Harry Harding —Messenger “45”

By

ALFRED RAYMOND

Copyright 1917, by CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

[vii]

CHAPTER I A MENACE TO THE SCHOOL

“I will drown and no one shall help me,” announced Miss Alton defiantly.

The first class in English accepted this remarkable statement in absolute silence, their eyes fixed on their teacher. As she stood high and dry on the platform, facing her class, there seemed little possibility of such a catastrophe overtaking her, therefore, they knitted their wise young brows, not in fear of her demise by drowning, but in puzzled worry over the intricacies of shall and will.

“I will drown,” repeated Miss Alton firmly, “and no one——”

“Oh-h-h!” a piercing shriek rent the grammar-laden air. As though about to prove her declaration, Miss Alton made a sudden dive off the platform that carried her half-way up an[2] aisle toward the immediate vicinity of that anguished voice.

The first class in grammar immediately forgot the uses of shall and will and twisted about on their benches to view their teacher’s hurried progress toward the scene of action.

“It’s Teddy Burke,” muttered a boy to his nearest classmate. “Wonder what he’s done.”

Miss Alton had now brought up between two seats at the rear of the room. In one of them sat a little girl, her head buried in her arms. Directly opposite her sat a red-haired boy. His thin face wore an expression of deep disgust, but his big black eyes were dancing with mischief. As the teacher approached, he made an ineffectual dive toward a grayish object on the floor. Miss Alton was too quick for him. She stooped, uttered a half-horrified exclamation, then gathered the object in. It was a most terrifying imitation of a snake, made of rubber, and coiled realistically.

“Theodore Burke, what does this mean?” she demanded, holding out the snake and glaring at the offender.

The little girl raised her head from her arms and eyed the culprit with reproachful horror. “He put it on my seat,” she accused. “I thought it was alive, and it scared me awful.” Her voice rose to a wail on the last word.

“This is too much. You’ve gone just a little too far, young man. Come with me.” Miss[3] Alton stood over the red-haired lad, looking like a grim figure of Justice.

The boy shot a glance of withering scorn at his tearful victim, then rose from his seat.

Grasping him none too gently by the arm, Miss Alton piloted him down the aisle and out of the door. It closed with a resounding bang.

A buzz of conversation began in the big schoolroom. Two or three little girls left their seats and gathered about the heroine of the disquieting adventure, while half a dozen boys of the eighth grade of the West Park Grammar School put their heads together to discuss this latest bit of mischief on the part of their leader and idol, Teddy Burke.

Meanwhile, Teddy, of the black eyes and Titian hair, was being marched rapidly toward the principal’s office.

Miss Alton flung open the door and ushered him into the august presence of Mr. Waldron, the principal, with, “Here is an incorrigible boy, Mr. Waldron.”

The principal, a short, stern-faced man, adjusted his eye-glasses and stared hard at Teddy. The boy hung his head, then raising his eyes regarded Mr. Waldron defiantly.

“So you are here again, young man, for the third time in two weeks,” thundered the principal. “What has this bad boy done, Miss Alton?”

Miss Alton began an indignant recital of Teddy’s[4] latest misdeed. The principal frowned as he listened. When she had finished, he fixed Teddy with severe eyes.

“Let me see. The last time you were here it was for interrupting the devotional exercises by putting a piece of ice inside the collar of one of your schoolmates. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? How would you like to have your schoolmates play upon you the unkind pranks you are so fond of playing upon them?”

“I wouldn’t care,” returned the boy, unabashed. “I wouldn’t make a fuss, either.”

“Miss Alton is right,” snapped Mr. Waldron, his face reddening angrily at the boy’s retort. “You are, indeed, an incorrigible boy. I think I had better put your case before the Board of Education. There are special schools for bad boys like you. We don’t care to have such a boy among us. You are a menace to the school.” He continued to lecture Teddy sharply, ending with, “Take him back to your room for the day, Miss Alton, but make him remain after the others have gone home this afternoon. By that time I shall have decided what we had better do with him.”

Teddy walked down the corridor ahead of Miss Alton with a sinking heart. Was he a menace to the school and could Mr. Waldron really put him in a school for bad boys? He had heard of such schools. He had heard, too, that sometimes the boys came out of them much[5] worse than when they entered. The murmur of voices came to his ears as Miss Alton flung open the door and urged him into the schoolroom. The noise died a sudden death as she stepped over the threshold.

“Go to your seat,” she ordered coldly.

Teddy obeyed. The little girl, whose shriek had caused his downfall, eyed him with horror. Even in the midst of his troubles he could not resist giving her an impish grin. She promptly made a face at him and looked the other way. The smile vanished from Teddy’s face. Then he folded his hands on his desk and thought busily for the next five minutes.

The class resumed its interrupted recitation. Suddenly the boy reached into his desk and began stealthily to take out his belongings. The books belonged to the school, but a pencil box, a knife, a box of marbles, a top, a dilapidated baseball, a magnet and a small, round mirror with which he delighted to cast white shadows on the books of the long-suffering eighth-grade girls, were treasures of his own. Stuffing them into his pockets he replaced the books; then he sat very still. It was almost time for the recess bell to ring. He hardly thought Miss Alton would order him to keep his seat. Such light punishments were not for him. To-night—but there would be no to-night in school for him. When recess came he would go outside and say good-bye to the fellows, then he would start out[6] and hunt a job. He was almost sixteen, and the law said a boy could work when he was fourteen, if he had a certificate. Well, he would get that certificate. His mother would let him go to work if he wanted to. She was so busy with her own affairs she never cared much what

he did. If he had a job, then Mr. Waldron couldn’t send him to a reform school. That was the place where incorrigible boys were sent.

Teddy did not stop to consider that his mother might prove a match for Miss Alton and Mr. Waldron when it came to a question of her son’s incorrigibility. He thought only of putting himself beyond the reach of the school authorities by his own efforts.

The recess bell rang at last and the pupils filed out in orderly rows to the big, grassy yard, at one side of the school building. Teddy was at once surrounded by half a dozen boys, his particular friends. The girls collected in little groups about the yard to comment on Teddy’s iniquity. They eyed him askance with curious, aloof glances. The boys, however, were deeply interested in the possible outcome of Teddy’s rash defiance.

“You’re goin’ to get fired all right,” was the cheerful prophecy of one boy. “What’ll your mother say?”

“She won’t say,” giggled a freckle-faced boy. “She’ll just take Ted across her knee and——”

[7]

“Well, I guess not,” flung back Teddy. “I’m not going to wait to get fired, either. I’m going to beat it. When the recess bell rings I’m not going in with the rest of you. See here,” Teddy began pulling his various treasured belongings out of his pockets. “I brought all this stuff out to give you fellows. I sha’n’t want it. I’m going down to Martin Brothers’ Department Store and get a job. That’s what I’m going to do. Here’s my looking glass, Sam. Every time you cast a shadow with it, think of me. And you can have my marbles, Bob.”

Teddy distributed his belongings rapidly about the little circle. The boys took them with some reluctance. They had far rather have Teddy Burke, ringleader of all their mischief, with them than his belongings.

“Aw, why don’t you get your mother to come down here and fix it up with those old cranks?” demanded Sam Marvin regretfully. “It ain’t your stuff we want, Ted. It’s you. What’re we goin’ to do without you?”

“Be good,” grinned Teddy. “I’m a menace to the school, you know.”

“I wish I was goin’ to work,” said Bob Rayburn sadly. “Pa won’t let me, though.”

“Honestly, won’t your mother lick you if she finds out about what happened to-day?” inquired Arthur Post, a tall, thin boy with a solemn face.

“Lick nothing,” retorted Ted. “She isn’t[8] going to find out about it. I’m going to tell her myself. She’ll say I can go to work if I feel like it.”

His chums eyed him with mingled admiration and regret. To them Teddy was a hero.

“There goes the bell. I’ve got to beat it. Don’t any of you start to go in till I get to the corner,” directed Ted. “Then she,” he jerked his thumb in Miss Alton’s direction, “won’t know I’ve skipped until it’s too late. I’ll let you know where I am as soon as I get that job. Good-bye, fellows. Be sure and do what smarty Alton tells you, and don’t go bringing any rubber snakes to school. You can have that one of mine if you can get it away from old Cross-patch.”

With an air of gay bravado Teddy raised his hand in a kind of parting salute, then darted down the yard and through the gateway to the street. At the corner he waved his hand again, then swung out of sight, leaving a little knot of boys to gaze regretfully after him and wonder how they could possibly get along without wide-awake, mischievous Teddy Burke.

[9]

CHAPTER II ON THE TRAIL OF A JOB

“I don’t know what we are going to do, Harry, if the cost of living goes any higher.” Mrs. Harding stared across the little center table at her sixteen-year-old son, an expression of deep worry looking out of her patient, brown eyes. “A dollar used to seem like quite a lot of money, but it doesn’t go far these days. I’ve spent every cent I dare this week for groceries, and we’ve still three days to go until I’ll have the money for this dress. I’ve got to sew every minute to get it done. Thank goodness, the rent’s paid for this month. But you must have a new pair of shoes and I don’t know where they are going to come from.” The little woman sighed, then attacked her sewing with fresh energy. “I can’t stop even to complain,” she added bravely.

“You’ll just have to let me go to work, Mother.” Harry Harding laid the text-book he was studying on the table and regarded his mother with serious eyes.

[10]

“But I don’t want to take you out of school, Harry,” she protested. “You are getting along so well. Why, next year you’ll be in high school.”

“No, I won’t, Mother. Do you think that a great big boy like me is going to let his mother support him any longer? It’s time I went to work. Besides, I haven’t the money for clothes and books and all the other things high school fellows have to have. I’m past sixteen. Lots of boys have to go to work when they’re only fourteen. I guess it won’t hurt me any to begin now.”

“But I want you to have an education, Harry. If your father had lived, he intended to let you go through high school and then to college.” Mrs. Harding’s voice trembled a little. The sudden death of her husband two years previous had been a shock from which she had never quite recovered. It was hard for her even to mention his name without shedding tears.

“I’ll get an education, somehow, and work, too,” returned Harry confidently. “There are night schools where a fellow can go and learn things. Please let me quit school to-morrow and try,” he pleaded. “I can’t earn much at first, but even three dollars a week’ll help some. I’ve got to start some time, you know. If you won’t let me go to work I could sell papers after school.”

“No, you couldn’t,” retorted his mother with[11] decision. “I’d rather have you leave school than see you racing around the city streets selling papers. That’s one thing you sha’n’t do.”

“Then let me go and hunt a job,” begged the boy.

“I’ll think it over. Now go on studying your lesson and don’t tease me any more about it.”

Harry took up his book obediently enough. His frequent pleading to leave school to go to work had always been promptly vetoed by his mother. She had struggled desperately to keep her son in school and was willing to go on with the struggle. It was Harry himself who had repeatedly begged her to allow him to take his place in the work-a-day world. She could never quite bring herself to the point of consenting to the boy’s plea. But, to-night, as she thought darkly of their poverty and of their continual fight against actual want she was nearer consent than she had ever been before.

Perhaps Harry felt this, for it was not long until the book went down on the table again. “Do say you’ll let me try, Mother,” he implored earnestly. “You don’t know how much it means to me. It isn’t as if I’d stop trying to learn things as soon as I started to work. I’d study harder than ever. Just think how much the money would help us after I’d been working awhile. Why, some of the greatest men that ever lived had to quit school and go to work when they were lots younger than I. Benjamin[12] Franklin did, and so did Abraham Lincoln. Just yesterday the teacher read us a story of how Lincoln earned his first dollar when he was a boy.”

Mrs. Harding looked wistfully at her son’s eager face. “My little son, do you want to help mother so much?” she asked tenderly. Her voice trembled a little.

“You know I do. Oh, Mother, may I try? Are you going to say ‘yes’ at last?” Harry sprang from his chair and going to his mother’s chair slipped his arm around her neck.

“Well,” began the little woman reluctantly, “if you are so set on working, I guess you might as well try it. But remember, Harry, if you don’t like it, you can go back to school. We’ll get along some way.”

“But I shall like it,” protested Harry. “I’ve always said I was going to be a business man when I grew up. If I start right now maybe I’ll be one in a few years.”

“But where are you going to look for work, child?” asked Mrs. Harding. Now that she had given her son the longed-for sanction to make his own way, she began to feel something of his boyish enthusiasm.

“I don’t know,” returned Harry thoughtfully. Then, seized with a sudden inspiration, “I guess I’ll look in the Journal. That always has a lot of advertisements.”

Picking up the evening paper, which lay on[13] the center table, Harry turned its leaves to the column of “Male Help Wanted,” and scanned it earnestly. “Here’s one, Mother. ‘Boy wanted for errands, good chance for advancement. Opportunity to learn business. 894 Tyler.’ That sounds good.” Taking the stub of a lead pencil from his pocket, Harry carefully marked it. “Oh, here’s another. ‘Bright boy for office work. 1684 Cameron.’” This advertisement was duly checked. Harry went eagerly down the column until he had marked six advertisements. “There, that will do to start with. If I don’t get a position at any of those places I’ll try again when to-morrow’s paper comes out. But surely some of them will have a chance for me. It’s nine o’clock. I guess I’ll go to bed right now, so as to be up bright and early in the morning.”

Piling his books on one arm, Harry went over to his mother and kissed her good night. “You must keep thinking hard that I’m going to get one of those positions, Mother,” he said brightly. Then he went into the tiny room that was really half of his mother’s room, curtained off for his use. Harry was very proud of his little room. It was so small it held nothing but his cot bed, one chair, a small table and a bamboo book-case of two shelves, which he had bought in a second-hand store for a quarter. This held the few books he owned and was dear to his heart.

[14]

After he had undressed and lay down on his bed he found that he was too much excited over the prospect of his new venture to sleep. Already he could see himself in a beautiful office, with soft rugs on the floor and shining oak furniture. He could imagine himself saying, “Yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” to his employer, and listening with alert respectfulness to his orders. He would prove himself so willing to work and perform whatever he was given to do so faithfully that in time he would be promoted to something better. His favorite story-book hero, Dick Reynolds, had begun work as an office boy and had done wonderful things. Why couldn’t the same things happen again to him?

When at ten o’clock his mother stole into the room, as was her nightly custom before going to bed, for a last look at her son, she saw two bright, wide-awake eyes peering at her. “This will never do, little man,” she said, patting his cheek. “You must go to sleep, if you are anxious to be up early to-morrow morning.”

“I’ll try, Mother,” sighed Harry, “but I just can’t help thinking about it.”

After his mother had kissed him again and gone to her own room, Harry shut his eyes tightly and resolved to go to sleep. When finally the sandman did visit him, he dreamed that he was Dick Reynolds and had secured a position in a bank. He was the president’s office boy, and the president had sent him to the[15] City Hall with a bag full of bank notes. He ran all the way from the bank to the Hall and was just going in the door when two boys leaped out from behind it and tried to take the bag away from him. He fought like a tiger, but he had to hang on to the bag with one hand while he knocked down the thieves with the other. As fast as he knocked them down they bobbed up again. Finally, one of them hit him over the head with an arithmetic. It was his own book. He recognized it by the green paper cover he had put on it. He wondered as he fought how the boy happened to have his arithmetic. Then the other boy suddenly took a long coil of rope from under his coat and lassoed him. He felt himself falling, falling. He struck the pavement with a terrible crash. Then——

“Why, Harry, what is the matter?” The City Hall, the money bag, even the robbers had faded away, and Harry found himself sitting on the bare floor, blinking up at his mother, who bent anxiously over him.

“I guess I must have been asleep, Mother, and fell out of bed.” Harry eyed his mother sheepishly. “I dreamed I had a job in a bank and was fighting two fellows who tried to take a whole lot of money away from me. What time is it?”

“It’s ten minutes to twelve. Now, go straight to sleep, or I won’t call you early.”

Harry obediently climbed back into bed and[16] was not heard from again that night. It seemed to him as though he had hardly gone to sleep before he heard his mother calling, “Six o’clock, Harry.” The boy was out of bed in an instant. He pattered to the window, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he went. The light of a perfect day in early October shone in as he raised the shade. If good weather were a happy omen, then surely he would obtain that which he was going forth so earnestly to seek.