CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN BUSINESS FOR HIMSELF.

Only strong characters are able to lift themselves out of poverty and adversity by sheer force of will, unaided by any one. Such a character Herbert Randolph proved himself to be. For nearly three months he had faced the most discouraging prospects. With education, with a knowledge of accounts, with splendid intelligence, with manly pride and n.o.ble ambition, he went from luxurious banking apartments to the cold wintry streets, down, down the cheerless and grim descent, till he reached the bottom, where he found himself in compet.i.tion with the dregs of humanity--one of them, as far as his employment went. Imagine this proud spirited boy humbled to the degree of bidding side by side for work with a ragged Italian, a broken down and blear eyed drunkard, a cruel faced refugee from the penitentiary, or a wretched, unkempt tramp. How his young, brave heart must have ached as he found himself working on the hoist or in the street with loathsome characters of this sort--characters that purity and self respect could only shun as a pestilence.

But this he was forced to do--either this, or to acknowledge his city career a failure, and return home with crushed spirits and shattered pride, a disappointment to his father and mother and the b.u.t.t of rude rural jokes for his more or less envious neighbors.

The latter is just what most boys would have done, but not so young Randolph. His eyes were closed to any such escape from his present wretched condition. Herein he showed his superior strength. But how little he realized, as he worked with dogged determination at these cheerless tasks, that this very employment would lead him into the light, as it ultimately did. Boys see nothing but drudgery in such employment, or in any humble position. They want to commence work at something genteel. An easy clerical position like the one young Randolph had with Mr. Goldwin appeals strongly to their taste. Fine clothes, white hands, little work and short hours--these are in great demand among boys. Young Randolph, indeed, was no exception to the rule. He sought a position in a bank and got it. Fortunately for him, however, the bank failed, and he was thrown into the streets. But for this he would have been a clerk still--a little three dollar machine, which bears no patent, and possesses no especial value over the ten thousand other machines capable of performing similar work. His dream of wealth and position would in all probability never have materialized. He would doubtless have in time become a head clerk at a respectable salary. But how little this would have satisfied his ambition! His desire to be at the head of the firm could never have been realized, for he would not have had the money to place himself there. The result would have been clerking, clerking, miserable, aimless clerking, and nothing more.

But now, through what seemed to him his misfortune had come good fortune--through the drudgery of the hoist had come a business of his own--a growing, paying, business--_a business of great possibilities_.

The suffering he had undergone did him no permanent harm. On the contrary it enabled him to appreciate more keenly the opportunity he now had for making money and supplying himself with the necessaries, and some of the luxuries, of life.

Young Randolph's brokerage business grew day by day as he added new customers and learned how to manage it more successfully. In a little time he saw the necessity of having a place where his customers could reach him by mail or messenger. He therefore arranged with a party on Na.s.sau Street to allow him desk room. Then followed this card:

+------------------------------------------------+ | HERBERT RANDOLPH, | | | | 111 Na.s.sAU STREET, | | | | BUYS AND SELLS NEW YORK. | | ALL KINDS OF FOREIGN COIN AND PAPER. | | | | United States Silver and Postage | | Stamps a Specialty. | +------------------------------------------------+

It was with much pleasure that he studied these neatly printed cards.

The first thing he did after receiving them from the printer was to inclose one in a letter to his mother. He had already written her glowing accounts of his growing business, and he felt that this card would give a realism to his pen pictures that he had been unable to impart. He thought long and with pride how sacredly that little bit of pasteboard would be treasured by his parents--how proudly they would show it to their neighbors, and the comments that it would bring forth.

Then he took one over to Bob Hunter, who exhibited no little surprise as he read it admiringly.

Later in the evening he and the newsboy went as usual to visit Tom Flannery, who now, poor boy, seemed to be yielding to that dread disease--consumption. How his face brightened up as he looked at the card with scarcely less pride than if it had been his own!

"I wish I could get into that business, Herbert, when I get well," said he, turning the card languidly in his thin, emaciated fingers; "you'n'

me'n' Bob. Yes, I would like that, for we always had such good times together, didn't we, Bob?"

"Yes, we did, Tom," answered Bob, tenderly. "I guess as good times as anybody ever had, even if we didn't have much money."

"So I think, Bob. I've thought of it a good many times while I've been sick here--of the detective business and all, and how grand you managed the whole thing. But then you always done everything grand, Bob. None er the boys could do it like you."

"You do some things much better than I could, Tom," said Bob.

"No, Bob. I never could do nothing like you."

"You bear your sickness more patiently than I could, and that is harder to do than anything I ever did," replied Bob.

"Well, I have to do it, you know, Bob. There ain't no other way, is there, Herb----"

The last part of the word was lost in violent coughing that racked the boy's feeble frame terribly.

"I am afraid you are talking too much, Tom," said Herbert. "We must not allow you to say any more at present."

Ten days later, and Tom had grown too weak to be dressed. Part of the time he lay bolstered up in bed, but even this taxed his strength too heavily. He had become very much wasted, and was little more than a skeleton. All hope of his recovery had been given up, and it was now simply a question of how long he could be kept alive. Bob and Herbert brought him choice fruits, and drew liberally from their slender purses, to buy for him whatever would tend to make him more comfortable or would gratify his fancy.

Poor Mrs. Flannery was almost overcome with sorrow as she saw her boy wasting away and sinking lower and lower as each day pa.s.sed by. He was her only child, and she loved him with all the force of her great mother's heart.

At length the end came. Bob and Herbert were present with the grief-stricken mother, trying to comfort her and struggling to repress the sorrow each felt at the close approach of death.

For several hours the sick boy had been in a sort of stupor from which it seemed probable that he would never rally. He lay like one dead, scarcely breathing. Towards midnight, however, he opened his eyes and looked upon the three tear stained faces beside his bed. An expression of deepest pity settled upon his countenance, and he spoke with much effort, saying:

"Don't cry, mother; don't feel so bad for me. You have Bob and Herbert left. They will look out for you when I am gone," whispered the dying boy faintly, and he turned his eyes for confirmation to the friend who had never failed him.

"Yes," answered Bob, pressing the sufferer's hand warmly. "We will do everything you could wish us to for your mother--you would have done it for either of us, Tom."

The latter's eyes moistened and grew bright with a feeling of joy at this a.s.surance from Bob--this last proof of his true friendship.

"I knew it before, mother," he said, nerving himself for the effort, "but it makes me happy to hear him say it before you--to hear him say it before I go."

"And you may rely upon me also, Tom, to join Bob in doing for your mother whatever would please you most," said Herbert, unable to keep back the hot tears.

"Yes, I am sure of that, Herbert. You and Bob are just alike, and can do more than I could if I had lived. I am so glad I knew you, Herbert,"

continued the dying boy, his face flushing with momentary animation as he recalled the past. "What good times we have had, you and me and Bob!

I thought they would last always, but--but--well I wish I might have lived to go into business with you. I would have tried my best to please you, and----"

"What is it?" asked Herbert, noticing the sufferer's hesitation.

"I was going to ask you if the business, your new business, wouldn't get big enough to take Bob in with you--to make him a partner, so he can make a lot of money, too. I was almost afraid to ask you, but----"

"That is already fixed," said Bob hoa.r.s.ely, almost overcome by the solicitude of his dying friend. "Herbert gave me an interest in the business today, and I shall commence working with him as soon as I am needed."

"I am so glad, so glad," responded the sufferer faintly, and with a smile that told plainly the joy this knowledge gave him. "It's all right now," he continued slowly, and with greater effort, for the little strength he had left was fast leaving him. "You will be taken care of, mother, and Bob will be taken care of by Herbert," he went on, sinking into a half unconscious state. "I know they will do well and will make rich men and have everything in the world that they want. I wish I could see them then with a big banking house and clerks and private offices and errand boys and electric bells and fine carriages and horses and a brown stone house in the avenue, may be."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM FLANNERY'S DEATHBED.]

In a little while he regained full consciousness as if by a powerful effort, and said in a faint whisper:

"There is one thing more, mother--my knife, my little bra.s.s knife."

Mrs. Flannery brought it and placed it in his thin hands.

He looked at it with such a strange expression of affection--a little well worn knife of inexpensive make. How long he had carried it in his pocket, how many times he had held it in his hand, and now--yes, now, he held it for the last time--only this little knife, yet his all, his only legacy.

"You won't want it, will you, mother?" said he, with moist eyes and struggling with emotion.

"No, no, Tommy," sobbed the broken hearted mother.

"I knew you wouldn't," said he, "for I want to give it to Bob. It ain't much, I know, Bob," he continued, addressing the latter; "but it's all I have. You will keep it, won't you, to remember me by? When you get to be a man--a rich business man with fine offices and a house of your own, look at this knife sometimes--my knife, and think of me, and how we used to work together. Yes, you will do so, won't you, Bob?"

"I will, Tom, I will," answered Bob, as he took the little knife into his own hands. "I will keep it always to remind me of you," and he bowed his head upon the bed beside his dying friend and cried with sincere grief.

"It's all right now," responded the sufferer. "All right," he repeated, as his mother pressed her lips to his forehead.

"All right," again, so feebly that the last word fainted half spoken by his dying lips.

In a few moments the last death struggle was over. He was gone, poor Tom, the honest, trustful boy with a pure heart and n.o.ble friendship--cut off in the morning of his life by a sickness brought on by exposure, and an exposure made necessary that he might earn the means to supply his humble wants. A cruel world this seems sometimes, when one reflects how unevenly the joys and sorrows, and luxuries and misery are distributed among brothers and sisters, neighbors and countrymen.