IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT.
On his way back from the shop Tom met another member of John Simpson’s
family.
It was Rupert.
Rupert was carefully dressed, and looked, as the saying is, as if he
had just come out of a bandbox. He was rather fond of dress. Besides
it helped to distinguish him from the other boys in the village. Harry
Julian was the only one who had the means to dress as well, and he was
content with dressing neatly.
Generally Rupert would have passed Tom with a cool nod, if indeed he
had deigned to notice him at all, but now his curiosity was excited by
seeing him in the street at an hour when he was usually at work.
“Why are you not at work?” asked Rupert, pausing in his walk.
“Because I have no work to do,” answered Tom, who did not care to seek
Rupert’s sympathy.
“Isn’t the shop open to-day?” asked Rupert, puzzled, for he knew
nothing of Tom’s dismissal.
“Yes, it’s open.”
“Then why are you not at work?”
“Didn’t your father tell you that he had discharged me?”
“No,” said Rupert, eagerly. “What for?”
“He is angry with me. I will refer you to him.”
“But what are you going to do?” inquired Rupert, who did not seem to
take the news much to heart.
“I must find work somewhere else.”
“That won’t be very easy.”
“Perhaps not.”
“If you can’t find anything to do, you and your mother will have to
come on the town, won’t you?” asked Rupert, briskly.
“I don’t think so,” said Tom, gravely.
“I wonder father didn’t say anything at home about it,” continued
Rupert. “Wouldn’t you just as lief tell me why he bounced you?”
“I must refer you to your father,” said Tom, coldly. “Good-morning.”
“That boy is very proud, considering he is a beggar, or the next thing
to it,” said Rupert to himself. “I suppose he was impudent to pa. I
know pa wouldn’t stand that, and he ought not to. I am glad Tom’s pride
has had a fall.”
Tom didn’t go immediately home. There was another shop in the village,
considerably smaller than Mr. Simpson’s, but still employing twenty
hands. This was kept by a Mr. Casey, a man well-to-do, but not setting
up for an aristocrat like his competitor in business. Tom thought it
possible he might get employment here, and he dropped in on the way
home.
“Good-morning, Tom,” said Casey, who was cutting out shoes.
“Good-morning, sir.”
“Are you not at work to-day?”
“Mr. Simpson thinks he can get along without me.”
“How is that?” asked Casey, in surprise.
Tom briefly told under what circumstances he had been discharged.
“That’s a pity,” said Casey, in a sympathizing tone. “I can’t justify
John Simpson in that.”
“You don’t want a pegger, do you, Mr. Casey?”
“Not unless one of my boys leave me. I’d like to take you on; but I
have no vacancy. As soon as there is one, you may depend on my sending
for you.”
“Thank you, sir. That is all I can ask.”
“How much did Mr. Simpson pay you?” asked Casey.
“Fifty cents a day.”
“That is poor. Why, I pay sixty, and out of town more is paid.”
“I know that; but it wouldn’t pay me to go out of town as long as
mother lives here.”
“That’s true. Well, Tom, I hope you will find something to do. You may
depend on hearing from me when I have a vacancy.”
Tom thanked him and left the shop. He had been kindly received; but
kind words wouldn’t pay the baker’s and grocer’s bills, and he felt
rather sober.
A few rods from Casey’s shop he met his friend Harry Julian, who also
expressed his surprise at seeing Tom on the street at that time in the
day.
Tom gave an explanation.
Harry looked concerned, for he was strongly attached to Tom, and he
very well understood what a serious matter it was to him and his mother
for him to be out of work.
He reflected a moment, and his face brightened as something occurred to
him.
“Tom,” he said, “will you do me a favor?”
“Of course I will, Julian.”
“Then let me lend you this,” and before Tom understood what he meant,
he had thrust something into his vest-pocket.
Tom drew it out, unfolded it, and found it to be a five-dollar bill.
“Thank you, Harry,” he said; “but I can’t take this.”
“Why not? Remember, I ask it as a favor to me.”
“But it isn’t that; it is a favor to me.”
“Well, are you too proud to accept a favor from your friend Harry?
Listen, Tom,” he added, rapidly. “You know father is very well off, and
he gives me a dollar a week as an allowance. I don’t spend it all, and
so I happen to have five dollars on hand. I really have no use for it.
Now won’t you take it?”
“You are very kind, Harry, but I have some money in my pocket.”
“How much?”
“A dollar and a half.”
“That won’t last you till you get something to do.”
Tom knew this only too well, and he was strongly tempted to accept, for
his mother’s sake.
“Will your father like your giving away this money?” he asked.
“He will be glad to have me assist a friend, particularly you. He likes
you, Tom, and is always willing I should come to visit you.”
“Then I will tell you what I will do, Harry--I will take the money, and
use it if I am absolutely obliged to. But I shall expect to pay it back
some time.”
“All right, Tom. You may pay it back when you are twenty-one. That will
be soon enough. What a mean man that Simpson is. What an awful thing
that was last night--I mean the tramp burning up in the old barn.”
“Yes, it was. I suppose I was the only one who saw him besides Squire
Simpson. Harry, he said he knew my father in California, and that he,
father, was worth at one time twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Harry, in surprise.
“Yes, and I believe the story.”
“I wish you had it now, Tom.”
“So do I; but it’s no use wishing.”
Tom went home considerably encouraged. True, he had no prospect of
a place, but the sympathy and kindness of Harry Julian had made the
world seem brighter to him. Boys, as well as men, when in trouble crave
sympathy. They like to feel that they are not standing alone, but have
some one’s good wishes.
“What a splendid fellow Harry is,” said Tom, warmly, to himself; “not
much like Rupert. I really believe Rupert would be glad to see me in
the poor-house. If I were rich and he were poor, I would try to help
him, and not be mean enough to rejoice in his misfortune.”
When Harry went home he lost no time in telling his father of Tom’s
misfortune, and what he had done to relieve it.
“I thought you would approve, father,” he said.
“Approve, my son! I rejoice at your kindness of heart. You could not
have pleased me more.”
“I am afraid Tom will find it hard to get anything to do,” said Harry,
thoughtfully.
“Can he write a good hand?”
“Yes, he writes a very plain hand.”
“Then, if he gets nothing better to do, I will offer to employ him as a
copyist to copy some of my old sermons. I will pay him as much as Mr.
Simpson has been paying.”
“Shall I tell him?” asked Harry.
“No; I prefer that he should get employment elsewhere if he can, for
this copying would only be a makeshift. It would not lead to anything
permanent. Still, if he finds nothing else, I will offer him four weeks
employment in my study.”
While Harry and his father were devising some way of providing
employment for Tom, John Simpson and his son Rupert were also
discussing his affairs, but in a different spirit.
“I wouldn’t have discharged him if he hadn’t been impudent,” said
Squire Simpson.
“Just what I thought, pa. He’s awfully independent. He is very rude to
me.”
“He will be his own enemy,” said the squire, sententiously.
“You won’t take him back, pa, will you?”
“Not unless he makes me an humble apology.”
“Then he’ll never come back,” thought Rupert. “He’s too proud to do
that.”
John Simpson had one source of regret. His enemy, as he considered him,
Darius Darke, had been cut off in a terrible manner, but at the same
time the five hundred dollars which he had given him had also been
consumed.
“What a fool I was not to put him off till morning!” he reflected,
with vexation. “Then I would have saved five hundred dollars. But it
never occurred to me. However, I am glad to be rid of him even at that
price. I am sorry he fell in with Tom Thatcher, and told him that story
about his father’s having twenty-five thousand dollars. Tom was already
inclined to be suspicious. I wish he were out of the village--he and
his whole family. If he can’t find work, he may have to go yet. The
family can’t live on nothing, and the cottage isn’t worth much. I wish
I had a mortgage on it.”