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Drllvvlufrx by lI’uanIlrl smzm.
IlE six o'clock gong rumbled through
the long aisles of Catterall's Mam-
moth Emporium. Belated custom-
ers turned toward the doors, sighing as
they passed by shelves and counters tilled
with bargains unattainable until another
day. Shop girls and salesmen left the
posts of duty where they had been strug-
gling with the requirements of a capri-
cious public since sunrise of a winter
morning. .
Downstairs in the “Unparalleled Bar-
gain Basement Grocery" Tommy Robert-
son, set the last can of baking powder
from the box which he was unpacking,
neatly into place on the shelves, an
straightened his shoulders with a long
breath of relief. There was a dash of
corn starch on Tommy's auburn pom-
padour, contributed by a treacherous
package which had sprung a leak while
he was reaching up to the fourth shelf.
Tommy had brushed the starch from his
shoulders; he hadn't had time to brush
it out of his hair. It gave him a fan-
tastic and rakish appearance, absurdly at
variance with his round face and good-
naturcd blue eyes. '
“Hello, Tommy! Going to a dress-up
party to-night?" Harvey “falcott inquired,
grinning at him across the pickle bottles
on the counter.
“What's that?" Tommy questioned in
turn, preparing his countenance for the
joke, whatever it might be. vYou could
always count on Tommy to take cllaffing
amiably or rejoice in a joke sympathet-
ically, no matter how tired he might be.
-“Why, you've got your hair powdered.
Thought maybe you were going as George
XVashington, or sornebody.'.' < , ,
"I'm going tome, as the Virtuous
Chore Boy. That's the fancy ball I'm
going to," Tommy answered, running his
fingers through his hair. “I‘ve got to see
to the furnace, and carry out ashes, and
shovel snow, and do fifty other things
l,couldn't attend to before seven thirty
this morning. Is that your program for
the evening?"
“kVell, hardly.”
wistful. “lily home just at present is a
six-by-ten cell at the Brandon. The
janitor is supposed to do all'the snow-
shoveling and furnace work, except when
he doesn't feel like it."-
“Want to‘ change ?f‘,.Tommy suggested.
Really he"d,idn't' know in the-least why
he said it. ’Afterwards,.whcn he tried to
remember, he thought it might have been
the half-contemptuous part of Harvey's
smile that challenged him to reprisals.
..“Change how?" Harvey inquired. The
boys had donned coats and caps by this
‘ ' They
stood aside to let
prettyv cashier, 'pass out ahead. of them.
She nodded and smiled to ‘Tommy; for
Harvey her bow was. a trilie more dig-
nified, : . .
“Oh, come along,home with- me for
this evening. and hire out to'me as as-
sistant shoveler," Tommy answered. “It's
lonesome work for me. I want an as-
ststaut.
‘ ;-%-
‘Wk
4.1.
335
Harvey's face was a’
curious study-half contemptuous, half"
e.'=.<'e2 a
- 943’
;7Ya:6e['17cz1‘(C9
Ilarvey hesitated. lle had another in-
vitation for the evening, which he had
half promised to accept. It would give
him=the company of two young fellows
whom he admired extremely; an it
might result in a little money for him,
it‘ luck shottld turn his way. Once upon
a time, he had held himself above such
things as gambling and drinking and
doubtful company. Of late he had de-
cided it didn't pay to be too strait-laced.
“Come on Y" Tommy insisted laying a
forceful hand on his shoulder. “March!
I want help, pad I'll see you have good
wages.” ' .
Ilarvey laughed, and let himself be
guided down te corner, where a
crowd of salespeople and workmen were
waiting for the car. It was bitterly cold,
with a sting of sleet in the air. Tommy
thrust his hands into his pockets and
stamped his feet to keep warm.
“What wages do you pay?" Harvey in-
quired.
“Roasted apples,” said Tommy. “But-
terscotch, maybe, or else pop corn.”
“Whe-ewl You're a captain of ill(lllStl% T
Ever have any strikes?’ 1 y
“We don‘t allow agitators. VVhole work-
ing force is satis re .'
There was no room for them inside
the car when it came. They stood on
the platform, and turned up their coat
collars against the nipping wind, and
joked with the workmen carrying home
their dinner buckets after a long day's
toil in the railroad car shops.,
“I don't know why I'm doing this,
Tommy," llarvey observed, when they
swung down from the steps at the Forty-
fifth Street crossing. “Your” folks will
think I'm a fine sort, jumping at that
kind of invitation. They'll tell you you'll
have to give up your charitable fad for
bringing home tramps to feed.”
“Oh, no, they won't," Tommy rejoined
serenely. “"l‘hey're used to me."
Forty-hfth Street was no part of the
fashionable residence district, Harvey de-
cided, as he stumbled along beside
Tommy on the unswept walks. There
were a‘good many vacant lots, and small
cottages whose occupants, like Tommy,
had not yet found time to shovel away
the snow. But here and there, through
windows where the curtains had not been
drawn, he caught sight of lighted sit-
ting rooms, old-fashioned heating stoves
aglow through the dusk, white-spread
tables set for tea. The glimpses of
homely, happy existence touched his
heart with a twinge of regret. There
was nothing like that in the stuffy cor-
ridors and tawdry splendors of the Bran-
on. Up to this time he had cherished
the notion that it was rather fine to live
at the Brandon, grumbling at its discom-
forts, but secretly enjoying the distinction
which residence there was supposed to
confer in the eyes of a certain class.
"Here we are!" Tommy announced,
turning in at the gate of a cottage which
stood well back from the street. The side-
walk was covered with trampled snow;
Tommy chuckled, kicking it to prove to
Ilarvey how hrmly it was packed.
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“Think you’ll like your job?" he de-
manded. “It's too late for you to back
out now! There's Nell at the door. I've
brought you a new hired man, sis."
' Nell Robertson was a
girl, evidently some years older than her
brother. It was too dark in the little
en y for Harvey to see her face, but
he could recognize the unaffected hearty
welcome in her laughing greeting. She
threw open the door of the sitting room,
and led llarvey, blinking with the stud-
den dazzle of light, up to the sofa where
a little gray-haired lady lay propped up
with pillows, knitting something fleecy
and soft in red and white wools,
“I told Tommy that his folks would
scold him for bringing home tramps,”
Harvey explained. “Really I ougl1tn’t to
have gone with anybody on such short
notice; but it came over me when
he said ‘March,’ and I couldn't resist."
He had an uncomfortable sense that
the cuffs he had worn all day in the
Basement Bargain Grocery were not quite
immaculate, and that his coat would have
been better for a vigorous brushing,
Somehow he never thought of those things
at the Brandon. But the Brandon seemed
very far away from this simple t;v?(,,and
very cheap in its gaudy attenip, [at dis-
w av.
There was no display here-only lamp-
sweet-voiced .
FEBRUARY 14, tom
room, while ravishing odors wafted in to
the sitting room, making Harvey hungrier
than he had been for years. He sat be-
tween the sofa and the grate, answering
Mrs. Rohcrtson’s questions, and basking
in the restfnlness about him. Once, when
the little lady asked him if he had any
friends or relatives in the city, certain
memories obtrnded themselves unpleas-
antly. There were things one would rather
forget, in a little old-fashioned sitting
room like this.
Tommy slammed a scoop of coal on
the fire, rattled draft doors and dampers,
and bounced upstairs three steps at a
“Supper ’most ready, sis ?" he demanded,
stopping to wash his hands at the kitchen
sink. “Harvey and I have a week's work
ahead of us after we eat. He's got to
earn his salt.“
“Supper is on the table now," said Nell.
“But I think you might let your guest visit
with mother and me."
“After we finish the job," Harvey sug-
gested. “l’m hired out to Tommy for the
first part of the evening." .
It was a very simple supper. There
were little biscuits like baked foam, and
creamed potatoes, and brown savory cro-
quettes; a big glass dish of cherries which
Nell had put up last summer from the
trees in the back yard, and yellow sponge
cake cut in
squares, and co-
COII H13 5 (EX-
actly right. llar-
vey had never
ordered a meal
like that at the
Brandon; h u t
nothing he had
ever eaten there
had ‘tasted so
good. llelet him-
self be persuaded
into generous
second hclpings;
and over his
fourth biscuit he
paused, looking
up langhingly at
Nell.
"I'd say it any
other if I
it‘s true. They're
just like the
ones that mother
used to mak
and I haven't had
4 for many
vears.“
A fte r supper
he put on an old
coat of Tommy's,
and a pair of
cotton-Hannel
gloves, in readi-
ness for the tasks
awaiting him. It
"run urn R st-r1-mt: Room lADiA'rl-ID co.v-rzsrmx-tr."
light and hrelight on old-fashioned furni-
ture, the drowsy purr o a big gray cat
in a cushioned armchair, the peace of con-
tented faces. Years before, Harvey had
known something very like this, in a big
white farmhouse on the outskirts -of an
Ohio village. Ile had been a restless lad
through his early boyhood, ‘
leave home and make a fortune in the
city. Three years of hard work in the
Bargain Basement had failed to bring the
fortune any nearer. It occurred to him
as he sat beside the little gray-haired lady
that some people managed to be very
happy without fortune or fashion.
Tommy went down to look after the
furnace, whistling. Nell moved back and
forth between the kitchen and the dining
w a s not v e r y
pleasant carrying
out the ashes.
There was no pit for them in the base-
ment; they had to be brought upstairs
and carried out into the back yard, in the
teeth of the driving wind. The boys made
light of it, shortening the work with up-
roarious explosions of laughter over jokes
which would have had no meaning under
other conditions.
“Now for the walks!" Tommy pro-
claimed. “Who says you can't shovel snow
after dark? You must be timekeeper,
Nell. See how long it takes us. I want
to know exactly how much I owe my as-
sistant." '
The snow-shoveling lasted exactly half
an hour. When llarvey XVolcott came in-
doors, slapping his hands and dashing the‘
sleet from his shoulders, with eyes and