COMPLETE SUCCESS.
Two years passed. There was a great change in the outward aspect of
Crofield. The new bridge over the Cocahutchie was of iron, resting on
stone piers, and the village street crossed it. The railroad bridge
was just below, but was covered in with a shed, so that the trains
might not frighten horses. The mill was still in its place, but the
dam was two feet higher and the pond was wider. Between the mill and
the bridge was a large building of brick and stone that looked like a
factory. Between the street and the railway, the space was filled by
the station-house and freight depot, which extended to Main Street; and
there were more railway buildings on the other side of the Cocahutchie.
Just below the railroad and along the bank of the creek, the ground was
covered by wooden buildings, and there was a strong smell of leather
and tan-bark. Of course, the old Washington Hotel was gone; but across
the street, on the corner to the left, there was a great brick
building, four stories high, with "Washington Hotel" painted across the
front of it. The stores in that building were just finished. Looking
up Main Street, or looking down, it did not seem the same village. The
new church in the middle of the green was built of stone; and both of
the other churches were rapidly being demolished, as if new ones also
were to take their places.
It was plain, at a glance, that if this improvement was general, the
village must be extending its bounds rapidly, for there never had been
too much room in it, for even the old buildings with which Jack had
been familiar.
Jack Ogden had not been in Crofield while all this work was going on.
His first week with Gifford & Company seemed the most exciting week
that he had ever known, and the second was no less busy and
interesting. He did not go to the German church the second Sunday, but
later he did somehow drift into another place of worship where the
sermon was preached in Welsh.
"Well!" said Jack, when he came out, at the close of the service, "I
think I'll go back to the church I went to first. I don't look so
green now as I did then, but I'm sure the General will remember me."
He carried out this determination the next Sunday. The sexton gave him
a seat, and he took it, remarking to himself:
"A fellow feels more at home in a place where he's been before.
There's the General! I wish I was in his pew. I'll speak to him when
he comes out."
The great man appeared, in due season, and as he passed down the aisle
he came to a boy who was just leaving a pew. With a smile on his face,
the boy held out his hand and bowed.
"Good-morning," said the General, shaking hands promptly and bowing
graciously in return. Then he added, "I hope you'll come here every
Sunday."
[Illustration: _Jack speaks to the General_.]
That was all, but Jack received at least a bow, every Sunday, for four
weeks. On the Monday after the fourth Sunday, the door of Gifford &
Company's store was shadowed by the entrance of a very proud-looking
man who stalked straight on to the desk, where he was greeted cordially
by Mr. Gifford, for he seemed to be an old friend.
"You have a boy here named John Ogden?" asked the General.
"Yes, General," said Mr. Gifford. "A fine young fellow."
"Is he doing well?" asked the General.
"We've no fault to find with him," was the answer. "Do you care to see
him? He's out on business, just now."
"No, I don't care to see him," said the General. "Tell him, please,
that I called. I feel interested in his progress, that's all.
Good-morning, Mr. Gifford."
The head of the firm bowed the general out, and came back to say to Mr.
Jones: "That youngster beats me! He can pick up a millionaire, or a
governor, as easily as he can measure a pound of coffee."
"Some might think him rather bold," said Jones, "but I don't. He is
absorbed in his work, and he puts it through. He's the kind of boy we
want, no doubt of that."
"See what he's up to, this morning!" said Mr. Gifford. "It's all
right. He asked leave, and I told him he might go."
Jack had missed seeing the General because he did not know enough of
the grocery business. He had said to Mr. Gifford:
"I think, Mr. Gifford, I ought to know more about this business from
its very beginnings. If you'll let me, I'd like to see where we get
supplies."
That meant a toilsome round among the great sugar refineries, on the
Long Island side of the East River; and then another among the tea and
coffee merchants and brokers, away down town, looking at samples of all
sorts and finding out how cargoes were unloaded from ships and were
bought and sold among the dealers. He brought to the store, that
afternoon, before six o'clock, about forty samples of all kinds of
grocery goods, all labeled with prices and places, and he was going on
to talk about them when Mr. Gifford stopped him.
"There, Ogden," he said. "I know all about these myself,--but where
did you find that coffee? I want some. And this tea?--It is two cents
lower than I'm paying. Jones, he's found just the tea you and I were
talking of--" and so he went on carefully examining the other samples,
and out of them all there were seven different articles that Gifford &
Company bought largely next day.
"Jones," said Mr. Gifford, when he came back from buying them, "they
had our card in each place, and told me, 'Your Mr. Ogden was in here
yesterday. We took him for a boy at first.'--I'm beginning to think
there are some things that only that kind of boy can do. I'll just let
him go ahead in his own way."
Mary had told Jack all about her daily experiences in her letters to
him, and he said to himself more than once:
"Dudley Edwards must be a tip-top fellow. It's good of him to drive
Mary over to Crofield and back every Saturday. And they have had such
good sleighing all winter. I wish I could try some of it."
There was no going to Crofield for him. When Thanksgiving Day came, he
could not afford it, and before the Christmas holidays Mr. Gifford told
him:
"We can't spare you at Christmas, Ogden. It's the busiest time for us
in the whole year."
Mr. Gifford was an exacting master, and he kept Jack at it all through
the following spring and summer. Mary had a good rest during the hot
weather, but Jack did not. One thing that seemed strange to her was
that so many of the Crofield ladies called to see her, and that Miss
Glidden was more and more inclined to suggest that Mary's election had
been mainly due to her own influence in Mertonville.
On the other hand, it seemed to Jack that summer, as if everybody he
knew was out of the city. Business kept pressing him harder and
harder, and all the plans he made to get a leave of absence for that
second year's Thanksgiving Day failed to work successfully.
The Christmas holidays came again, but throughout the week, Gifford &
Company's store kept open until eight o'clock, every evening, with Jack
Ogden behind the counter. He got so tired that he hardly cared about
it when they raised his salary to twenty-five dollars a week, just
after Mr. Gifford saw him come down town with another coffee and tea
dealer, whose store was in the same street.
"We mustn't let him leave us, Jones," Mr. Gifford had said to his head
clerk. "I am going to send him to Washington next week."
Not many days later, Mrs. Guilderaufenberg in her home at Washington
was told by her maid servant that, "There's a strange b'y below, ma'am,
who sez he's a-wantin' to spake wid yez."
Down went the landlady into the parlor, and then up went her hands.
"Oh, Mr. Jack_og_den! How glad I am to see you! You haf come! I gif
you the best stateroom in my house."
"I believe I'm here," said Jack, shaking hands heartily. "How is Mr.
Guilderaufenberg and how is Miss--"
"Oh, Miss Hildebrand," she said, "she will be so glad, and so will Mrs.
Smith. She avay with her husband. He is a Congressman from far vest.
You will call to see her."
"Mrs. Smith?" exclaimed Jack, but in another second he understood it,
and asked after his old friend with the unpronounceable name as well as
after Miss Hildebrand.
"She has a name, now, that I can speak! I'm glad Smith isn't a Polish
name," he said to himself.
"Oh, Mr. Jack_og_den!" exclaimed Mrs. Guilderaufenberg, a moment later.
"How haf you learned to speak German? She will be so astonish!"
That was one use he had made of his evenings, and he had improved by
speaking to all the Germans he had met down town; and his German was a
great delight to Mr. Guilderaufenberg, and to Miss Hildebrand, and to
Mrs. Smith (formerly Miss Pod----ski) when he called to see them.
"So!" said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, "you takes my advice and you comes.
Dis ees de ceety! Ve shows you eet all ofer. All de beeg buildings
and all de beeg men. You shtay mit Mrs. Guilderaufenberg and me till
you sees all Vashington."
Jack did so, but he had business errands also, and he somehow managed
to accomplish his commissions so that Mr. Gifford was quite satisfied
when he returned to New York.
"I haven't sold so many goods," said Jack, "but then I've seen the city
of Washington, and I've shaken hands with the President and with
Senators and Congressmen. Mr. Gifford, how soon can I make a visit to
Crofield?"
"We'll arrange that as soon as warm weather comes," said his employer.
"Make it your summer vacation."
Jack had to be satisfied. He knew that more was going on in the old
village than had been told him in any of his letters from home. His
father was a man who dreaded to write letters, and Mary and the rest of
them were either too busy, or else did not know just what news would be
most interesting to Jack.
"I'm going to see Crofield!" said he, a hundred times, after the days
began to grow longer. "I want to see the trees and the grass and I
want to see corn growing and wheat harvesting. I'd even like to be
stung by a bumblebee!"
He became so eager about it, at last, that he went home by rail all the
way, in a night train, and he arrived at Crofield, over the new
railroad, just as the sun was rising, one bright June morning.
"Goodness!" he exclaimed, as he walked out of the station. "It's not
the same village! I won't go over to the house and wake the family
until I've looked around."
From where he stood, he gazed at the new hotel, and took a long look up
and down Main Street. Then he walked eagerly down toward the bridge.
"Hullo!" he said in amazement. "Our house isn't there! Why, what is
the meaning of this? I knew that the shop had been moved up to the
back lot. They're building houses along the road across the
Cocahutchie! Why haven't they written and told me of all this?"
He saw the bridge, the factory, the tannery, and many other buildings,
but he did not see the familiar old blacksmith shop on the back lot.
"I don't know where we live nor where to find my home!" he said, almost
dejectedly. "They know I'm coming, though, and they must have meant to
surprise me. Mary's at home, too, for her vacation."
He walked up Main Street, leaving his baggage at the station.
New--new--new,--all the buildings for several blocks, and then he came
to houses that were just as they used to be. One pretty white house
stood back among some trees, on a corner, and, as Jack walked nearer, a
tall man in the door of it stepped quickly out to the gate. He seemed
to be trying to say something, but all he did, for a moment, was to
beckon with his hand.
[Illustration: _Jack returns home_.]
"Father!" shouted Jack, as he sprang forward.
"Jack, my son, how are you?"
"Is this our house?" asked Jack.
"Yes, this is our house. They're all getting up early, too, because
you're coming. There are some things I want to talk about, though,
before they know you're actually here. Walk along with me a little
way."
On, back, down Main Street, walked Jack with his father, until they
came to what was now labeled Bridge Street. When Jack lived in
Crofield the road had no name.
"See that store on the corner?" asked Mr. Ogden. "It's a fine-looking
store, isn't it?"
"Very," said Jack.
"Well, now," said his father, "I'm going to run that store, and I do
wish you were to be in it with me."
"There will be none too much room in it for Bob and Jim," said Jack.
"They're growing up, you know!"
"You listen to me," continued the tall blacksmith, trying to be calm.
"The railway company paid me quite a snug sum of money for what they
needed of your land and mine. Mr. Magruder did it for you. I bought
with the money thirty acres of land, just across the Cocahutchie, to
the left of the bridge. Half of it was yours to begin with, and now
I've traded you the other half. Don't speak. Listen to me. Most of
it was rocky, but the railway company opened a quarry on it, getting
out their stone, and it's paying handsomely. Livermore has built that
hotel block. I put in the stone and our old house lot, and I own the
corner store, except that Livermore can use the upper stories for his
hotel. The factory company traded me ten shares of their stock for
part of your land on which they built. I traded that stock for ten
acres of rocky land along the road, across the Cocahutchie, up by the
mill. That makes forty acres there."
"Father!" exclaimed Jack. "All it cost me was catching a runaway team,
and your bill against the miller! Crofield is better than the grocery
business in New York!"
"Listen!" said his father, smiling. "The tannery company traded me a
lot of their stock for the rest of my back lot and for the rest of your
gravel, and they tore down the blacksmith shop, and I traded their
stock and some other things for the house where we live. I made your
part good to you, with the land across the creek, and that's where the
new village of Crofield is to be."
"I didn't see a cent of money in any of those trades, but I've a
thousand dollars laid up, and I'm only working in the railroad shop
now, but I'm going into the hardware business. I wish you'd come back
and come in with me. There's the store--rent free. We can sell plenty
of tools, now that Crofield is booming!"
"I've saved up seven hundred and fifty dollars," said Jack, "from my
salary and commissions. I'll put that in. Gifford & Company'll send
you things cheap. But, Father,--I belong in the city. I've seen
hundreds of boys there who didn't belong there, but I do. Let's go
back to the house. Bob and Jim--"
"Well, maybe you're right," said his father, slowly. "Come, let us go
home. Your mother has hardly been able to wait to see you."
When they came in sight of the house, the stoop and the front gate were
thronged with home-folk, but Jack could not see clearly for a moment.
The sunshine, or something else, got into his eyes. Then there were
pairs of arms, large and small, embracing him, and,--well, it was a
happy time, and Mary was there and his mother, and the family were all
together once more.
"How you have grown!" said his aunt. "_How_ you have grown!"
"I do wish you'd come home to stay!" exclaimed his mother.
"Perhaps he will," said his father, and Mary had hardly said a word
till then, but now it seemed to burst out in spite of her.
"Oh Jack!" she said. "If I could go back with you, when you go! I
could live with a sister of Mrs. Edwards. She's invited me to live
with her for a whole year. And I could finish my education, and be
really fit to teach. I've saved some money."
"Mary!" answered Jack, "I can pay all the other expenses. Do come!"
"Yes, you'd better go, Jack," said his father, thoughtfully. "I am
sure that you are a city boy."
That was a great vacation, but no trout were now to be caught in the
Cocahutchie. The new store on the corner was to be opened in the
autumn, and Jack insisted upon having it painted a bright red about the
windows. There were visits to Mertonville, and there were endless
talks about what Jack's land was going to be worth, some day. But the
days flew by, and soon his time was up and he had to go back to the
city. He and Mary went together, and they went down the Hudson River
in the steamer "Columbia."
Mr. Dudley Edwards, of Mertonville, went at the same time to attend to
some law business, he said, in New York.
Jack told Mr. Gifford all about the Crofield town-lots, and his
employer answered:
"That is the thing for you, Ogden; you'll have some capital, when you
come of age, and then we can take you in as a junior partner. You
belong in the city. I couldn't take you in any sooner, you know. We
don't want a boy."
"That's just what you told me," said Jack roguishly, "the first time I
came into this store; but you took me then. Well, I shall always do my
best."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Crowded Out o' Crofield, by William O. Stoddard