The Store Boy

CHAPTER XVII WHAT THE LETTER CONTAINED

“I hear there is a let­ter for me, Mr. Brown,” said Ben to the post­mas­ter, who was fold­ing the evening pa­pers, of which he re­ceived a par­cel from the city by the af­ter­noon train.

“Yes, Ben,” an­swered the post­mas­ter, smil­ing. “It ap­pears to be from a la­dy in New York. You must have im­proved your time dur­ing your re­cent vis­it to the city.”

“I made the ac­quain­tance of one la­dy old­er than my moth­er,” an­swered Ben. “I didn't flirt with her any.”

“At any rate, I should judge that she be­came in­ter­est­ed in you or she wouldn't write.”

“I hope she did, for she is very wealthy,” re­turned Ben.

The let­ter was placed in his hands, and he quick­ly tore it open.

Some­thing dropped from it.

“What is that?” asked the post­mas­ter.

Ben stooped and picked it up, and, to his sur­prise, dis­cov­ered that it was a ten-​dol­lar bill.

“That's a cor­re­spon­dent worth hav­ing,” said Mr. Brown jo­cose­ly. “Can't you give me a let­ter of in­tro­duc­tion?”

Ben didn't an­swer, for he was by this time deep the let­ter. We will look over his shoul­der and read it with him. It ran thus:

"No. ---- Madi­son Av­enue, New York, Oc­to­ber 5.

"My Dear Young Friend:

"Will you come to New York and call up­on me? I have a very pleas­ant re­mem­brance of you and the ser­vice you did me re­cent­ly, and think I can em­ploy you in oth­er ways, to our mu­tu­al ad­van­tage. I am will­ing to pay you a high­er salary than you are re­ceiv­ing in your coun­try home, be­sides pro­vid­ing you with a home in my own house. I in­close ten dol­lars for ex­pens­es. Yours, with best wish­es,

“He­len Hamil­ton”

Ben's heart beat with joy­ful ex­cite­ment as he read this let­ter. It could not have come at a bet­ter time, for, as we know, he was out of em­ploy­ment, and, of course, earn­ing noth­ing.

“Well, Ben,” said the post­mas­ter, whose cu­rios­ity was ex­cit­ed, is it good news?"

“I should say it was,” said Ben em­phat­ical­ly. “I am of­fered a good sit­ua­tion in New York.”

“You don't say so! How much are of­fered?”

“I am to get more than Mr. Craw­ford paid me and board in a fine house be­sides--a brown­stone house on Madi­son Av­enue.”

“Well, I de­clare! You are in luck,” ejac­ulat­ed Mr. Brown. “What are you to do?”

“That's more than I know. Here is the let­ter, if you like to read it.”

“It reads well. She must be a gen­er­ous la­dy. But what will your moth­er say?”

“That's what I want to know,” said Ben, look­ing sud­den­ly sober. “I hate to leave her, but it is for my good.”

“Moth­ers are self-​sac­ri­fic­ing when the in­ter­ests of their chil­dren are con­cerned.”

“I know that,” said Ben prompt­ly; “and I've got one of the best moth­ers go­ing.”

“So you have. Ev­ery one likes and re­spects Mrs. Bar­clay.”

Any boy, who is worth any­thing, likes to hear his moth­er praised, and Ben liked Mr. Brown bet­ter for this trib­ute to the one whom he loved best on earth. He was not slow in mak­ing his way home. He went at once to the kitchen, where his moth­er was en­gaged in mix­ing bread.

“What's the mat­ter, Ben? You look ex­cit­ed,” said Mrs. Barkley.

“So I am, moth­er. I am of­fered a po­si­tion.”

“Not in the store?”

“No; it is in New York.”

“In New York!” re­peat­ed his moth­er, in a trou­bled voice. “It would cost you all you could make to pay your board in some cheap board­ing house. If it were re­al­ly go­ing to be for your own good, I might con­sent to part with you, but--”

“Read that let­ter, moth­er,” said Ben. “You will see that I shall have an el­egant home and a salary be­sides. It is a chance in a thou­sand.”

Mrs. Bar­clay read the let­ter care­ful­ly.

“Can I go, moth­er?” Ben asked anx­ious­ly.

“It will be a sac­ri­fice for me to part with you,” re­turned his moth­er slow­ly; “but I agree with you that it is a rare chance, and I should be do­ing wrong to stand in the way of your good for­tune. Mrs. Hamil­ton must have formed a very good opin­ion of you.”

“She may be dis­ap­point­ed in me,” said Ben mod­est­ly.

“I don't think she will,” said Mrs. Bar­clay, with a proud and af­fec­tion­ate glance at her boy. “You have al­ways been a good son, and that is the best of rec­om­men­da­tions.”

“I am afraid you are too par­tial, moth­er. I shall hate to leave you alone.”

“I can bear lone­li­ness if I know you are pros­per­ing, Ben.”

“And it will on­ly be for a time, moth­er. When I am a young man and earn­ing a good in­come, I shall want you to come and live with me.”

“All in good time, Ben. How soon do you want to go?”

“I think it bet­ter to lose no time, moth­er. You know I have no work to keep me in Pen­tonville.”

“But it will take two or three days to get your clothes ready.”

“You can send them to me by ex­press. I shall send you the ad­dress.”

Mrs. Bar­clay was a fond moth­er, but she was al­so a sen­si­ble wom­an. She felt that Ben was right, and, though it seemed very sud­den, she gave him her per­mis­sion to start the next morn­ing. Had she ob­ject­ed stren­uous­ly, Ben would have giv­en up his plan, much as he de­sired it, for he felt that his moth­er had the strongest claims up­on him, and he would not have been will­ing to run counter to her wish­es.

“Where are you go­ing, Ben?” asked his moth­er, as Ben put on his hat and moved to­ward the door.

“I thought I would like to call on Rose Gar­diner to say good-​by,” an­swered Ben.

“Quite right, my son. Rose is a good friend of yours, and an ex­cel­lent girl”

“I say dit­to to that, moth­er,” Ben an­swered warm­ly.

I am not go­ing to rep­re­sent Ben as be­ing in love--he was too young for that--but, like many boys of his age, he felt a spe­cial at­trac­tion in the so­ci­ety of one young girl. His good taste was cer­tain­ly not at fault in his choice of Rose Gar­diner, who, far from be­ing frivolous and fash­ion­able, was a girl of ster­ling traits, who was not above mak­ing her­self use­ful in the house­hold of which she formed a part.

On his way to the home of Rose Gar­diner, Ben met Tom Dav­en­port.

“How are you get­ting along?” asked Tom, not out of in­ter­est, but cu­rios­ity.

“Very well, thank you.”

“Have you got through help­ing the farmer?”

“Yes.”

“It was a very long job. Have you thought bet­ter of com­ing to saw wood for fa­ther?”

“No; I have thought worse of it,” an­swered Ben, smil­ing.

“You are too proud. Poor and proud don't agree.”

“Not at all. I would have had no ob­jec­tion to the work. It was the pay I didn't like.”

“You can't earn more than forty cents a day at any­thing else.”

“You are mis­tak­en. I am go­ing to New York to-​mor­row to take a place, where I get board and con­sid­er­able more mon­ey be­sides.”

“Is that true?” asked Tom, look­ing as if he had lost his best friend.

“Quite so. The par­ty in­closed ten dol­lars to pay my ex­pens­es up to the city.”

“He must be a fool.”

“Thank you. It hap­pens to be a la­dy.”

“What are you to do?”

“I don't know yet. I am sure I shall be well paid. I must ask you to ex­cuse me now, as I am go­ing to call on Rose Gar­diner to bid her good-​by.”

“I dare say she would ex­cuse you,” said Tom, with a sneer.

“Per­haps so; but I wouldn't like to go with­out say­ing good-​by.”

“At any rate, he will be out of my way,” thought Tom, “and I can mo­nop­olize Rose. I'm glad he's go­ing.”

He bade Ben an un­usu­al­ly civ­il good-​night at this thought oc­curred to him.