Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XXIV ANDY'S JOURNEY

To­ward the first of April of the suc­ceed­ing year, Miss Sophia Grant took a se­vere cold, not se­ri­ous, in­deed, but such as to make it pru­dent for her to re­main in­doors. This oc­ca­sioned a lit­tle de­range­ment of her sis­ter's plans; for both sis­ters were in the habit, about the first of April and of Oc­to­ber, of tak­ing a jour­ney to Boston--part­ly for a change, and part­ly be­cause at these times cer­tain banks in which they owned stock de­clared div­idends, which they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to col­lect. But this spring it seemed doubt­ful if they could go. Yet they want­ed the mon­ey--a part of it, at least.

“Send An­drew,” sug­gest­ed Miss Sophia, af­ter her sis­ter had stat­ed the dif­fi­cul­ty.

In gen­er­al Miss Priscil­la did not ap­prove Sophia's sug­ges­tions, but this struck her more fa­vor­ably.

“I don't know but we might,” she said, slow­ly. “He is a boy to be trust­ed.”

“Just so.”

“And I think he is a smart boy.”

“Just so.”

“He can take care of him­self. You re­mem­ber how he saved Colonel Pre­ston from the rob­ber?”

“Just so.”

“Then, on the oth­er hand, he has nev­er been to Boston.”

“He could ask.”

“I don't sup­pose there would be any par­tic­ular dif­fi­cul­ty. I could give him all the nec­es­sary di­rec­tions.”

“Just so.”

“I'll pro­pose it to him.”

So, af­ter sup­per, as Andy was go­ing out in­to the wood­shed for an arm­ful of wood, Miss Priscil­la stopped him.

“Were you ev­er in Boston, Andy?” asked she.

“No, ma'am.”

“I wish you had been.”

“Why, ma'am?”

“Be­cause I should like to send you there on some busi­ness.”

“I'll go, ma'am,” said Andy, ea­ger­ly.

Like most boys of his age, no propo­si­tion could have been more agree­able.

“Do you think you could find your way there, and around the city?”

“No fear of that, ma'am,” said Andy, con­fi­dent­ly.

“We gen­er­al­ly go our­selves, as you know, but my sis­ter is sick, and I don't like to leave her.”

“Of course not, ma'am,” said Andy, quite ap­prov­ing any plan that opened the way for a jour­ney to him.

“We own bank stock, and on the first of April they pay us div­idends. Now, if we send you, do you think you can get to the bank, get the mon­ey, and bring it back safe?”

“I'll do it for you, ma'am,” said Andy.

“Well, I'll think of it be­tween now and next week. If we send you at all, you must start next Mon­day.”

“I'll go any day, ma'am,” said Andy, “any day you name.”

Miss Priscil­la fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed to send An­drew, but cau­tioned him against say­ing any­thing about it, ex­cept to his own fam­ily.

On Mon­day morn­ing, just be­fore the morn­ing train was to start, An­drew ap­peared on the plat­form of the mod­est vil­lage de­pot with a small car­pet­bag in his hand, lent him by the Miss­es Grant.

“Give me a tick­et to Boston,” said he to the sta­tion mas­ter.

God­frey Pre­ston, who was about to re­turn to his board­ing school, had just pur­chased a tick­et, and over­heard this. He didn't much care to speak to Andy, but his cu­rios­ity over­came his pride.

“Are you go­ing to Boston?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Andy.

“What are you go­ing for?”

“Im­por­tant busi­ness.”

“Has Miss Grant turned you off?”

“She didn't say any­thing about it this morn­ing. Why, do you want to take my place?”

“Do you think I'd stoop to be a hired boy?” said God­frey, haugh­ti­ly.

“You wouldn't need to stoop,” said Andy; “you ain't any too tall.”

God­frey winced at this. He was not tall of his age, and he want­ed to be. Andy had been grow­ing faster than he, and was now, though scarce­ly as old, quite two inch­es taller.

“It makes no dif­fer­ence about be­ing tall,” he re­joined. “I am a gen­tle­man, and don't have to work for a liv­ing like you do.”

“What are you go­ing to be when you grow up?”

“A lawyer.”

“Then won't you work for mon­ey?”

“Of course.”

“Then you'll be a hired man, and work for a liv­ing.”

“That's very dif­fer­ent. When are you com­ing back?”

“When I've fin­ished my busi­ness.”

“How soon will that be?”

“I can't tell yet.”

“Humph! I shouldn't won­der if you were run­ning away.”

“Don't you tell any­body,” said Andy, in a ban­ter­ing tone.

“Where did you get the mon­ey to pay for your tick­et?”

“What would you give to know?”

“You are im­pu­dent,” said God­frey, his cheek flush­ing.

“So are your ques­tions,” said Andy.

“I dare say you stole it.”

“Look here, God­frey Pre­ston,” said Andy, roused to in­dig­na­tion by this in­sin­ua­tion, “you'd bet­ter not say that again, if you know what's best for your­self.”

He ad­vanced a step with a threat­en­ing look, and God­frey in­stinc­tive­ly re­ced­ed.

“That comes of my speak­ing to my in­fe­ri­or,” he said.

“You can't do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know any­body that's in­fe­ri­or to you.”

God­frey turned on his heel wrath­ful­ly, mut­ter­ing some­thing about a “low beg­gar,” which Andy, not hear­ing, did not re­sent.

The whis­tle of the lo­co­mo­tive was heard, and the cars came along.

With high an­tic­ipa­tion of plea­sure, Andy got aboard. He had be­fore him a jour­ney of close up­on a hun­dred miles, and he wished it had been longer. He had nev­er been much of a trav­el­er, and the scenes which were to greet his eyes were all nov­el. He had heard a good deal of Boston al­so, and he want­ed to see it.

Be­sides the mon­ey which Miss Grant had giv­en him to de­fray his ex­pens­es, he had with him ten dol­lars of his own. Since his moth­er had re­ceived the two do­na­tions from Colonel Pre­ston she made Andy keep half his wages for his own use. These were now sev­en dol­lars a week, so he kept three and a half, and of this sum was able to lay up about half. So he had a sup­ply of mon­ey in his trunk, of which he had tak­en with him ten dol­lars.

“Maybe I'll see some­thing I want to buy in the city,” he said to him­self.

I don't mean to dwell up­on the jour­ney. There is noth­ing very ex­cit­ing in a rail­way trip, even of a hun­dred miles, nowa­days, un­less, in­deed, the cars run off the track, or over the em­bank­ment, and then it is al­to­geth­er too ex­cit­ing to be agree­able. For the sake of my young hero, whom I re­al­ly be­gin to like, though he was “on­ly an Irish boy,” I am glad to say that noth­ing of that sort took place; but in good time--about the time when the clock on the Old South steeple in­di­cat­ed noon--Andy's train drove in­to the Boston & Maine Rail­way de­pot, fronting on Hay­mar­ket Square.

“In­quire your way to Wash­ing­ton Street.”

That was the first di­rec­tion that Andy had re­ceived from Miss Priscil­la, and that was what our hero did first.

The ques­tion was ad­dressed to a very civ­il young man, who po­lite­ly gave Andy the nec­es­sary di­rec­tions. So, in a short time, he reached Wash­ing­ton Street by way of Court Street.

The next thing was to in­quire the way to the Mer­chants' Bank, that be­ing the one in which the ladies owned the largest amount of stock.

“Where is the Mer­chants' Bank?” asked Andy of a boy, whose black­ing-​box de­not­ed his oc­cu­pa­tion.

“I'll show you, mis­ter,” said the boy. “Come along.” His young guide, in­stead of tak­ing him to the bank, took him to the side door of the court-​house, and said:

“Go in there.”

It was a mas­sive stone build­ing, and Andy, not sus­pect­ing that he was be­ing fooled, went in. Wan­der­ing at ran­dom, he found his way in­to a room, where a tri­al was go­ing on. That opened his eyes.

“He cheat­ed me,” thought Andy. “Maybe I'll get even with him.”

He re­traced his steps, and again found him­self in the street. His fraud­ulent young guide, with a grin on a face not over clean, was await­ing his ap­pear­ance.