Chapter XXXVIII

His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty.

"Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing.

Mr. Reed, the junior member of the firm, was in the main office, a large square room with two windows, the walls of which were hung with framed photographs of buildings the firm had constructed and maps of the city's streets. He was standing at a flat-top desk which was covered with blue-prints, drawings, and sheets of paper filled with figures and diagrams, and as John entered he turned and shook hands with him. He had a broad face, was of middle age, and decidedly bald. He had a cordial manner, and when he detected, from John's pronunciation, that he was Southern, he smiled agreeably.

"I went down into North Carolina with a lumber concern ten years ago," he said. "We roughed it in the mountains getting out timber, and had a splendid time. I often wish I had kept at it. This indoor grind is taking the life out of me. I seldom see the sun. Brick-mason, eh? Well, the manager of our brick-and-stone work is in the rear office now, talking to some applicants. Member of the union?"

"No, not yet," John answered. "But I'm going to join."

"Well, that is unfortunate, for I think Mr. Kline will fill his openings right away, and we have to take union men in our work, to keep out of all sorts of labor complications."

Mr. Reed seemed interested. He laid aside his work, and he and John talked for nearly an hour, and when it finally came out that John had assisted in some contracting work in the South and had an ambition to go farther in the same line, Mr. Reed lowered his brows thoughtfully. In an adjoining office Mr. Pilcher was at work dictating letters to a stenographer and Reed suddenly excused himself and went in to him. John noticed that he shut the door of the tiny office. He was gone ten minutes or more and then he came back.

"The truth is, Mr. Trott," he said, a touch of business-like reserve showing itself in his manner for the first time, "we are really in need of office help. I mean the kind of a man that could do both inside and outside work. Mr. Richer is getting old and is not able to do much. He says he would like to talk to you. Would you mind going in?"

Pilcher was a brusk, dyspeptic individual who seemed to be overworked, but John liked him and was convinced of his fairness and honesty. They had only chatted a few minutes when the old man called out to his partner and asked him to come in.

Reed made his appearance at once. "We might give Mr. Trott a trial in the office," he said. "What do you think?"

"I haven't yet spoken to Mr. Trott of the salary," Reed said. "Have you mentioned it, Mr. Pilcher?"

"No, but I thought you had."

"At the start it could not be more than twenty a week," the junior member said, "but there would be a chance, if you caught on readily to the work, for an increase later on.

"I had hoped to do better than that," John answered, frankly. "I want to make a start at contracting, but I am a good brick-mason, and I can, by working overtime, occasionally earn more at that, I think."

"Yes, perhaps," Pilcher admitted, and he threw a glance at his partner which seemed to sanction John's level-headed view. "We might raise it to twenty-two, and give Mr. Trott time to think it over till--say, to-morrow morning. How would that suit you, Mr. Trott?"

"Very well, thank you," said John, and he rose to go.

Reed followed him into the other office. The fact that John had not at once accepted the position had impressed him favorably. "I really think we could get along well together," he said. "From what you have told me about your past work I think you would fall into our line easily enough. Well, think it over, and let us know in the morning."

John spent the remainder of the day answering in person various advertisements. At some places he was kept waiting in a long line of applicants for hours, only to find that the work to be done was out of town, and that membership in the union was absolutely obligatory.

When the houses of business were beginning to close for the day he took the Elevated train for home. Mrs. McGwire met him at the front door. She was smiling agreeably.

"Your sister is not at home just now," she announced. "Minnie and Betty were going to an ice-cream festival at our church, around in the next block, and they took her with them. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," he returned. "I'm glad she got to go, and it was kind of them to take her."

He was at dinner when the children returned and they all came to the table where he sat alone. Dora's face was slightly flushed and she looked very attractive in the blue-serge suit. His heart throbbed with a vague, new pride in her. It was strange, but she had already acquired a sort of self-possession that rested well on such young shoulders. He noticed that she conducted herself almost as well as her two companions. She unfolded her napkin and put it into her lap, and handled her knife and fork as they did.

"Oh, it was glorious, brother John!" she exclaimed. "I wish you had been there. Girls and boys acted and sang on a little stage. Harold helped Mr. King run it all. The ice-cream and cake was the best I ever tasted. Harold made a speech, and it was very funny. Everybody laughed and clapped their hands."

"Harold only introduced some of the performers in a funny sort of way," Betty said, with quiet dignity. "He wrote it down beforehand."

When dinner was over they all went to the parlor above. Betty sat at the piano, opened a book of "Gospel Songs," and she and Minnie and some of the boarders began to sing. Harold came in with his mother and they stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin in her eyes.

"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be ahead of her."

That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh.

"What is the matter?" he asked, gently.

She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way, though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool-- I'm really a blockhead!"

John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast. You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for you have a good mind."

"Do you believe it? Do you _really_?" she faltered, searching his face eagerly.

"I know it," he answered, "and, take it from me, when you once get started you will go ahead of stacks and stacks of them. Don't be ashamed to start at the bottom. Great men and women began that way, and you are not to blame for the poor chance you've had."

He saw that he had comforted her, and recounted his various adventures in seeking work. When he spoke of the offer Pilcher & Reed had made him she suddenly said, "Take them up, brother John."

"Why do you say that?" he inquired.

"Because"--she began, and hesitated--"because I don't want you always to be a brick-mason. It is dirty work. You can do better. Look at Harold. He is just a boy, and yet he is determined to be a minister like Mr. King. Ministers talk nice and look nice."

And as John lay in his bed afterward, trying to decide what to do, he suddenly said: "It is a go! I'll take the kid's advice. It is a toss-up, anyway. They may not keep me the week out, but the thing is worth trying for. Sam always said it was my line and others have said the same thing. Yes, I'll close with Pilcher & Reed in the morning. I'll hang up my hat in that office and try my hand at a new game for one week, anyway."

* * * * *

When he waked the next morning, however, he felt oppressed by a weighty sense of the things he had renounced forever. The new work he was about to undertake no longer charmed him. His entire outlook now seemed chaotic, futile. How could he go ahead--with any sort of heart--in this drab life among strangers, and leave forever behind him the memory of his ecstatic honeymoon with the sweet, pulsing mate of his choice? It simply could not be done. It was beyond mortal strength. He told himself that he had kept himself keyed up to the present point by continual change and rapid movement since leaving Tilly, but the ultimate test was on him. With a groan from a tight throat, and smothering another in his pillow, he told himself over and over that his career was ended. Tilly was free--there was comfort in that. With the news of his death in the wreck, she would bury him as widows have always buried their mates, and life for her would roll on, but she would remain alive to him as long as the breath came and went from his cheerless frame.

"Brother John!" It was Dora calling to him. "Are you awake?"

He started to answer, but his voice was clogged and he was afraid to trust it to utterance. She called again and then appeared fully dressed in the doorway, the primer in her hands. She approached his bedside. "Will you please tell me what this darned letter is? I can say them all, I think, down to it. What comes after O?"

"P," he answered. "Who taught you the others?"

"Betty. And Q comes next," she went on, holding the book closed. "Then R, S, T-- What comes after T, brother John?" He told her, and she sat down on the edge of his bed, and for ten minutes he helped her learn the part of the alphabet she did not know.

The first bell for breakfast rang, and she left him. He stood up and stretched himself. "Be ashamed of yourself, John Trott," he muttered. "There is that poor kid trying to rise, and yet you are complaining. It is your damned yellow streak, or your liver is out of order. Throw it off, you whelp! Be a man! Women suffer in childbirth--children suffer under operations, crushed bones, and blindness. Your own father had his hell on earth. Stop whining over spilled milk. Think what you may be able to do for the dirty-faced brat you brought with you. Plunge in. Look those men in the eye to-day, and tell them you don't want their money unless you can give value received. What is New York more than Ridgeville, anyway?"

When he had dressed, he stood in the doorway of the other room. Dora was now copying the letters from her book on a piece of paper with a pencil.

"That's the idea," he said, smiling. "Come on, let's go to breakfast." He had never done it before, but he slid his arm about the waist of his foster-sister and playfully drew her toward the stairs. She appreciated it. It was as if she started to kiss him, but was too timid, daring only to incline her head against his arm.

"Harold says I am a heathen," she said. "What is that, brother John?"

He frowned thoughtfully and then smiled indulgently. "The church folks say it is a person that doesn't believe in a God. They pretend to believe in one because they make a living out of it. Let them think what they like. It doesn't concern us."

"Yes, it does," Dora answered, firmly. "Harold, Betty, and her mother all say that I must believe in God, that I must study about Him, listen to sermons, and--and even pray to Him every night and morning. They say I must go to Sunday-school and learn all about the Bible and Adam, and--and somebody else."

"Well, it is all right; go with them," John said in slow perplexity. "Most people do such things, and maybe you'd better. I don't want to stand in your way. Yes, you'd better go along with them and be like the rest. When you are grown you can think it all out for yourself, as I have."

Betty was coming from her mother's room, one flight below, and she turned and greeted them with a smile.

"She is a nice girl," John thought, as she and Dora linked arms and went ahead of him down the stairs. "She will make a fine woman, but she will never be equal to--"

He checked his thought. A storm of pain swept through him, almost depriving him of strength. He followed the children into the dining-room, which was well filled with boarders, some eating, some waiting to be served, and all chatting volubly. There was a great clatter of knives, forks, and dishes. Mrs. McGwire was helping in the kitchen, and Betty joined her and became a waitress herself.

"I must fight it off--kill it, or it will down me!" John said to himself, as he and Dora sat waiting to be served. "I will never do the work before me if I keep this up, and it must be done--it must!"

When he had breakfasted and was outside in the cool, crisp air he felt better. He walked briskly, swinging his arms to and fro to start the circulation of his blood. He knew the car he was to take and he boarded it, first buying a morning paper, which he could not read for thinking of the delicious and agonizing things he had forsworn forever.

"It will never come through trying to forget," he finally said, with a stoic shrug. "It will simply have to wear itself out. Maybe, after a few months, a year, or two, I will be something like I was before Sam and I went up to--" He checked himself again. "Oh, what's the use?" His very mind seemed to sob and choke. A man seated near him asked him what time it was, and John took out his watch and informed him in the casual tone that any passenger might use to another.

"Thanks. Fine day," the man said, and John nodded and smiled.