Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know Part 18

"It's more lonesome not to eat at all," said the old man, his gray eyes twinkling. "And what can a boy like you have to think of? Here, I guess I can find one cent for you, though there's nothing in the paper, I know."

The old man spoke with some feeling, his fingers trembled, and somehow he dropped two cents instead of one into Bert's hand.

"Here! You've made a mistake!" cried Bert. "A bargain's a bargain.

You've given me a cent too much."

"No, I didn't. I never give anybody a cent too much."

"But, see here!" And Bert showed the two cents, offering to return one.

"No matter," said the old man, "it will be so much less for _my_ dinner, that's all."

Bert had instinctively pocketed the pennies when, on a moment's reflection, his sympathies were excited.

"Poor old man!" he thought; "he's seen better days I guess. Perhaps he's no home. A boy like me can stand it, but I guess it must be hard for _him_. He _meant_ to give me the odd cent all the while; and I don't believe he has had a decent dinner for many a day."

All this, which I have been obliged to write out slowly in words, went through Bert's mind like a flash. He was a generous little fellow, and any kindness shown him, no matter how trifling, made his heart overflow.

"Look here!" he cried, "where are _you_ going to get your dinner to-day?"

"I can get a bite here as well as anywhere. It don't matter much to me," replied the old man.

"Dine with _me_," said Bert, laughing. "I'd like to have you."

"I'm afraid I couldn't afford to dine as you are going to," said the man, with a smile, his eyes twinkling again and his white front teeth s.h.i.+ning.

"I'll pay for your dinner!" Bert exclaimed. "Come! We don't have a Thanksgiving but once a year, and a feller wants a good time then."

"But you are waiting for another boy."

"Oh, Hop Houghton! He won't come now, it's so late. He's gone to a place down in North Street, I guess--a place I don't like: there's so much tobacco smoked and so much beer drank there." Bert cast a final glance up the street. "No, he won't come now. So much the worse for him! He likes the men down there; I don't."

"Ah!" said the man, taking off his hat, and giving it a brush with his elbow, as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as respectable as he could in the eyes of a newsboy of such fastidious tastes.

To make him feel quite comfortable in his mind on that point, Bert hastened to say:

"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't the least mite aristocratic."

"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look relieved. "I'm very glad to hear it."

He placed his hat on the floor and took a seat opposite Bert at a little table, which they had all to themselves.

Bert offered him the bill of fare.

"No, I must ask you to choose for me; but nothing very extravagant, you know. I'm used to plain fare."

"So am I. But I'm going to have a good dinner for once in my life, and so shall you!" cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken soup, and then wind up with a thumping big piece of squash pie? How's that for a Thanksgiving dinner?"

"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too much?"

"Too much? No, _sir_!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents; pie--they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you--ten cents.

That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.

"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man asked.

Bert's face grew sober in a moment.

"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home for her, so we can live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners together some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say so."

Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.

"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father died. When his business was settled up--he kept a little grocery store on Hanover Street--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; _I_ can do something for _myself_. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of myself.'"

"What could _you_ do?" said the little old man.

"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But beggars mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve years old next month."

"You like it?" said the old man.

"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make a home for--But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change."

The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded.

"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie?

Don't be afraid: I'll pay for it. Thanksgiving don't come but once a year. You won't? A cup of tea, then, to go with your pie?"

"I think I _will_ have a cup of tea; you are _so_ kind," said the old man.

"All right! Here, waiter! Two pieces of your fattest and biggest squash pie; and a cup of tea, strong, for this gentleman."

"I've told you about myself," added Bert; "suppose, now, _you_ tell _me_ something."

"About myself?"

"Yes. I think that would go pretty well with the pie."

But the man shook his head. "I could go back and tell about my plans and hopes when I was a lad of your age, but it would be too much like your own story over again. Life isn't what we think it will be when we are young. You'll find that out soon enough. I am all alone in the world now, and I am sixty-seven years old."

"Have some cheese with your pie, won't you? It must be so lonely at your age! What do you do for a living?"

"I have a little place in Devons.h.i.+re Street. My name is Crooker.

You'll find me up two flights of stairs, back room, at the right. Come and see me, and I'll tell you all about my business, and perhaps help you to such a place as you want, for I know several business men. Now don't fail."

And Mr. Crooker wrote his address with a little stub of a pencil on a corner of the newspaper which had led to their acquaintance, tore it off carefully, and gave it to Bert.

Thereupon the latter took a card from his pocket, not a very clean one, I must say (I am speaking of the card, though the remark will apply equally well to the pocket) and handed it across the table to his new friend.

"_Herbert Hampton, Dealer in Newspapers_," the old man read, with his sharp gray eyes, which glanced up funnily at Bert, seeming to say, "Isn't this rather aristocratic for a twelve-year-old newsboy?"