BAD NEWS
“I believe Larry is right,” said Mrs. Olney. “The furniture would only
be a trouble to you, Mrs. Dexter. Now would be a good chance to sell
it, while the crowd is here. You ought to get pretty good prices, as
much of the stuff is new.”
“Perhaps you are right,” assented the widow, “though I hate to part
with the things. Suppose you tell Mr. Rollinson, Larry.”
The boy hurried from the room to inform the auctioneer there was
more work for him, and Mrs. Dexter, with her two friends, came from
the parlor, for they knew the place would soon be overrun by curious
persons looking for bargains.
Mr. Rollinson, anxious to make more commissions, readily undertook to
put the furniture up for auction. With the exception of a few articles
that she prized very highly, and laying aside only the clothes of
herself and children, Mrs. Dexter permitted all the contents of the
house to be offered for sale.
Then, having reached this decision, she went off in a bedroom and cried
softly, for she could not bear to think of her home being broken up,
and strangers using the chairs and tables which, with the other things,
had made such a nice place while Mr. Dexter was alive.
Larry had hard work to keep back the tears when he saw some article of
furniture, with which were associated happy memories, bid for by some
farmer.
When, at length, Mr. Rollinson reached the old armchair, in which Mr.
Dexter used to sit and tell his children stories, and where, during the
last days of his life he had rested with his little family gathered
about him, Larry could stand it no longer. He felt the hot scalding
tears come to his eyes, and ran out behind the big red barn, where he
sobbed out his grief all alone.
He covered his face with his hands and, as he thought of the happy days
that seemed to be gone forever, his grief grew more intense. All at
once he heard a voice calling:
“Hello, cry-baby!”
At first Larry was too much occupied with his troubles to pay any
attention. Then someone called again:
“Larry Dexter cries like a girl!”
Larry looked up, to meet the laughing gaze of a boy about his own size
and age, with bright red hair and a face much covered with freckles.
“I’m not a cry-baby!” Larry exclaimed.
“You be, too! Didn’t I see you cryin’?”
“I’ll make you cry on the other side of your mouth, Chot Ramsey!” Larry
exclaimed, making a spring for his tormentor.
Chot doubled up his fists. To do him credit he had no idea that Larry
was crying because he felt so badly at the prospect of leaving the farm
that had been his home for many years. Chot was a good-hearted boy, but
thoughtless. So, when he saw one of his playmates weeping, which act
was considered only fit for girls, Chot could not resist the temptation
to taunt Larry.
“Do you want t’ fight?” demanded Chot.
“I’ll punch you for calling me names!” exclaimed Larry, his sorrow
at the sale of his father’s armchair dispersed at the idea of being
laughed at and called a cry-baby.
“You will, hey?” asked Chot. “Well, I dare you to touch me!”
“I’ll make you sing a different tune in a minute!” cried Larry, rushing
forward.
Then, like two game roosters, both wishing to fight, yet neither
desiring to begin the battle, the boys faced each other. Their eyes
were angry and all tears had disappeared from Larry’s face.
“Will you knock a chip off my shoulder?” demanded Chot.
“Sure,” replied Larry.
Chot stooped down, found a little piece of wood and carefully balanced
it on the upper part of his arm.
“I dare you to!” he taunted.
This time-honored method of starting hostilities was not ignored by
Larry. He sprang forward, and with a quick motion sent the fragment of
wood flying through the air. Then he doubled up his fists, imitating
the example Chot had earlier set, and stood ready for the fracas.
But at that instant, when, in another second Chot and Larry would have
been involved in a rough-and-tumble encounter, James, Larry’s little
brother, came running around the corner of the barn. He seemed greatly
excited.
“Larry! Larry!” he exclaimed. “They’re sellin’ my nice old rockin’
horse, an’ my high chair what I used to have when I was a baby! Please
stop ’em, Larry!”
Larry lost all desire to fight. He didn’t mind if all the boys in
Campton called him cry-baby. He had too many sorrows to mind that.
“Don’t worry, Jimmie,” he said to the little fellow. “I’ll buy you some
new ones.”
But little James was not to be comforted, and burst into a flood of
tears. Chot, who had looked on in some wonder at what it was all about,
for he did not understand that the household goods were being sold,
unclosed his clenched fists. Underneath a somewhat rough exterior he
had a warm heart.
“Say,” he began, coming up awkwardly to Larry, “I didn’t know you was
bein’ sold out. I--I didn’t mean t’ make fun of ye. I--I was only
foolin’ when I said ye was a cry-baby. Ye can have my best fishhook,
honest ye can!”
“Thanks, Chot,” replied Larry, quick to feel the change of feeling. “I
couldn’t help crying when I saw some of the things dad used to have
going under the hammer. But I feel worse for mother and the others. I
can stand it.”
“Are ye goin’ away from here?” asked Chot, for that anyone should leave
Campton, where he had lived all his life, seemed too strange a thing to
be true.
“I think we will go to New York,” replied Larry. “Mother’s sister lives
there. I expect to get some work, and help support the folks.”
“I wish I was goin’ off like that!” exclaimed Chot. “They could sell
everything in my house, an’ everything I’ve got, except my dog, if
they’d let me go t’ New York.”
“You don’t know when you’re well off,” spoke Larry, who, in the last
few months, under the stress of trouble, had become older than his
years indicated.
By this time James, who saw a big yellow butterfly darting about
among the flowers which grew in an old-fashioned garden below the
barn, rushed to capture it, forgetting his troubles. Larry, whose
grief-stricken mood had passed, returned to the house, to find it a
place of confusion.
Men and women were in almost every room, going through and looking at
the different articles. The loud voice of the auctioneer rang out, and
Larry felt another pang in his heart as he saw piece after piece of
furniture being knocked down to the highest bidder.
The boy found his mother in the bedroom, where she had sought a quiet
place to rest.
“Have you really made up your mind to go to New York, mother?” Larry
asked.
“I think it is the best thing to do,” was the answer. “We can stay with
your aunt Ellen until I can find some work to do.”
“Are you going to work, mother? I hate to think of it. I’ll work for
you.”
“I know you will do what you can,” replied Mrs. Dexter, “but I’m afraid
boys do not earn much in big cities, so we will need all we both can
get. It is going to be a hard struggle.”
“Don’t worry!” exclaimed Larry, assuming a cheerfulness he did not
feel. “It will all come out right, somehow, you see if it doesn’t.”
“I hope so,” sighed Mrs. Dexter.
The auctioneering of the goods went on rapidly, and, toward the close
of the afternoon, all that were not to be kept were disposed of. Mr.
Rollinson cried his last “Going! Going! Gone!” brought his hammer down
for the last time with a loud bang, and then announced that the sale
was over.
“Where’s your mother, Larry?” he asked of the boy.
“I’ll call her.”
In a few minutes Larry had brought Mrs. Dexter to where the deputy
sheriff waited for her in the parlor.
“Wa’al, everthing’s sold,” Mr. Rollinson began. “Didn’t bring as much
as I cal’lated on, but then ye never can git much at a forced sale.”
“How much will I have left after all expenses are paid?” asked Mrs.
Dexter.
“Allowin’ for everything,” said the auctioneer, figuring up on the back
of an envelope, “you’ll have jest four hundred and three dollars and
forty-five cents, the odd cents bein’ for some pictures.”
“It is very little to begin life over again on,” said Mrs. Dexter.
“But it’s better than nothin’,” said Mr. Rollinson, who seldom looked
on the dark side of things. “Now I made the sale of these household
things dependent on you. You can stay here two weeks if ye want t’, an’
nothin’ will be taken away. Them as bought it understands it.”
“I would like t’ get away as soon as possible,” said the widow.
“Wa’al, there’s nothin’ t’ hinder ye.”
“Then I shall start for New York day after to-morrow.”
“All right, Mrs. Dexter. I’ll settle up th’ accounts an’ have all th’
money ready by then.”
Mr. Rollinson was as good as his word. On the third day after the sale,
having written to her sister that she was coming, but not waiting for a
reply, Mrs. Dexter, with Larry, Lucy, Mary and James, boarded a train
for the big city where they were all hoping their fortunes awaited
them. Little James was full of excitement. He was sure they were going
at last to the end of the rainbow. Mary was delighted with the new and
strange sights along the way. Larry was very thoughtful. As for Lucy
her spine hurt her so that she got very little enjoyment from the trip.
But she did not say anything about it, for fear of worrying her mother.
It was a long journey, but it came to an end at last. The train reached
Hoboken, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, and, though
somewhat bewildered by the lights, the noise and confusion, Larry
managed to learn which ferryboat to take to land them nearest to his
aunt’s house, who lived on what is called the “East Side” of New York.
The trip across the river on the big boat was a source of much delight
to the younger children, but Mrs. Dexter was too worried to be
interested. Lucy was very tired, but Larry kept up his spirits.
Once landed in New York, in the evening, the confusion, the noise, the
shouts of the cabmen, the rattle of the cars, the clanging of gongs and
the ringing of bells, was so great that poor Mrs. Dexter, who had been
so long used to the quiet of the country, felt her head ache.
By dint of many inquiries Larry found out which car to take and,
marshaling his mother and the children ahead of him, he directed them
where to go. A long ride brought them to the street where Mrs. Ralston
lived.
Here was more confusion. The thoroughfare swarmed with children, and
the noise was almost as great as down at the ferry. A man directed
the travelers to the house, which was an apartment or tenement one,
inhabited by a number of families. Larry, his mother, and the children
climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Mrs. Ralston lived. A
knock on the door brought a woman who was surprised at her visitors.
“Does Mrs. Ralston live here?” asked Larry, thinking he might have made
a mistake.
“She did, but she moved away yesterday,” was the answer.
“Moved away?”
“Yes, didn’t you hear? Her husband was killed in a street-car accident
a few days ago, and after the funeral Mrs. Ralston said she could not
afford to keep these rooms. So she moved away. I came in last night.
Are you relatives of hers?”
“I am her sister,” said Mrs. Dexter, and then, at the news of Mr.
Ralston’s death, coming on top of all the other troubles, the poor
woman burst into tears.