If the calendar over Alec's mantel could have told the history of the
next few weeks, it would have been the record of a hard struggle with
homesickness and discouragement. There was a heavy black cross drawn
through the date of his return to work. He had come in that night
when it was over weighed down with the fact that his wages had been
stopped in his absence, and that it would take a long time to pay the
debts incurred during his illness.
There was a zigzag line struck twice across the calendar below that
date. "That much goes for the doctor!" he exclaimed, fiercely
checking off the time with a stubby pencil. "And that much to old
Jimmy, and that much for fire and extras. It'll take way into the new
year to get straightened out. Luckily I am nearly through with my
debt to Aunt Eunice."
Later there was a tiny star drawn in the corner of one date. It
marked the Sabbath evening he had gone to the Christian Endeavour
praise service and heard Avery Windom sing. He had been introduced to
half a dozen of the boys and girls, and been invited to come again,
and had gone back to his calendar to count the nights until the next
meeting. Ever since he had left home, he had longed with a longing
that was like hunger for the companionship of young people such as he
had known at home. There was a blur over one of the dates, the little
square that marked the twenty-fifth of December. It was a red-letter
day on the calendar, but in Alec's bare little room a holiday that
dragged its dismal length out toward dark, like a dull ache.
The box that had been sent him from home failed to reach him till the
next day. Standing with his hands in his pockets, looking out over
the snowy roofs of the city, he recalled all the merry Christmas days
at home, since the first time he and Flip had hung up their stockings
beside their grandfather's wide chimney-seat. This was the first time
he had ever missed following the old custom. The city seemed
overflowing with the joy and good-will of the Yuletide, yet none of
it was for him. He had never felt so utterly left out and alone in
all his life.
Despite his seventeen years, there was an ache in his throat that he
could not drive back, and when he laid down the calendar he had been
mechanically examining, although he whistled bravely, there was a
telltale blur on the page.
But there came a day when he tore off the leaf that was crossed with
the double black lines meaning debt and worry, and began a fresh
sheet which seemed to promise better days. A change of work came the
first of February, and a slight advance in wages. The manager, who
had kept a keen eye on him, was beginning to think that at last he
had found a boy who was worth training, and that if he proved as
efficient in every stage of his apprenticeship as he had in the
first, he would soon have the capable assistant that he had long been
in search of.
Alec's notification of his promotion was in the envelope which held
his check for the last week in January. He did not see it until he
stepped into the bank to have the check cashed, and in his delight
and surprise he could scarcely refrain from turning a handspring.
So many people were ahead of him that he had to stand several minutes
awaiting his turn at the little barred window. In that time he made
several rapid calculations on the back of the envelope.
"Can you give me five dollars of that in gold?" he asked of the
cashier when his turn finally came. With a nod of assent, the cashier
counted out several small bills, and laid a shining five-dollar gold
piece on top. Alec seized it eagerly and, thrusting the bills into
his pocket, walked out with the coin in his hand.
Long ago he had decided how to spend his first surplus five dollars
if it came in time. It should go as a happy surprise to Flip on her
sixteenth birthday. It had come in time. Her birthday was on the
twenty-first of the month. At first he thought he could not wait
three long weeks before sending it. He wanted her to have the
pleasure and surprise of receiving it at once; and he wanted the
thrill of feeling that he was man enough not only to be
self-supporting, but to help care for his sister.
[Illustration: "HE MADE SEVERAL RAPID CALCULATIONS ON THE BACK OF THE
ENVELOPE."]
He wrapped the coin in a bit of tissue-paper, torn from the
shaving-case Flip had sent him in the delayed Christmas box. Then he
carefully put it in the inner pocket of the old wallet he carried.
But scarcely a night passed between that time and the twentieth that
he did not take a peep at the coin, and then count the days on his
calendar.
Ever since the night of the praise service, when he first heard Avery
Windom sing, he had been a regular attendant at the Christian
Endeavour meetings. It was like a bit of home to sit there in the
midst of the young people, singing the familiar old hymns, and he
sang them so heartily and entered into the exercises of the meeting
with such zest that he soon lost the feeling that he was only a
stranger within the gates.
There were some, it is true, who were only coolly polite to him,
thinking of his position, an unknown boy working in the shoe factory
as a common labourer. He felt the chill of their manner keenly, and
he knew why he was so pointedly ignored. It was not a deeply
spiritual society. Only a few of the members were really consecrated
Christians. There were more socials and concerts and literary
evenings than devotional meetings. Most of the members belonged to
old, wealthy families, and had always been accustomed to leisure and
pocket-money. Alec soon realized the bounds that were set to his
social privileges. He might take a prominent part in the meetings,
even be asked to lead on occasions, be put on committees, be assigned
many tasks in connection with suppers and festivals, but outside of
his church relationship he was never noticed. No hospitable home
swung open its doors for him.
Only one who has lived in a country place, which knows no class
distinctions, where character is all that counts, and where the
butcher and baker may be bidden any day, in simple village fashion,
to banquet with the judge, only such an one can understand the
feeling of a boy in Alec's position. He wondered sometimes, with a
sudden sinking of the heart, what would be the result if they knew
about his father.
He never looked at Avery Windom without thinking of it. He used to
watch her in church, sitting up between her aristocratic father and
mother, sweet and refined, like a dainty white flower. He wondered if
her slim-gloved hand would ever be held out to him again in greeting,
as it had been on several occasions, if she knew that he was the son
of a criminal.
Then he wondered what she would think if she knew that the touch of
that little hand in his had been like the saving touch of a guardian
angel. Once, urged on by one of the factory boys, an almost
overwhelming temptation had seized him, but the remembrance that if
he yielded he would never again be fit to take her hand made him
thrust his into his pockets and turn away toward home with a shrug of
the shoulders.
Avery, as ignorant of the influence she was exerting as a lily is of
the fragrance it sheds, went serenely on in her gentle, high-bred
way. Alec held no larger place in her thoughts than any other of the
employees in her father's factory.
"Flip would call her one of my islands," he said to himself one
night, as he parted on the corner from a crowd of boys who were
begging him to go with them for a little game of cards and a lark
afterward. "No telling where I would have drifted if it hadn't been
for her. It's no easy matter to keep straight when you're all alone
in a city as big and tough as this."
On his way home, he stopped at the library for a book he had heard
her mention. He had overheard her quoting a line from Sir Galahad,
and although he knew the story well of the maiden knight "whose
strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure," it
took on a new meaning because she had praised it. He learned the
entire poem by heart, and the inspiration of the lines as he bent
over his work in the factory gave him many an uplift that left him
more nearly the man whom he imagined Avery's ideal to be.
One other date was marked on the calendar with a star before Flip's
birthday came round. It was the night of the literary contest at the
high school, when Avery's essay took the prize. Alec had manoeuvred
for a week to get a ticket, and finally procured one from the head
bookkeeper at the factory, whose sister taught in the high school.
[Illustration: "'IT'S THE FIRST MONEY I EVER EARNED IN MY LIFE,' SHE
SAID, GLEEFULLY."]
He lingered a little while after the contest in the outskirts of the
crowd that flocked up to congratulate Avery. She came out to the
carriage on her father's arm, with a fleecy evening cloak wrapped
round her, and he saw the prize. She held it out a moment in her
bare, white hand to some one who stood near Alec. It was a bright
five-dollar gold piece.
"It's the first money I ever earned in my life," she said, gleefully,
including Alec in her smile, so that he felt that the remark was
addressed to him. "It is so precious I shall have to put it under a
glass case. Maybe I can never earn another one."
In his room once more, Alec took out his little gold coin, and,
looking at it, thought he could understand just how proud Avery must
feel of hers.
The next time he saw her it was at a Christian Endeavour meeting.
Ralph Bently was with her, a gentlemanly, elegant boy in appearance,
but Alec knew the reputation he had among the young fellows who knew
him best, and it made him set his teeth together hard to see him with
a girl as pure and refined as Avery.
"He isn't fit," he thought. "He shouldn't speak to Flip if I could
prevent it, and even if he is Avery's cousin and such a young boy,
Mr. Windom oughtn't to let him into the house."
For several weeks, at every meeting, the president had made an
especial appeal for larger contributions. A large, expensive organ
was being built for the church. The Christian Endeavour Society had
pledged themselves to pay five hundred dollars of the amount due on
it, but part of the sum was still lacking, even after all the socials
and fairs that had been given to raise the amount. The president
urged each member to add a little to his previous subscription, even
at the cost of much self-denial.
Alec had been asked to assume the duty of regularly passing one of
the collection boxes at the Sunday night services. He had done this
so often in the Sunday school at home that he felt no embarrassment
in doing so now, except when he reached the row of chairs where Avery
and her cousin sat. He sneezed just as he extended the long-handled
collection box toward them, and flushed hotly for having called every
one's attention to himself by the loud noise.
The other collector, having finished first, placed his box on the
secretary's little stand and went back to his seat. As Alec came
forward, the president asked him in a low tone to count the money,
and be ready to report the amount after the singing of the last hymn.
Turning his back to the audience, Alec emptied both boxes into the
seat of the big pulpit chair standing next to the president's. The
two chairs were old Gothic ones, recently retired from the church
pulpit to make room for new furniture. There were a number of pennies
in the lot, and during the singing he counted them carefully several
times, in order to be sure that he had made no mistake.
The hymn was a short one. It came to an end as Alec laid several
little piles of coin on the table at the secretary's elbow.
"Four dollars and ninety-six cents, did you say?" repeated the
president, leaning over to catch the report Alec gave in an
undertone. "Four dollars and ninety-six cents," he announced aloud.
"Really we must do better than that."
Alec saw Avery and Ralph exchange surprised glances. The president
went on repeating his former explanations of their financial
difficulties. Alec, still watching, saw Ralph Bently make a move to
rise, and Avery's hand was laid detainingly on his arm. She was
whispering and shaking her head; but Ralph was not to be deterred by
any remonstrance. He was on his feet, exclaiming:
"Mr. President, pardon the interruption. There is some mistake in
that report! The collection should amount to far more than four
dollars and ninety-six cents. Miss Windom alone gave more than that.
I saw her drop a five-dollar gold piece into the box."
Avery blushed furiously at being called into public notice in such a
manner by her impetuous young cousin. Every drop of blood seemed to
leave Alec's face for an instant, and then rushed back until it
burned a fiery crimson. He was indignant that Ralph Bently should have
been so wanting in courtesy as to proclaim in public the amount of
his cousin's donation, the cherished gold piece she had won at the
prize contest. And he was deeply mortified to think that he could
have made a mistake in counting it. He wondered if he could have been
such a fool as to have mistaken the coin for a new penny. What would
Avery think of him?
He turned toward the table, evidently disturbed, and counted the
money again. Then he shook his head.
"You can see for yourself," he said; "four dollars and ninety-six
cents!"
The president picked up both boxes, and, turning them upside down
over the table, shook them energetically. The secretary shoved back
the chair in which the money had been counted, gave it a tip that
would have dislodged any coin left on its smooth plush seat, and
peered anxiously round on the floor.
"Don't give it another thought, Mr. Stoker, please don't!" exclaimed
Avery, going up to him when her attention was called to his worried
expression. "I'm sure it has rolled off into some corner and the
janitor will find it when he sweeps. I'll speak to him about it.
Anyhow, it is too small a matter to make such a fuss over. I never
should have told Ralph what it was if he hadn't teased me about what
I had tied up in the corner of my handkerchief." Then she passed on
with a smile.
Alec lingered to help collect the hymn-books, and when he passed into
the vestibule he heard voices on the outer steps. One of them sounded
like Ralph Bently's.
"Oh, maybe so!" it exclaimed, with a disagreeable little laugh; "but
it's queer how money will stick to some people's fingers."
Alec, who was in the act of opening the door to go from the
prayer-meeting room into the auditorium of the church for the evening
service, paused an instant. He was overwhelmed by the sudden
conviction that he was the person meant.