"Not much at first. Five dollars a week, which shall be made six at the end of a month if you suit. An increase will be given at the end of every half year; I don't say provided you earn it, for, if you don't, I won't keep you. What do you say, young man?"

"I'll try it; when do you wish me?"

"To-day is Friday. Come Monday morning. Don't be later than eight o'clock.

Good-night, all."

Mr. Warmore had risen to his feet and raised his hat politely to all three. The farmer, who had hardly spoken a word during the interview, also arose and walked to the gate with his caller, where they talked for a few minutes.

"Yes, I like his looks," remarked the merchant in a low voice, as he untied his horse and flung the strap under the seat. "There is something good in his face. He looks honest; he is well put together; he is not afraid of work. Is he fully recovered from his injured leg?"

"I never saw one get well so quick. You wouldn't know that anything had ever happened to him. Of course one would say that coming to my house in the strange manner he did, I haven't had much chance to judge him. That would be the case with a man, but a boy can't play the hypocrite for long.

My wife and I are very fond of him, and he will still be able to board with us."

"There is no reason why he should not. It is hardly a mile from here to the store, and it won't trouble him to walk it summer and winter. Now and then, when we are busy, I shall have to keep him in the evenings, but from what I hear, he has learned how to take care of himself. Well, Joseph, we are liable to make mistakes, and it may be we have done so in this case, but we'll chance it. Good-night again."

The merchant sprang lightly into his buggy, and drove down the road at a rapid pace, while the farmer, gazing for a moment or two in the direction of the cloud of dust, rejoined his wife and Tom on the porch.

Chapter XX.

And now let's take a big jump forward. Hold your breath while we gather our muscles for the effort, for when we land, it is at a point four years from the day when Tom Gordon entered the employ of Josiah Warmore, the leading merchant in the town of Bellemore, on the Hudson.

There have been many changes in those years, but in some respects slight differences could be noted. It would be hard to tell from looking at Mr.

Warmore that he was one day older than when he stopped at the home of Farmer Pitcairn and hired Tom Gordon. His hair and whiskers were so white at that time that they could not grow any whiter. The face wears the same kindly expression, the shoulders are no more stooped than they were then, and his walk is as brisk and sprightly as ever. Few of his clerks are more alert of movement than he.

Much the same may be said of Farmer Pitcairn and his wife. Possibly there is an additional wrinkle or two on their homely faces, but their hearts are as genial and as kindly as ever. They love Tom Gordon as if he were their own son, and he fully returns the affection they feel for him.

And how has it been with Tom during those four years?

Well, he has had his shadow and sunshine, like the rest of us, but there has been far more of the latter than the former. How could it be otherwise, when I tell you that he has stood as firm as a rock upon the principles that were implanted in his heart and soul by his n.o.ble mother?

He could never forget her teachings, which were added to by other wise and good persons with whom he was thrown in contact later.

Now, Tom Gordon became what I call a healthy, sensible Christian youth. He was not the good boy we used to read about in the Sunday-school books, who mopes around, forever preaching a sermon whenever he opens his lips, and finding a "lesson" in everything, even the leap of a gra.s.shopper. When those boys become so good that they can be no better, they generally lie down, call all their playmates around them, deliver a farewell sermon, and then depart. The mistake of that sort of life is that it makes religion unattractive. It gives the idea that "the good die young," and that a jolly, genial, fun-loving boy, bubbling over sometimes with mischief, cannot be a Christian, when he is the very one that most pleases his heavenly Father.

Tom had his fun, his enjoyment, and now and then his crosses. Such things are inevitable and must be looked for. A thorn appeared in his side from the first. A young clerk that had entered the store a few weeks ahead of him was a sly, mean, gnarly fellow, who showed a dislike to the new-comer and annoyed him in every way possible. He was larger and apparently stronger than Tom, and seemed determined to provoke a quarrel with him.

Tom would have been glad to challenge him to a bout at fisticuffs, for he was confident he could vanquish him in short order. He often yearned to do so. More than once the hot defiance was tugging at his lips; but the memory of poor Jim Travers's parting words, "Tom, try to be better: I tell you, you won't be sorry when you come to die," restrained the angry utterance and the hasty blow.

Max Zeigler was one of those young men that are inherently mean. He was born that way, and his ugly disposition increased with his years. You occasionally meet such persons, whose nature it seems impossible to affect by any method of treatment. What was specially aggravating in Tom Gordon's place was that Zeigler seemed to feel no dislike of any one in the store besides himself. He slurred him the first day he met him, and kept it up unremittingly.

Tom's first course was to accept these slurs in silence. His face often flushed, when he saw the smiles on the countenances of the other clerks, excited by some cutting witticism of Zeigler at the expense of himself.

His tormentor accepted the silence as proof of the timidity or rather cowardice of the new employee, and rattled off his insults faster than ever. While kindness as a rule will disarm a foe, there are some ingrates so const.i.tuted that it moves them the other way. When Tom replied gently to Zeigler, and asked him privately why he annoyed him without cause, the fellow sneered the more at him. He took pains to indulge in profanity and obscenity before Tom, and received the full reward he sought when he saw how much his course grieved him.

Finally Tom struck the remedy. It was simple. He showed perfect indifference toward his persecutor. When Zeigler made a cutting remark, he acted as if he did not hear him. He continued his conversation with another; and though his enemy repeated his words, they did not seem to enter the ears of Tom. Even when Zeigler put a question direct to him, it was ignored.

It then became the turn of Zeigler to flush at the general smile that went round. At last he had been rebuffed.

One afternoon, when there was little custom in the store, Tom entered one of the rear rooms, where were Zeigler and two other clerks. The fellow's heart rankled at the snubbing he had received, and he was plotting some way of "getting even" with the sanctimonious fellow, who would never swear or indulge in a coa.r.s.e word.

"This is just the place for a wrestling match," remarked Zeigler. "Gordon, I will go you."

There was no ignoring this challenge. Tom was a wonderfully fine wrestler, but none present knew it. He affected to be timid.

"You are bigger than I, and it would hardly be fair," replied Tom, surveying the bulky form of his challenger.

"O pshaw! you are as heavy as I; besides, I will let you down easy."

"Try him, Gordon," whispered one of the clerks.

"If you will promise not to throw me too hard," said Tom doubtfully, "I will take one turn with you."

"Of course I won't hurt you," grinned Zeigler, eager for the chance to humiliate the fellow whom he despised.

All saw his purpose, and none more plainly than Tom himself.

The two doffed their coats and vests, and took their station in the middle of the room, with their arms interlocked. Tom pretended an awkwardness which deceived the others, and convinced Zeigler, to use a common expression, he had a "cinch" in this little affair.

They struggled for a minute, and then, with the suddenness seemingly of a flash of lightning, Zeigler's heels shot toward the ceiling, and he came down on his back with a crash that shook the windows.

"I thought you knew something about wrestling," remarked Tom, standing erect, and looking down on him with a smile, "but you don't know anything at all."

The two spectators were convulsed with laughter. Zeigler's face was a fiery crimson, and he scrambled to his feet in a fury.

"That was a slip; you can't do it again!" he exclaimed, springing at Tom and hastily locking arms with him.

"All right; we'll see. Now do your best, for I mean to throw you just as I did a minute ago. Are you ready?"

"Of course I am; go ahead."

Zeigler was not lacking in a certain skill. The lesson he had just received was not lost on him. He was cautious, tricky, and alert--more so than Tom suspected, and he put forth the utmost cunning of which he was capable.

They twisted, swayed back and forth, and once Tom came within a hair of falling, owing to a slight slip of one foot. But he was on his mettle, and, putting forth his whole might and ability, he flung his antagonist on his back with a violence that almost drove the breath from his body.

"Fudge!" remarked Tom, turning away in disgust; "I'll give you a few lessons if you wish to learn how to wrestle. Any way, you had better take lessons of some person before you bother _me_ again."

The other two clerks had dropped upon the nearest stools, and were holding their sides with mirth.

"Zeigler," said one, when he recovered speech, "that's too big a contract for you; you can't deliver the goods."

"You'll have to pay for those window-panes you shook out," added the other.

"I've got a set of boxing-gloves here," growled Zeigler, who tried to a.s.sume an indifference, as he brushed off his clothes and looked up with flaming face. "I'd like to try you with them."

"I'm agreeable," replied Tom, who had seen Zeigler bang the other clerks around with the gloves as he pleased. "I learned something of the business when I was a newsboy. I hope you are better at it than you are at wrestling."