness brought on
by exposure, and an exposure made necessary that he might earn the means
to supply his humble wants. A cruel world this seems sometimes, when one
reflects how unevenly the joys and sorrows, and luxuries and misery are
distributed among brothers and sisters, neighbors and countrymen.