Bert blushed, and explained: "Got up for me by a printer"s boy I know.
I"d done some favours for him, so he made me a few cards. Handy to have sometimes, you know."
"Well, Herbert," said the little old man, "I"m glad to have made your acquaintance. The pie was excellent--not any more, thank you--and I hope you"ll come and see me. You"ll find me in very humble quarters; but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won"t you let me pay for my dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see."
Bert would not hear of such a thing, but walked up to the desk and settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a trifling expense.
When he looked around again the little old man was gone.
"Never mind, I"ll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert, as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before putting it into his pocket.
He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother.
On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street.
Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor.
Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the money in a safe.
"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the plain office room. "What do you do here?"
"I buy real estate sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth."
"Who for?" asked Bert.
"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile.
Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the preceding Thursday!
"I--I thought--you was a poor man."
"I _am_ a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money doesn"t make a man rich. I"ve money enough. I own houses in the city.
They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer riches once, but I lost them long ago."
From the way the old man"s voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost--wife and children, perhaps.
"To think of _me_ inviting _you_ to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed and ashamed.
"It _was_ odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circ.u.mstance for both of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I"ve an offer to make to you: I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it myself. What do you say?"
What _could_ Bert say?
Again that afternoon he walked--or rather, ran--to his mother, and after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker"s offer.
Interviews between his mother and his employer soon followed, resulting in something for which at first the boy had not dared to hope. The lonely, childless old man, who owned so many houses, wanted a home; and one of these houses he offered to Mrs. Hampton, with ample support for herself and her children, if she would also make it a home for him.
Of course this proposition was accepted; and Bert soon had the satisfaction of seeing the great ambition of his youth accomplished.
He had employment which promised to become a profitable business (as indeed it did in a few years, he and the old man proved so useful to each other); and, more than that, he was united once more with his mother and sisters in a happy home where he has since had a good many Thanksgiving dinners.
A THANKSGIVING STORY[15]
BY MISS L. B. PINGREE.
A three-minute story for the littlest boys and girls.
It was nearly time for Thanksgiving Day. The rosy apples and golden pumpkins were ripe, and the farmers were bringing them into the markets.
[Footnote 15: From "Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories," J. L.
Hammett Company.]
One day when two little children, named John and Minnie, were going to school, they saw the turkeys and chickens and pumpkins in the window of a market, and they exclaimed, "Oh, Thanksgiving Day! Oh, Thanksgiving Day!" After school was over, they ran home to their mother, and asked her when Thanksgiving Day would be. She told them in about two weeks; then they began to talk about what they wanted for dinner, and asked their mother a great many questions. She told them she hoped they would have turkey and even the pumpkin pie they wanted so much, but that Thanksgiving Day was not given us so that we might have a good dinner, but that G.o.d had been a great many days and weeks preparing for Thanksgiving. He had sent the sunshine and the rain and caused the grains and fruits and vegetables to grow. And Thanksgiving Day was for glad and happy thoughts about G.o.d, as well as for good things to eat.
Not long after, when John and Minnie were playing, John said to Minnie, "I wish I could do something to tell G.o.d how glad I am about Thanksgiving." "I wish so, too," said Minnie. Just then some little birds came flying down to the ground, and Minnie said: "Oh, I know."
Then she told John, but they agreed to keep it a secret till the day came. Now what do you think they did? Well, I will tell you.
They saved their pennies, and bought some corn, and early Thanksgiving Day, before they had their dinner, they went out into the street near their home, and scattered corn in a great many places. What for? Why, for the birds. While they were doing it, John said, "I know, Minnie, why you thought of the birds: because they do not have any papas and mammas after they are grown up to get a dinner for them on Thanksgiving Day." "Yes, that is why," said Minnie.
By and by the birds came and found such a feast, and perhaps they knew something about Thanksgiving Day and must have sung and chirped happily all day.
JOHN INGLEFIELD"S THANKSGIVING
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
A sad Thanksgiving story is a rarity indeed. But the one which follows reminds us that the Puritans, although they originated our Thanksgiving festival, were after all a sombre people, seldom free from a realizing sense of the imminence of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a genuine product of Puritanism, inherited a full share of his forefathers"
const.i.tutional melancholy and preoccupation with the darker aspects of life--as this story bears witness.
On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire threw its strongest light on his ma.s.sive and st.u.r.dy frame, reddening his rough visage so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John Inglefield"s right hand was an empty chair.
The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the group was John Inglefield"s son, who had been bred at college, and was now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of sixteen, whom n.o.body could look at without thinking of a rosebud almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield than did the pale and slender student.
Only these four had kept New England"s festival beneath that roof. The vacant chair at John Inglefield"s right hand was in memory of his wife, whom death had s.n.a.t.c.hed from him since the previous Thanksgiving. With a feeling that few would have looked for in his rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the chair in its place next his own; and often did his eye glance hitherward, as if he deemed it possible that the cold grave might send back its tenant to the cheerful fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did he cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was another grief which he would fain have torn from his heart; or, since that could never be, have buried it too deep for others to behold, or for his own remembrance. Within the past year another member of his household had gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept no vacant chair for her.
While John Inglefield and his family were sitting round the hearth with the shadows dancing behind them on the wall, the outer door was opened, and a light footstep came along the pa.s.sage. The latch of the inner door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl came in, wearing a cloak and hood, which she took off and laid on the table beneath the looking-gla.s.s. Then, after gazing a moment at the fireside circle, she approached, and took the seat at John Inglefield"s right hand, as if it had been reserved on purpose for her.
"Here I am, at last, father," said she. "You ate your Thanksgiving dinner without me, but I have come back to spend the evening with you."
Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused it with a healthful bloom. If she had spent the many months of her absence in guilt and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less altered had she merely stepped away from her father"s fireside for half an hour, and returned while the blaze was quivering upward from the same brands that were burning at her departure. And to John Inglefield she was the very image of his buried wife, such as he remembered on the first Thanksgiving which they had pa.s.sed under their own roof. Therefore, though naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak unkindly to his sinful child, nor yet could he take her to his bosom.
"You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing sideways at her, and his voice faltered. "Your mother would have rejoiced to see you, but she has been gone from us these four months."
"I know, father, I know it," replied Prudence quickly. "And yet, when I first came in, my eyes were so dazzled by the firelight that she seemed to be sitting in this very chair!"