Try Again Part 21

"Thank you, sir; I shall be very glad of the chance."

"Very well; but if you work for me, you must get up early in the morning, and be wide awake."

"I will, sir."

"Now, we will see about a place for you to sleep."

Over the counting room was an apartment in which two of the ostlers slept. There was room for another bed, and one was immediately set up for Harry's use.

Once more, then, our hero was at home, if a mere abiding place deserves that hallowed name. It was not an elegant, or even a commodious, apartment in which Harry was to sleep. The walls were dingy and black; the beds looked as though they had never been clean; and there was a greasy smell which came from several harnesses that were kept there. It was comfortable, if not poetical; and Harry soon felt perfectly at home.

His first duty was to cultivate the acquaintance of the ostlers. He found them to be rough, good-natured men, not over-scrupulous about their manners or their morals. If it does not occur to my young readers, it will to their parents, that this was not a fit place for a boy--that he was in constant contact with corruption. His companions were good-hearted men; but this circ.u.mstance rendered them all the more dangerous. There was no fireside of home, at which the evil effects of communication with men of loose morals would be counteracted. Harry had not been an hour in their society before he caught himself using a big oath--which, when he had gone to bed, he heartily repented, renewing his resolution with the promise to try again.

He was up bright and early the next morning, made a fire in the counting room, and had let out half the horses in the stable to water, before Major Phillips came out. His services were in demand, as Joe Flint, for some reason, had not come to the stable that morning.

The stable keeper declared that he had gone on a "spree," and told Harry he might take his place.

Harry did take his place; and the ostlers declared that, in everything but cleaning the horses, he made good his place. The knowledge and skill which he had obtained at the poorhouse was of great value to him; and, at night, though he was very tired, he was satisfied that he had done a good day's work.

The ostlers took their meals at the house of Major Phillips, which stood at one side of the stable yard. Harry did not like Mrs. Phillips very well; she was cross, and the men said she was a "regular Tartar."

But he was resolved to keep the peace. He afterwards found it a difficult matter; for he had to bring wood and water, and do other ch.o.r.es about the house, and he soon ascertained that she was determined not to be pleased with anything he did. He tried to keep his temper, however, and meekly submitted to all her scolding and grumbling.

Thus far, while Harry has been pa.s.sing through the momentous period of his life with which we commenced his story, we have minutely detailed the incidents of his daily life, so that we have related the events of only a few days. This is no longer necessary. He has got a place, and of course one day is very much like every other. The reader knows him now--knows what kind of boy he is, and what his hopes and expectations are. The reader knows, too, the great moral epoch in his history--the event which roused his consciousness of error, and stimulated him to become better; that he has a talisman in his mind, which can be no better expressed than by those words he so often repeated, "She hoped he would be a good boy." And her angel smile went with him to encourage him in the midst of trial and temptation--to give him the victory over the foes that a.s.sailed him.

We shall henceforth give results, instead of a daily record, stopping to detail only the great events of his career.

We shall pa.s.s over three months, during which time he worked diligently and faithfully for Major Phillips. Every day had its trials and temptations; not a day pa.s.sed in which there were none. The habit of using profane language he found it very hard to eradicate; but he persevered; and though he often sinned, he as often repented and tried again, until he had fairly mastered the enemy. It was a great triumph, especially when it is remembered that he was surrounded by those whose every tenth word at least was an oath.

He was tempted to lie, tempted to neglect his work, tempted to steal, tempted in a score of other things. And often he yielded; but the remembrance of the little angel, and the words of the good Book she had given him, cheered and supported him as he struggled on.

Harry's finances were in a tolerably prosperous condition. With his earnings he had bought a suit of clothes, and went to church half a day every Sunday. Besides his wages, he had saved about five dollars from the "perquisites" which he received from customers for holding their horses, running errands, and other little services a boy could perform. He was very careful and prudent with his money; and whenever he added anything to his little h.o.a.rd, he thought of the man who had become rich by saving up his fourpences. He still cherished his purpose to become a rich man, and it is very likely he had some brilliant antic.i.p.ations of success. Not a cent did he spend foolishly, though it was hard work to resist the inclination to buy the fine things that tempted him from the shop windows.

Those who knew him best regarded him as a very strange boy; but that was only because he was a little out of his element. He would have preferred to be among men who did not bl.u.s.ter and swear; but, in spite of them, he had the courage and the fort.i.tude to be true to himself.

The little angel still maintained her ascendency in his moral nature.

The ostlers laughed at him when he took out his little Bible, before he went to bed, to drink of the waters of life. They railed at him, called him "Little Pious," and tried to induce him to pitch cents, in the back yard, on Sunday afternoon, instead of going to church. He generally bore these taunts with patience, though sometimes his high spirit would get the better of his desire to be what the little angel wished him to be.

John Lane put up at the stable once a week; and, every time he returned to Rockville, he carried a written or a verbal account of the prosperity of the little pauper boy. One Sunday, he wrote her a long letter all about "being good"--how he was tempted, and how he struggled for her sake and for the sake of the truth.

In return, he often received messages and letters from her, breathing the same pure spirit which she had manifested when she "fed him in the wilderness." These communications strengthened his moral nature, and enabled him to resist temptation. He felt just as though she was an angel sent into the world to watch over him. Perhaps he had fallen without them; at any rate, her influence was very powerful.

About the middle of January, when the earth was covered with snow, and the bleak, cold winds of winter blew over the city, John Lane informed Harry, on his arrival, that Julia was very sick with the scarlet fever and canker rash, and it was feared she would not recover.

This was the most severe trial of all. He wept when he thought of her sweet face reddened with the flush of fever; and he fled to his chamber, to vent his emotions in silence and solitude.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH HARRY DOES A GOOD DEED, AND DETERMINES TO "FACE THE MUSIC"

While Harry sat by the stove in the ostlers' room, grieving at the intelligence he had received from Rockville, a little girl, so lame that she walked with a crutch, hobbled into the apartment.

"Is my father here?" she asked, in tones so sad that Harry could not help knowing she was in distress.

"I don't know as I am acquainted with your father," replied Harry.

"He is one of the ostlers here."

"Oh, Joseph Flint!"

"Yes; he has not been home to dinner or supper to-day, and mother is very sick."

"I haven't seen him to-day."

"O, dear! What will become of us?" sighed the little girl, as she hobbled away.

Harry was struck by the sad appearance of the girl, and the desponding words she uttered. Of late, Joe Flint's vile habit of intemperance had grown upon him so rapidly that he did not work at the stable more than one day in three. For two months, Major Phillips had been threatening to discharge him; and nothing but kindly consideration for his family had prevented him from doing so.

"Have you seen Joe to-day?" asked Harry of one of the ostlers, who came into the room soon after the departure of the little girl.

"No, and don't want to see him," replied Abner, testily; for, in Joe's absence, his work had to be done by the other ostlers, who did not feel very kindly towards him.

"His little girl has just been here after him."

"Very likely he hasn't been home for a week," added Abner. "I should think his family would be very thankful if they never saw him again.

He is a nuisance to himself and everybody else."

"Where does he live?"

"Just up in Avery Street--in a ten-footer there."

"The little girl said her mother was very sick."

"I dare say. She is always sick; and I don't much wonder. Joe Flint is enough to make any one sick. He has been drunk about two-thirds of the time for two months."

"I don't see how his family get along."

"Nor I, either."

After Abner had warmed himself, he left the room. Harry was haunted by the sad look and desponding tones of the poor lame girl. It was a bitter cold evening; and what if Joe's family were suffering with the cold and hunger! It was sad to think of such a thing; and Harry was deeply moved.

"She hoped I would be a good boy. She is very sick now, and perhaps she will die," said Harry to himself. "What would she do, if she were here now?"

He knew very well what she would do, and he determined to do it himself. His heart was so deeply moved by the picture of sorrow and suffering with which his imagination had invested the home of the intemperate ostler that it required no argument to induce him to go.