Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way by William O. Stoddard (read my book txt) 📗

firm bowed the general out, and came back to say to Mr. Jones: "That youngster beats me! He can pick up a millionaire, or a governor, as easily as he can measure a pound of coffee."

"Some might think him rather bold," said Jones, "but I don't. He is absorbed in his work, and he puts it through. He's the kind of boy we want, no doubt of that."

"See what he's up to, this morning!" said Mr. Gifford. "It's all right. He asked leave, and I told him he might go."

Jack had missed seeing the General because he did not know enough of the grocery business. He had said to Mr. Gifford:

"I think, Mr. Gifford, I ought to know more about this business from its very beginnings. If you'll let me, I'd like to see where we get supplies."

That meant a toilsome round among the great sugar refineries, on the Long Island side of the East River; and then another among the tea and coffee merchants and brokers, away down town, looking at samples of all sorts and finding out how cargoes were unloaded from ships and were bought and sold among the dealers. He brought to the store, that afternoon, before six o'clock, about forty samples of all kinds of grocery goods, all labeled with prices and places, and he was going on to talk about them when Mr. Gifford stopped him.

"There, Ogden," he said. "I know all about these myself,—but where did you find that coffee? I want some. And this tea?—It is two cents lower than I'm paying. Jones, he's found just the tea you and I were talking of—" and so he went on carefully examining the other samples, and out of them all there were seven different articles that Gifford & Company bought largely next day.

"Jones," said Mr. Gifford, when he came back from buying them, "they had our card in each place, and told me, 'Your Mr. Ogden was in here yesterday. We took him for a boy at first.'—I'm beginning to think there are some things that only that kind of boy can do. I'll just let him go ahead in his own way."

Mary had told Jack all about her daily experiences in her letters to him, and he said to himself more than once:

"Dudley Edwards must be a tip-top fellow. It's good of him to drive Mary over to Crofield and back every Saturday. And they have had such good sleighing all winter. I wish I could try some of it."

There was no going to Crofield for him. When Thanksgiving Day came, he could not afford it, and before the Christmas holidays Mr. Gifford told him:

"We can't spare you at Christmas, Ogden. It's the busiest time for us in the whole year."

Mr. Gifford was an exacting master, and he kept Jack at it all through the following spring and summer. Mary had a good rest during the hot weather, but Jack did not. One thing that seemed strange to her was that so many of the Crofield ladies called to see her, and that Miss Glidden was more and more inclined to suggest that Mary's election had been mainly due to her own influence in Mertonville.

On the other hand, it seemed to Jack that summer, as if everybody he knew was out of the city. Business kept pressing him harder and harder, and all the plans he made to get a leave of absence for that second year's Thanksgiving Day failed to work successfully.

The Christmas holidays came again, but throughout the week, Gifford & Company's store kept open until eight o'clock, every evening, with Jack Ogden behind the counter. He got so tired that he hardly cared about it when they raised his salary to twenty-five dollars a week, just after Mr. Gifford saw him come down town with another coffee and tea dealer, whose store was in the same street.

"We mustn't let him leave us, Jones," Mr. Gifford had said to his head clerk. "I am going to send him to Washington next week."

Not many days later, Mrs. Guilderaufenberg in her home at Washington was told by her maid servant that, "There's a strange b'y below, ma'am, who sez he's a-wantin' to spake wid yez."

Down went the landlady into the parlor, and then up went her hands.

"Oh, Mr. Jackogden! How glad I am to see you! You haf come! I gif you the best stateroom in my house."

"I believe I'm here," said Jack, shaking hands heartily. "How is Mr. Guilderaufenberg and how is Miss—"

"Oh, Miss Hildebrand," she said, "she will be so glad, and so will Mrs. Smith. She avay with her husband. He is a Congressman from far vest. You will call to see her."

"Mrs. Smith?" exclaimed Jack, but in another second he understood it, and asked after his old friend with the unpronounceable name as well as after Miss Hildebrand.

"She has a name, now, that I can speak! I'm glad Smith isn't a Polish name," he said to himself.

"Oh, Mr. Jackogden!" exclaimed Mrs. Guilderaufenberg, a moment later. "How haf you learned to speak German? She will be so astonish!"

That was one use he had made of his evenings, and he had improved by speaking to all the Germans he had met down town; and his German was a great delight to Mr. Guilderaufenberg, and to Miss Hildebrand, and to Mrs. Smith (formerly Miss Pod——ski) when he called to see them.

"So!" said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, "you takes my advice and you comes. Dis ees de ceety! Ve shows you eet all ofer. All de beeg buildings and all de beeg men. You shtay mit Mrs. Guilderaufenberg and me till you sees all Vashington."

Jack did so, but he had business errands also, and he somehow managed to accomplish his commissions so that Mr. Gifford was quite satisfied when he returned to New York.

"I haven't sold so many goods," said Jack, "but then I've seen the city of Washington, and I've shaken hands with the President and with Senators and Congressmen. Mr. Gifford, how soon can I make a visit to Crofield?"

"We'll arrange that as soon as warm weather comes," said his employer. "Make it your summer vacation."

Jack had to be satisfied. He knew that more was going on in the old village than had been told him in any of his letters from home. His father was a man who dreaded to write letters, and Mary and the rest of them were either too busy, or else did not know just what news would be most interesting to Jack.

"I'm going to see Crofield!" said he, a hundred times, after the days began to grow longer. "I want to see the trees and the grass and I want to see corn growing and wheat harvesting. I'd even like to be stung by a bumblebee!"

He became so eager about it, at last, that he went home by rail all the way, in a night train, and he arrived at Crofield, over the new railroad, just as the sun was rising, one bright June morning.

"Goodness!" he exclaimed, as he walked out of the station. "It's not the same village! I won't go over to the house and wake the family until I've looked around."

From where he stood, he gazed at the new hotel, and took a long look up and down Main Street. Then he walked eagerly down toward the bridge.

"Hullo!" he said in amazement. "Our house isn't there! Why, what is the meaning of this? I knew that the shop had been moved up to the back lot. They're building houses along the road across the Cocahutchie! Why haven't they written and told me of all this?"

He saw the bridge, the factory, the tannery, and many other buildings, but he did not see the familiar old blacksmith shop on the back lot.

"I don't know where we live nor where to find my home!" he said, almost dejectedly. "They know I'm coming, though, and they must have meant to surprise me. Mary's at home, too, for her vacation."

He walked up Main Street, leaving his baggage at the station. New—new—new,—all the buildings for several blocks, and then he came to houses that were just as they used to be. One pretty white house stood back among some trees, on a corner, and, as Jack walked nearer, a tall man in the door of it stepped quickly out to the gate. He seemed to be trying to say something, but all he did, for a moment, was to beckon with his hand.

Jack returns home.

"Father!" shouted Jack, as he sprang forward.

"Jack, my son, how are you?"

"Is this our house?" asked Jack.

"Yes, this is our house. They're all getting up early, too, because you're coming. There are some things I want to talk about, though, before they know you're actually here. Walk along with me a little way."

On, back, down Main Street, walked Jack with his father, until they came to what was now labeled Bridge Street. When Jack lived in Crofield the road had no name.

"See that store on the corner?" asked Mr. Ogden. "It's a fine-looking store, isn't it?"

"Very," said Jack.

"Well, now," said his father, "I'm going to run that store, and I do wish you were to be in it with me."

"There will be none too much room in it for Bob and Jim," said Jack. "They're growing up, you know!"

"You listen to me," continued the tall blacksmith, trying to be calm. "The railway company paid me quite a snug sum of money for what they needed of your land and mine. Mr. Magruder did it for you. I bought with the money thirty acres of land, just across the Cocahutchie, to the left of the bridge. Half of it was yours to begin with, and now I've traded you the other half. Don't speak. Listen to me. Most of it was rocky, but the railway company opened a quarry on it, getting out their stone, and it's paying handsomely. Livermore has built that hotel block. I put in the stone and our old house lot, and I own the corner store, except that Livermore can use the upper stories for his hotel. The factory company traded me ten shares of their stock for part of your land on which they built. I traded that stock for ten acres of rocky land along the road, across the Cocahutchie, up by the mill. That makes forty acres there."

"Father!" exclaimed Jack. "All it cost me was catching a runaway team, and your bill against the miller! Crofield is better than the grocery business in New York!"

"Listen!" said his father, smiling. "The tannery company traded me a lot of their stock for the rest of my back lot and for the rest of your gravel, and they tore down the blacksmith shop, and I traded their stock and some other things for the house where we live. I made your part good to you, with the land across the creek, and that's where the new village of Crofield is to be."

"I didn't see a cent of money in any of those trades, but I've a thousand dollars laid up, and I'm only working in the railroad shop now, but I'm going into the hardware business. I wish you'd come back and come in with me. There's the store—rent free. We can sell plenty of tools, now that Crofield is booming!"

"I've saved up seven hundred and fifty dollars," said Jack, "from my salary and commissions. I'll put that in. Gifford & Company'll send you things cheap. But, Father,—I belong in the city. I've seen hundreds of boys there who didn't belong there, but I do. Let's go back to the house. Bob and Jim—"

"Well, maybe you're right," said his father, slowly. "Come, let us go home. Your mother has hardly been able to wait to see you."

When they came in sight of the house, the stoop and the front gate were thronged with home-folk, but Jack could not see clearly for a moment. The sunshine, or something else, got into his eyes. Then there were pairs of arms, large and small, embracing him, and,—well, it was a happy time, and Mary was there and his mother, and the family were all together once more.

"How you have grown!"