CHAPTER XVI.
BERTY’S TRAMP
Berty was away out on the lonely road leading from the iron works to the city.
Grandma had not been well all day, and Berty had gone to ask Bonny to spend the night in the River Street house. Since the boy’s admission into Roger’s office he had virtually lived in Roger’s house.
Not that he loved Margaretta and Roger more than he loved his grandmother and Berty, but the Grand Avenue style of living was more in accord with his aristocratic tastes than the plain ways of the house in River Street. So the boy really had two homes.
Berty, who had been in the house with her grandmother all through the morning, had enjoyed the long walk out to the iron works, and was now enjoying the long walk home.
It was a perfect afternoon. “How I love the late summer,” murmured the girl, and she gazed admiringly about her at the ripening grain fields, the heavily foliaged trees, the tufts of goldenrod flowering beside the dusty road.
Away off there in the distance was a moving cloud of dust coming from the city. Nearer at hand, it resolved itself into a man who was shuffling along in a lazy way, and kicking up very much more dust than there was any necessity of doing.
Berty stared at him. She knew most of the citizens of Riverport by sight, and whether she knew them by sight or not, she could tell by their general appearance whether they belonged to the place.
This man was a stranger—a seedy, poor-looking man with a brown face, and he was observing her as intently as she was observing him.
Arrived opposite her, he stopped. “Lady,” he said, in a whining voice, “please give a poor sick man some money to buy medicine.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, promptly.
“An awful internal trouble, lady,” he said, laying his hand on his side. “Intermittent pains come on every evening at this time.”
“You don’t look ill,” replied Berty, suspiciously. “Your face is as bronzed as a sailor’s.”
“The doctors prescribed outdoor air, lady,” he went on, whiningly.
“I haven’t any money for you.”
The man, from his station in the road, looked back toward the city, then forward in the direction of the iron works. There was not a soul in sight, and as quick as a flash an angry sentence sprang to the girl’s lips, “Let me by.”
“But, lady, I want some money,” he said, persistently, and he stood in her way.
She surveyed him contemptuously. “You want to make me give you some, but I tell you you couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t I, lady?” he replied, half-sneeringly, half-admiringly.
“No,” said Berty, promptly, “because, in the first place, I’d be so mad that you couldn’t get it from me. You’re only a little man, and I guess a gymnasium-trained girl like myself could knock you about considerably. Then look here,” and, stepping back, she suddenly flashed something long and sharp and steely from her head. “Do you see that hat-pin? It would sting you like a wasp,” and she stabbed the air with it.
The man snickered. “You’ve plenty of sand, but I guess I could get your purse if I tried.”
“Oh, how angry you make me,” returned the girl, with a fiery glance. “Now I can understand how one can let oneself be killed for an idea. You might possibly overcome me, you might get my purse, but you couldn’t kill the mad in me if you chopped me in a thousand little pieces.”
“Lady,” said the man, teasingly, “I guess you’d give in before then, though I’ve no doubt but what your temper would carry you considerable far.”
“And suppose you got my purse,” said Berty, haughtily, “what good would it do you? Wouldn’t I scream? I’ve got a voice like a steam-whistle; and the iron works close in five minutes, and this road will be alive with good honest workmen. They’d hunt you down like a rabbit.”
For the first time a shade of uneasiness passed over his face. But he speedily became cool. “Good evening, lady, excuse me for frightening you,” and, pulling at his battered hat, he started to pass on.
“Stop!” said Berty, commandingly, “who are you, and why did you come to Riverport?”
He lazily propped himself against a tree by the roadside. “It was in my line of march.”
“Are you a tramp?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”
“Where were you born?”
“In New Hampshire.”
“You weren’t born a tramp?”
“Great Harry!” muttered the man, taking off his hat and pushing back from his forehead the dark hair sprinkled with gray, “it seems a hundred years since I was born. My father was a well-to-do farmer, young lady, if you want to know, and he gave me a good education.”
“A good education,” repeated Berty, “and now you have sunk so low as to stop women and beg for money.”
“Just that low,” he said, indifferently, “and from a greater height than you think.”
“What was the height?” asked Berty, eagerly.
“I was once a physician in Boston,” he returned, with a miserable remnant of pride.
“You a physician!” exclaimed Berty, “and now a tramp!”
“A tramp pure and simple.”
“What made you give up your profession?”
“Well, I was born lazy, and then I drank, and I drink, and I always shall drink.”
“A drunkard!” murmured Berty, pityingly. “Poor fellow!”
The man looked at her curiously.
“How old are you?” she asked, suddenly.
“Forty-five.”
“Have you tried to reform?”
“Formerly—not now.”
“Oh, how queer people are,” said the girl, musingly. “How little I can understand you. How little you can understand me. Now if I could only get inside your mind, and know what you are thinking about.”
“I’m thinking about my supper, lady,” he said, flippantly; then, as she looked carefully at him, he went on, carelessly, “Once I was young like you. Now I don’t go in for sentiment. I feed and sleep. That’s all I care about.”
“And do you do no work?”
“Not a stroke.”
“And you have no money?”
“Not a cent.”
“But how do you live?”
“Off good people like you,” he said, wheedlingly. “You’re going to give me a hot supper, I guess.”
“Follow me,” said Berty, suddenly setting off toward the city, and the man sauntered after her.
When they reached River Street, she opened the gate leading into the yard and beckoned to him.
“I can’t take you in the house,” she said, in a low voice, as he followed her. “My grandmother is ill, and then our house is very clean.”
“And I am very unclean,” he said, jocularly surveying himself, “though I’m by no means as bad as an ash-heap tramp.”
“But I’ll put you into the shed,” continued Berty. “There are only a few guinea-pigs there. They are quiet little things, and won’t hurt you.”
“I hope you won’t give me husks for supper,” murmured the tramp.
Berty eyed him severely. His condition to her was too serious for jesting, and she by no means approved of his attempts at humour.
“I’ll bring you out something to eat,” she said, “and if you want to stay all night, I’ll drag you out a mattress.”
“I accept your offer with thankfulness, lady,” he replied.
CHAPTER XVII.
TOM’S INTERVENTION
About eight o’clock that evening Tom Everest ran in to bring Berty some rare wild flowers that he had found in an excursion to the country.
“How is your grandmother?” he asked. “I hear she is ill.”
“Better,” whispered Berty. “Bonny is with her, but I’ve got another trouble.”
“What is it?” inquired Tom, tenderly.
They were standing in the front hall, and he bent his head low to hear what she said.
“There’s a tramp out in the wood-shed,” she went on, “and I don’t know what to do with him.”
“I’ll go put him out,” said Tom, promptly starting toward the back hall.
“No, no, I don’t want him put out. Come back, Tom. I want you to help me do something for him. Just think, he was once a doctor. He cured other people, and couldn’t cure himself. He drinks like a fish.”
“Well, I’ll find a place for him to disport himself other than this,” said Tom, decidedly. “He isn’t going to spend the night in your back yard.”
“Oh, Tom, don’t be foolish. He is as quiet as a lamb. He hasn’t been drinking to-day.”
“I tell you, Berty, he’s got to come out. If you make a fuss, I’ll call Bonny down.”
“Why, Tom Everest, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your face is as red as a beet. What about the Golden Rule?”
“I beg your pardon, Berty,” said Tom, trying to look calm, “but I know more about tramps than you do. This fellow may be a thief.”
“Tom—suppose you were the thief, and the thief were you? Would you like him to talk about you that way?”
“Yes, I’d enjoy it. Come, Berty, lead the way.”
“What do you want to do with him?” asked the girl, curiously.
“Put him in the street.”
“Well, suppose he is a thief. He may rob your neighbour’s house.”
“My neighbour can look out for himself.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Berty, quickly. “Please do find this man a good place for the night. Keep him out of harm.”
“But, Berty, it won’t do any good. I know those fellows. They are thoroughly demoralized. You might just as well let this one go.”
“Go where?” asked the girl, quickly.
“To his appointed place.”
The two young people stood staring at each other for a few minutes, then Berty said, seriously, “Tom Everest, you are a moral, upright man.”
Tom modestly cast his eyes to the oilcloth on the floor.
“How many other young men are there like you in the republic?” pursued Berty.
“I don’t know,” he said, demurely.
“How many tramps are there?”
“I don’t know that—thousands and thousands, I guess.”
“Well, suppose every honest young man took a poor, miserable tramp under his protection. Suppose he looked out for him, fed him, clothed him, and kept him from being a prey on society?”
“I should say that would be a most undesirable plan for the young men,” said Tom, dryly. “I’d be afraid they’d get demoralized themselves, and all turn tramps. It’s easier to loaf than to work.”
“Tom,” said Berty, firmly, “this is my tramp. I found him, I brought him home, I have a duty toward him. I can’t protect all the tramps in the Union, but I can prevent this one from going on and being a worry to society. Why, he might meet some timid girl to-morrow and frighten her to death.”
“Oho! he tried to scare you, did he?” asked Tom, keenly.
“He asked me for money,” repeated Berty, “but of course I didn’t let him have it.”
“Tell me all about it.”
When she finished, Tom laughed softly. “So this is the gentleman you want me to befriend?”
“Do you feel revengeful toward him?” asked Berty.
“I’d like to horsewhip him.”
“That’s the way I felt at first. Then I said to myself, ‘Berty Gravely, you’ve got to get every revengeful feeling out of your head before you can benefit that man. What’s the use of being angry with him? You only stultify yourself. Try to find out how you can do him good.’”
“Oh, Berty,” interposed Tom, with a gesture of despair, “don’t talk mawkish, sickly sentimentality to me. Don’t throw honey water over tin cans, and expect them to blossom like the rose.”
“They will blossom, they can blossom,” said Berty, persistently, “and even if they won’t blossom, take your old tin cans, clean them, and set them on end. Don’t kick them in the gutter.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Tom, helplessly. “I see you have some plan in your mind.”
This was Berty’s chance, and for a few minutes she so staggered him by her eloquence that he sank on the staircase, and, feebly propping his head on his hand, stared uninterruptedly at her.
“I’ve been thinking hard,” she said, in low, dramatic tones, “very, very hard for two hours, as I sat by Grandma’s bed. What can we do for wrecks of humanity? Shall we pet them, coddle them, spoil them, as you speak of doing? Not at all. We’ve got to do something, but we mustn’t be foolish. This tramp is like some wet, soggy piece of wood floating down our river. It doesn’t know, feel, nor care. You mustn’t give it a push and send it further down the stream, but pull it ashore, and—and—”
“And dry it, and make a fire and burn it,” said Tom, briskly. “I don’t like your simile, Berty.”
“It was unfortunate,” said the girl. “I will start again. I approve of societies and churches and clubs—I think they do splendid work, and if, in addition to what they do, every one of us would just reach out a helping hand to one solitary person in the world, how different things would be. We would have a paradise here below. It’s wicked, Tom, to say, ‘That is a worthless person, let him go—you can do nothing for him.’ Now I’ve got a plan for this tramp, and I want you to help me.”
“I know you have, and I wouldn’t mind hearing it, but I don’t think I’ll help you, Berty. I don’t favour the gentry of the road.”
“This is my plan,” said Berty, unheedingly; “but first let me say that I will make a concession to you. You may take the tramp with you, put him in a comfortable room for the night, see that he has a good bed, and a good breakfast in the morning.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” murmured the young man. “You are so very kind.”
“Don’t give him any money,” continued Berty, seriously, “and if you can keep him locked up without hurting his feelings, I wish you would—but don’t blight his self-respect.”
“His what?” asked Tom, mildly.
“His self-respect—even an animal must be protected in that way. Don’t you know that a dog gets well a great deal quicker, if you keep up his good opinion of himself?”
“Does he?” murmured Tom. “I—I don’t know. I fear I have sometimes helped to lessen a dog’s good opinion of himself.”
“And, furthermore,” pursued Berty, “I want that tramp to stay in Riverport. He’s going to be my tramp, Tom, and yours, too, if you will be good.”
“Oh, I will be good, Berty, extra good to deserve a partnership like that.”
“And you and I will look out for him. Now I’ve been wondering what employment we can find for him, for of course you know it isn’t good for any man to live in idleness.”
“Just so, Berty.”
“Well, we must be very cautious about what work we find for him, for he hasn’t worked for years.”
“Something light and genteel, Berty.”
“Light, but not so very genteel. He isn’t proud. He’s only unaccustomed to work. He talked quite frankly about himself.”
“Oh—did he?”
“Yes, and do you know what I have decided?”
“No, I’m sure I don’t.”
“Well, I have just found the very thing for him, and I dare say, if you have any money laid aside, you may want to invest in it. First of all, I want you to hire Bobbetty’s Island.”
“Bobbetty’s Island—out in the river—old man Bobbetty’s?”
“The same, Tom.”
“Ghost thrown in?”
“I want you to hire it,” said Berty, severely, “and get some of your friends to make up a party, and go down there and put up a big, comfortable camp for our tramp to live in.”
“Why the island, Berty?” inquired Tom, in a suppressed voice. “Why not set him up in Grand Avenue. There’s a first-class family mansion to let there, three doors from us.”
“Tom Everest, will you stop your fooling. Our tramp is to live on the island because if he were in the town he would spend half his time in drinking-places.”
“But won’t the river be suggestive, Berty? It would to me, and I’m not a drinking man.”
“No, of course not—he will have his work to do, and twice a week I want you to row over yourself, or get some one to go and bring him to town, for he would go crazy if he were left there alone all the time.”
“I wonder you don’t get a companion for him.”
“I’m going to try. He has a wife, a nice woman in New Hampshire, who left him on account of his drinking habits. He says she will come back to him if he gets a good situation and promises to reform.”
“Has he promised?” asked Tom, acutely.
“He said he would think about it. I rather liked him for the hesitation, for of course he is completely out of the way of continuous application to anything.”
“And what business, may I ask, are you going to establish him in? You seemed to be hinting at something.”
“I am going to start a cat farm, and put him in charge,” replied Berty, with the air of one making a great revelation.
“A cat farm,” echoed Tom, weakly, then, entirely collapsing, he rolled over on his side on the staircase and burst into silent and convulsive laughter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TRAMP PHILOSOPHY
“What are you two giggling about?” asked a sudden voice, and Berty, looking up from the hall, and Tom, from the staircase, saw Bonny standing on the steps above them.
“Meow, meow,” murmured Tom, in a scarcely audible voice.
“What’s up with him, Berty?” asked Bonny, good-naturedly.
“I think his head must be growing weak,” said the girl. “Everything lately seems to amuse him. If you hold up a finger, he goes into fits of laughter.”
“Poor Tom,” said Bonny, “and once he was a joy to his friends—I say, old man, uncurl yourself and tell us the joke.”
“Go ’way, Berty,” ejaculated Tom, partly straightening himself, “go ’way. You hate to see me laugh. Just like all girls. They haven’t any more sense of humour than sticks.”
“Bonny,” said Berty, turning to her brother, “how is Grandma?”
“Asleep, and resting quietly.”
“I’ll go sit beside her,” said the girl; then, turning to her visitor, “Tom Everest, are you going to do that commission for me, or are you not? I’ve stood a good deal from you to-night. Just one word more, and I take it from you and give it to Bonny.”
“I’m ready and willing if it’s anything good,” said the light-haired boy.
“Sha’n’t have it, Bonny,” said Tom, staggering to his feet. “That jewel is mine. I’ll love and cherish him, Berty, until to-morrow afternoon, then I’ll report to you.”
“Good night, then,” said Berty, “and don’t make a noise, or you’ll wake Grandma.”
“Come on, Bonny, let’s interview Berty’s treasure,” exclaimed Tom, seizing his hat.
“What is it?” inquired Bonny, curiously, following him through the hall.
“A black pearl. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No, I haven’t been here long. We were busy at the works.”
Without speaking, Tom led the way down the back staircase, through the lower hall, and out to the wood-shed at the back of the house.
“Listen to it,” he said to Bonny, with his hand on the door-knob.
“Who is snoring in there?” said the boy, quickly.
“One of your sister’s bits of driftwood. I’ve got to haul this one into port.”
“I wish Berty would look out for number one, and let number two, and three, and four, and five, take care of themselves,” said the lad, irritably. Then he suddenly recollected himself. “I suppose I am a brute, but I do hate dirty people. Berty is an angel compared with me.”
“Hello,” said Tom, opening the door and scratching a match to light the candle in a lantern hanging near him.
There was no response. Tom held the lantern and pushed the sleeping man with his foot.
“Here, you—wake up.”
The man rolled over, blinking at them in the light. “Hello, comrade, what you want?”
“Get up,” said Tom, commandingly.
“What for?” asked the sleeper, yawningly.
“To get out of this. I’ll find you another sleeping-place.”
“Oh, come, comrade,” said the man, remonstratingly, “this is cruelty to animals. I was having the sleep of my life—like drugged sleep—takes me back to my boyhood. Move on, and let me begin again. Your diamonds are safe to-night. I’ve had a first-class supper, and I’m having a first-class sleep. I wouldn’t get up to finger the jewels of the Emperor of Russia.”
“Get up,” said Tom, inexorably.
“Let him stay,” said Bonny. “I’m going to be here all night. If he gets dangerous, I’ll take the poker.”
“Oh, you’re going to stay all night,” remarked Tom. “Very good, then. I’ll come early in the morning and get him out of this.”
“Talking about me, gentlemen?” asked the man, sleepily.
Tom and Bonny stared at him.
“I haven’t done anything bad yet,” said the tramp, meekly, “unless I may have corrupted a few of those guinea-pigs by using bad language. They’re the most inquisitive creatures I ever saw. Stuck their noses in my food, and most took it away from me.”
“Who are you?” asked Bonny, abruptly.
“A poor, broken-down sailor, sir,” whined the man. “Turned out of his vessel the first day in port, because he had a little weakness of the heart.”
“I heard you were a doctor,” interposed Tom.
“So I was this afternoon, sir. That nice young lady said I looked like a sailor, so I thought I’d be one to please her.”
“You’re a first-class liar, anyway,” said Tom.
The man rolled over on his back and sleepily blinked at him. “That I am, sir. If you’d hear the different stories I tell to charitable ladies, you’d fall down in a fit. They’re too funny for words.”
Bonny was staring at him with wide-open eyes. He had never spoken to a tramp before in his life. If he saw one on the right side of the street, he immediately crossed to the left.
“I say,” he began, with a fastidious curl of his lip, “it must be mighty queer not to know in the morning where you are going to lay your head at night. Queer, and mighty uncomfortable.”
“So it is, young man, till you get used to it,” responded the tramp, amiably.
Bonny’s countenance expressed the utmost disdain, and suddenly the tramp raised himself on an elbow. “Can you think of me, my fine lad, young and clean and as good-looking as you are?”
“No, I can’t,” said Bonny, frankly.
“Fussy about my tailor,” continued the man. “Good heavens, just think of it—I, bothering about the cut of my coat. But I was, and I did, and I’ve come down to be a trailer over the roads.”
“How can persons take a jump like that?” said the boy, musingly.
“It isn’t a jump,” pursued the tramp, lazily, “it’s a slide. You move a few inches each day. I’m something of a philosopher, and I often look back on my career. I’ve lots of time to think, as you may imagine. Now, gentlemen, you wouldn’t imagine where my slide into trampdom began.”
“You didn’t start from the gutter, anyway,” remarked Bonny, “for you talk like a gentleman.”
“You’re right, young man. I can talk the slang of the road. I’ve been broken to it, but I won’t waste it on you, for you wouldn’t understand it—well, my first push downward was given me by my mother.”
“Your mother?” echoed Bonny, in disgust.
“Yes, young sir—one of the best women that ever lived. She held me out to the devil, when she allowed me to kick the cat because it had made me fall.”
“Nonsense,” said Bonny, sharply.
“Not nonsense, but sound sense, sir. That was the beginning of the lack of self-restraint. Did I want her best cap to tear to ribbons? I got it.”
“Oh, get out,” interposed Tom, crossly. “You needn’t tell us that all spoiled children go to the bad.”
“Good London, no,” said the man, with a laugh. “Look at our millionaires. Could you find on the face of the earth a more absolute autocrat, a more heartless, up-to-date, determined-to-have-his-own-way, let-the-rest-of-you-go-to-the-dogs kind of a man, than the average American millionaire?”
The two young men eyed each other, and Bonny murmured, “You are an extremist.”
“It began away back,” continued the tramp, now thoroughly roused from his sleepy condition. “When our forefathers came from England, they brought that ugly, I’m-going-to-have-my-own-way spirit with them. Talk about the severity of England precipitating the Revolution. If they hadn’t made a revolution for us, we’d made one to order. Did you ever read about the levelling spirit of those days? I tell you this American nation is queer—it’s harder for a real, true blue son of the soil to keep straight, than it is for the son of any other nation under the heaven. We lack self-restraint. We’ll go to the bad if we want to, and none shall hinder us.”
The tramp paused for a minute in his semi-lazy, semi-animated discourse, and Tom, feeling that some remark was expected from him, said feebly, “You’re quite a moralizer.”
The tramp did not hear him. “I tell you,” he said, extending a dirty hand, “we’re the biggest, grandest, foolishest people on earth. We’re the nation of the future. We’ll govern the earth, and at the same time fail in governing ourselves. Look at the lynchings we have. The United States has the highest murder rate of any civilized country in the world. The average American will be a decent, moral, pay-his-bills sort of man, and yet he’ll have more tolerance for personal violence than a Turk has.”
“You’re a queer man,” said Bonny, musingly.
“We’ve got to have more law and order,” pursued the tramp. “The mothers have got to make their little ones eat their mush, or porridge, as they say over the line in Canada—not fling it out the window to the dogs. I tell you that’s where it begins, just where every good and bad thing begins—in the cradle. The average mother has too much respect for the squallings of her Young America. Let her spank him once in awhile, and keep him out of sight of the eagle.”
“Do you suppose,” said Bonny, solemnly, “that if you had been well spanked you would not be lying here?”
“Suppose,” repeated the tramp, leaning back, “I don’t suppose anything about it. I know it. If my mother and father had made me mind them, and kept me in nights, and trained me into decent, self-respecting manhood, I’d be standing beside you to-night, young sirs, beside you—beyond you—for I guess from your bearing you are only young men of average ability, and I tell you I was a power, when I’d study and let the drink alone.”
“You must have had a strange mother,” remarked Bonny.
The tramp suddenly raised himself again, and his sunburnt face grew redder. “For the love of Heaven,” he said, extending one ragged arm, “don’t say a word against her. The thought of her is the only thing that moves me. She loved me, and, unclean, characterless wretch that I am, she would love me yet if she were still alive.”
The man’s head sank on his arm, but not quickly enough. Tom and Bonny had both seen glistening in his eyes, not the one jewel they were jestingly in search of, but two priceless jewels that were not pearls, but diamonds.
“Come on, Bonny,” said Tom, roughly, as he drew him from the shed.
“Tom,” remarked Bonny, softly, as they went slowly up-stairs, “Berty wants you to do something for that fellow, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it is of any use?”
“No.”
“Are you going to try?”
“Yes.”
Bonny made no further remarks until some time later, when they were standing on the front door-step, then he asked, thoughtfully, “What does Berty want you to do, Tom?”
“Start a cat-farm.”
“A cat-farm! What kind of cats?”
“Gutter cats, back yard cats, disreputable cats, I should guess from the character of the superintendent she has chosen,” replied Tom, gruffly.
“The superintendent being the tramp,” said Bonny, slyly.
“There’s no one else in question,” responded Tom.
“I think you are wrong about the nature of the beasts,” continued Bonny. “I believe Berty means pet cats—Angoras, and so on.”
“What sort are they?”
“Do you mean to say you haven’t noticed them? It’s the latest cry among the women—‘Give me a long-haired cat!’ Mrs. Darley-James has a beauty—snow-white with blue eyes.”
“All nonsense—these society women don’t know what to do to kill time.”
“They’re not all society women that have them. Old Mrs. McCarthy has a pair of dandies—and I find that the women who take up cat-culture are more kind to back yard tabbies.”
“Maybe you’re right, Bonny. I don’t call round on these women as you do.”
“Well,” said Bonny, apologetically, “I don’t see any harm in putting on your best coat and hat, and doing a woman who has invited you to her house the compliment of calling on her day.”
“Oh, dressing up,” said Tom, “is such a nuisance.”
“You can’t call on many that you’d be bothered with calling on without it. Sydney Gray tried calling on Margaretta on her day in a bicycle suit. He had ridden fifty miles, and was hot and dusty and perspiring. He had the impudence to go into Margaretta’s spick and span rooms and ask for a cup of tea. She was so sweet to him that he came away hugging himself—but he never got asked there again, and every once in awhile he says to some one, ‘Queer, isn’t it, that Mrs. Stanisfield gives me the go-by. I don’t know what I’ve done to offend her.’”
“Suppose we come back to Berty,” observed Tom. “If all the women here have cats, what does she want to start a farm for?”
“The women aren’t all supplied. The demand is increasing, and many would buy here that wouldn’t send away for one. Berty is more shrewd than you think. These cats sell for five and six dollars apiece at the least, and some are as high as twenty. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if it would turn out to be a good business speculation.”
“Well, then, you just meet some of the fellows in my office to-morrow evening and arrange for a house and lot for this man who is to boss the cats,” said Tom, dryly.
“All right, I’ll come—maybe Roger will, too.”
“Good night,” said Tom, “I’m off.”
“Good night,” returned Bonny, laconically, and, standing with his hands thrust in his pockets, he was looking down the street, when Tom suddenly turned back.
“I say, Bonny, your grandmother must have a good history of the Revolution.”
“She has two or three.”
“Ask her to lend me one, will you? I half forget what I learned in school.”
“Yes, sir; I’ll bring it to-morrow.”
Tom really went this time, and as he quickly disappeared from sight, Bonny, from his station on the door-step, kept muttering to himself, “Slipping through life, slipping through life. How easy to get on that greased path!”
“What are you saying to yourself?” asked a brisk voice.
Bonny, turning sharply, found Berty beside him.
“Nothing much—only that I was hungry. Let’s see what’s in the pantry.”
“Bonny, if I show you where there is a pie, the most beautiful pumpkin pie you ever saw, will you help me with my tramp?”
“I’ll do it for half a pie,” said Bonny, generously. “Come on, you young monkey.”