The Store Boy

CHAPTER XV BEN LOSES HIS PLACE

Ben did not find him­self im­me­di­ate­ly out of em­ploy­ment. The next morn­ing Mr. Craw­ford com­menced the work of as­cer­tain­ing what ar­ti­cles he had saved, and stor­ing them. Luck­ily there was a va­cant store which had once been used for a tai­lor's shop, but had been un­oc­cu­pied for a year or more. This he hired, and at once re­moved his goods to it. But he did not dis­play his usu­al en­er­gy. He was a man of over six­ty, and no longer pos­sessed the en­ter­prise and am­bi­tion which had once char­ac­ter­ized him. Be­sides, he was very com­fort­ably off, or would be when he ob­tained the in­sur­ance mon­ey.

“I don't know what I shall do,” he said, when ques­tioned. “I was brought up on a farm, and I al­ways meant to end my days on one. Per­haps now is as well any time, since my busi­ness is bro­ken up.”

This came to the ears of Squire Dav­en­port, who was al­ways keen-​scent­ed for a bar­gain. His wife's cousin, Mr. Kirk, who has al­ready been in­tro­duced to the read­er, had, in his ear­li­er days, served as a clerk in a coun­try store. He had no cap­ital, to be sure, but the squire had plen­ty. It oc­curred to him as a good plan to buy out the busi­ness him­self, hire Kirk on a salary to con­duct it, and so add con­sid­er­ably to his al­ready hand­some in­come. He sent for Kirk, as­cer­tained that he was not on­ly will­ing, but anx­ious, to man­age the busi­ness, and then he called on Mr. Craw­ford.

It is un­nec­es­sary to de­tail the ne­go­ti­ations that en­sued. It was Squire Dav­en­port's wish to ob­tain the busi­ness as cheap­ly as pos­si­ble. The store­keep­er, how­ev­er, had his own es­ti­mate of its worth, and the squire was obliged to add con­sid­er­able to his first of­fer. In the end, how­ev­er, he se­cured it on ad­van­ta­geous terms, and Mr. Craw­ford now felt able to car­ry out the plan he had long had in view.

It was in the evening, a week af­ter the fire, that the bar­gain was struck, and Ben was one of the first to hear of it.

When he came to work ear­ly the next morn­ing he found his em­ploy­er in the store be­fore him, which was not usu­al.

“You are ear­ly, Mr. Craw­ford,” he said, in ev­ident sur­prise.

“Yes, Ben,” was the re­ply. “I can af­ford to come ear­ly for a morn­ing or two, as I shall soon be out of busi­ness.”

“You haven't sold out, have you?” in­quired Ben quick­ly.

“Yes; the bar­gain was struck last evening.”

“How soon do you leave the store?”

“In three days. It will take that time to make up my ac­counts.”

“I am sor­ry,” said Ben, “for I sup­pose I shall have to re­tire, too.”

“I don't know about that, Ben. Very like­ly my suc­ces­sor may want you.”

“That de­pends on who he is. Do you mind telling me, or is it a se­cret?”

“Oh, no; it will have to come out, of course. Squire Dav­en­port has bought the busi­ness.”

“The squire isn't go­ing to keep the store, is he?” asked Ben, in amaze­ment.

“No; though he will, no doubt, su­per­vise it. He will em­ploy a man­ag­er.”

“Do you know who is to be the man­ag­er, Mr. Craw­ford?”

“Some con­nec­tion of his named Kirk.”

Ben whis­tled.

“Do you know him?” the store­keep­er was led to in­quire.

“I have not seen him, but he called with the squire on my moth­er,” said Ben sig­nif­icant­ly.

“I shall be glad to rec­om­mend you to him.”

“It will be of no use, Mr. Craw­ford,” an­swered Ben, in a de­cid­ed tone. “I know he wouldn't em­ploy me, nor would I work for him if he would. Nei­ther he nor the squire is a friend of mine.”

“I did not dream of this, Ben. I am sor­ry if the step I have tak­en is go­ing to de­prive you of em­ploy­ment,” said Mr. Craw­ford, who was a kind-​heart­ed man, and felt a sin­cere in­ter­est in his young clerk.

“Nev­er mind, Mr. Craw­ford, I am not cast down. There will be oth­er open­ings for me. I am young, strong, and will­ing to work, and I am sure I shall find some­thing to do.”

“That's right, Ben. Cheer up, and if I hear of any good chance, rest as­sured that I will let you know of it.”

Tom Dav­en­port was not long in hear­ing of his fa­ther's bar­gain. He heard it with un­feigned plea­sure, for it oc­curred to him at once that Ben, for whom he had a feel­ing of ha­tred, by no means cred­itable to him, would be thrown out of em­ploy­ment.

“Promise me, pa, that you won't em­ploy Ben Bar­clay,” he said.

“I have no in­ten­tion of em­ploy­ing that boy,” said his fa­ther. “Mr. Kirk has a son of his own, about Ben's age, and will, no doubt, put him in­to the store, un­less you should choose to go in and learn the busi­ness.”

“What! I be­come a store boy!” ex­claimed Tom, in dis­gust. “No, thank you. I might be will­ing to be­come sales­man in a large es­tab­lish­ment in the city, but I don't care to go in­to a coun­try gro­cery.”

“It wouldn't do you any harm,” said the squire, who was not quite so high-​mind­ed as his son. “How­ev­er, I mere­ly men­tioned it as some­thing you could do if you chose.”

“Bah! I don't choose it,” said Tom de­cid­ed­ly.

“Well, well; you won't have to do it.”

“It would put me on a lev­el with Ben Bar­clay, if I stepped in­to his shoes. Won't he be down in the month when he hears he has lost his place?” and Tom chuck­led at the thought.

“That is no con­cern of mine,” said the squire. “I sup­pose he can hire out to a farmer.”

“Just the busi­ness for him”, said Tom, “un­less he should pre­fer to go to New York and set up as a boot­black. I be­lieve I'll sug­gest that to him!”

“Prob­ably he won't thank you for the sug­ges­tion.”

“I guess not. He's as proud as he is poor. It's amus­ing to see what airs he puts on.”

Squire Dav­en­port, how­ev­er, was not so much in­ter­est­ed in that phase of the sub­ject as Tom, and did not re­ply.

“I think I'll go down street,” thought Tom. “Per­haps I may come across Ben. I shall en­joy see­ing how he takes it.”

Tom had scarce­ly walked a hun­dred yards when he met, not the one of whom he had thought, but an­oth­er to whom he felt glad to speak on the same sub­ject. This was Rose Gar­diner, the pret­ti­est girl in the vil­lage, who had al­ready deeply of­fend­ed Tom by ac­cept­ing Ben as her es­cort from the mag­ical en­ter­tain­ment in place of him. He had made ad­vances since, be­ing de­sirous of oust­ing Ben from his po­si­tion of fa­vorite, but the young la­dy had treat­ed him cold­ly, much to his anger and mor­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“Good-​morn­ing, Miss Rose,” said Tom.

“Good-​morn­ing,” an­swered Rose civil­ly.

“Have you heard the news?”

“To what news do you re­fer?”

“Craw­ford has sold out his busi­ness.”

“In­deed!” said Rose, in sur­prise; “who has bought it?”

“My fa­ther. Of course, he won't keep store him­self. He will put in a con­nec­tion of ours, Mr. Kirk.”

“This is news, in­deed! Where is Mr. Craw­ford go­ing?”

“I don't know, I'm sure. I thought you'd be more apt to in­quire about some­body else?”

“I am not good at guess­ing enig­mas,” said Rose.

“Your friend, Ben Bar­clay,” re­turned Tom, with a sneer. “Fa­ther won't have him in the store!”

“Oh, I see; you are go­ing to take his place,” said Rose mis­chievous­ly.

“I? What do you take me for?” said Tom, haugh­ti­ly. “I sup­pose Ben Bar­clay will have to go to work on a farm.”

“That is a very hon­or­able em­ploy­ment,” said Rose calm­ly.

“Yes; he can be a hired man when he grows up. Per­haps, though, he will pre­fer to go to the city and be­come a boot­black.”

“Ben ought to be very much obliged to you for the in­ter­est you feel in his wel­fare,” said Rose, look­ing steadi­ly and scorn­ful­ly at Tom. “Good-​morn­ing.”

“She feels sore about it,” thought Tom com­pla­cent­ly. “She won't be quite so ready to ac­cept Ben's at­ten­tions when he is a farm la­bor­er.”

Tom, how­ev­er, did not un­der­stand Rose Gar­diner. She was a girl of good sense, and her es­ti­mate of oth­ers was found­ed on some­thing else than so­cial po­si­tion.