Crowded Out o' Crofield Part 33

He had eaten ten cents' worth of bread and milk at noon; but he was a strong and healthy boy and he was again hungry. Counting his change made him hungrier, and he thought longingly of the brilliant supper-room at the Hotel Dantzic.

"That won't do," he thought. "I must keep away from Keifelheimer and his restaurant. There, now, that's something like."

It was a small stand, close by a dark-looking cellar way. Half was covered with apples, candy, peanuts, bananas, oranges, and cocoa-nuts.

The other half was a pay-counter, a newspaper stand, and an eating-house. Jack's interest centered on a basket, marked, "Ham Sanwiges Five Cents."

"I can afford a sandwich," he said, "and I've got to eat something!"

At the moment when he leaned over and picked up a sandwich, a small old woman, behind the counter, reached out her hand toward him; and another small old woman stretched her hand out to a boy who was testing the oranges; and a third small old woman sang out very shrilly:

"Here's your sanwiges! Ham sanwiges! Only five cents! Benannies!

Oranges! Sanwiges!"

Jack put five cents into the woman's hand, and he was surprised to find how much good bread and boiled ham he had bought.

"It's all the supper I'll have," he said, as he walked away. "I could eat a loaf of bread and a whole ham, it seems to me!"

All the way to the Hotel Dantzic he studied over the loss of his pocket-book.

"The policeman was right," he said to himself, at last. "I didn't know when they took it, but it must have been when my hat was jammed down."

When Jack met Mr. Keifelheimer in the hotel office, he asked him what he thought about it. An expression of strong indignation, if not of horror, crossed the face of the hotel proprietor.

"Dey get you pocket-book?" he exclaimed. "You vas rob choost de same vay I vas; but mine vas a votch und shain. It vas two year ago, und I nefer get him back. Your friend, Mr. Guilderaufenberg, he vas rob dot vay, vonce, but den he vas ashleep in a railvay car und not know ven it vas done!"

Jack was glad of so much sympathy, but just then business called Mr.

Keifelheimer away.

"I won't go upstairs," thought Jack. "I'll sit in the reading-room."

No letters were awaiting him, but there were plenty of newspapers, and nearly a score of men were reading or talking. Jack did not really care to read, nor to talk, nor even to listen; but two gentlemen near him were discussing a subject that reminded him of the farms around Crofield.

"Yes," he heard one of them say, "we must buy every potato we can secure. At the rate they're spoiling now, the price will be doubled before December."

"Curious, how little the market knows about it yet," said the other, and they continued discussing letters and reports about potatoes, from place after place, and State after State, and all the while Jack listened, glad to be reminded of Crofield.

"It was just so with our potatoes at home," he said to himself. "Some farmers didn't get back what they planted."

This talk helped him to forget his pocket-book for a while; then, after trying to read the newspapers, he went to bed.

A very tired boy can always sleep. Jack Ogden awoke, on Sat.u.r.day morning, with a clear idea that sleep was all he had had for supper,--excepting one ham sandwich.

"It's not enough," he said, as he dressed himself. "I must make some money. Oh, my pocket-book! And I shall have to pay for my room, Monday."

He slipped out of the Hotel Dantzic very quietly, and he had a fine suns.h.i.+ny walk of two and a half miles to the down-town restaurant where he ate his ten cents' worth of bread and milk.

"It's enough for a while," he said, "but it doesn't last. If I was at home, now, I'd have more bread and another bowl of milk. I'll come here again, at noon, if I don't find a place somewhere."

Blue, blue, blue, was that Sat.u.r.day for poor Jack Ogden! All the forenoon he stood up manfully to hear the "No, we don't want a boy,"

and he met that same answer, expressed in almost identical words, everywhere.

When he came out from his luncheon of bread and milk, he began to find that many places closed at twelve or one o'clock; that even more were to close at three, and that on Sat.u.r.day all men were either tired and cross or in a hurry. Jack's courage failed him until he could hardly look a man in the face and ask him a question. One whole week had gone since Jack reached the city, and it seemed about a year. Here he was, without any way of making money, and almost without a hope of finding any way.

"I'll go to the hotel," he said, at about four o'clock. "I'll go up the Bowery way. It won't pay anybody to pick my pocket this time!"

He had a reason for going up the Bowery. It was no shorter than the other way. The real explanation was in his pocket.

"Forty cents left!" he said. "I'll eat one sandwich for supper, and I'll buy three more to eat in my room to-morrow."

He reached the stand kept by the three small old women, and found each in turn calling out, "Here you are! Sanwiges!--" and all the rest of their list of commodities.

"Four," said Jack. "Put up three of 'em in a paper, please. I'll eat one."

It was good. In fact, it was too good, and Jack wished it was ten times as large; but the last morsel of it vanished speedily and after looking with longing eyes at the others, he shut his teeth firmly.

"I won't eat another!" he said to himself. "I'll starve it out till Monday, anyway!"

It took all the courage Jack had to carry those three sandwiches to the Hotel Dantzic and to put them away, untouched, in his traveling-bag.

After a while he went down to the reading-room and read; but he went to bed thinking of the excellent meals he had eaten at the Albany hotel on his way to New York.

Mary Ogden's second Sunday in Mertonville was a peculiar trial to her, for several young ladies who expected to be in the Academy next term, came and added themselves to that remarkable Sunday-school cla.s.s. So did some friends of the younger Academy girls; and the cla.s.s had to be divided, to the disappointment of those excluded.

"Mary Ogden didn't need to improve," said Elder Holloway to the Superintendent, "but she is doing better than ever!"

How Jack did long to see Mary, or some of the family in Crofield, and Crofield itself! As soon as he was dressed he opened the bag and took out one of his sandwiches and looked at it.

"Why, they're smaller than I thought they were!" he said ruefully; "but I can't expect too much for five cents! I've just twenty cents left.

That sandwich tastes good if it is small!"

So soon was it all gone that Jack found his breakfast very unsatisfactory.

"I don't feel like going to church," he said, "but I might as well. I can't sit cooped up here all day. I'll go into the first church I come to, as soon as it's time."

He did not care where he went when he left the hotel, and perhaps it did not really make much difference, considering how he felt; but he found a church and went in. A young man showed him to a seat under the gallery. Not until the minister in the pulpit came forward to give out a hymn, did Jack notice anything peculiar, but the first sonorous, rolling cadences of that hymn startled the boy from Crofield.

"Whew!" he said to himself. "It's Dutch or something. I can't understand a word of it! I'll stay, though, now I'm here."

German hymns, and German prayers, and a tolerably long sermon in German, left Jack Ogden free to think of all sorts of things, and his spirits went down, down, down, as he recalled all the famines of which he had heard or read and all the delicacies invented to tempt the appet.i.te. He sat very still, however, until the last hymn was sung, and then he walked slowly back to the Hotel Dantzic.

"I don't care to see Mr. Keifelheimer," he thought. "He'll ask me to come and eat at a big Sunday dinner,--and to pay for it. I'll dodge him."

He watched at the front door of the hotel for fully three minutes, until he was sure that the hall was empty. Then he slipped into the reading-room and through that into the rear pa.s.sageway leading to the elevator; but he did not feel safe until on his way to his room.

"One sandwich for dinner," he groaned, as he opened his bag. "I never knew what real hunger was till I came to the city! Maybe it won't last long, though. I'm not the first fellow who's had a hard time before he made a start."

Jack thought that both the bread and the ham were cut too thin, and that the sandwich did not last long enough.

"I'll keep my last twenty cents, though," thought Jack, and he tried to be satisfied.