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 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 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.
His mother had taken special pains with his breakfast that morning, and though he was quivering with excitement over what was to be his first venture into the busy world of trade, he tried to show his appreciation of her tender thoughtfulness by eating a hearty meal. In his neat, blue serge suit, he had put on his Sunday best, his well-shined shoes and his clean, white shirt with its immaculate collar, he was above reproach as far as attire went, and his bright, boyish face with its clear, blue eyes and clean-cut, resolute mouth made him a boy to be proud of. So his mother thought as she looked approvingly at him across the table. She stifled the sigh of regret that her boy must so early take his place among the bread-winners, and listened to his eager plan of what he intended to do with an encouraging smile.
“Well, Mother, I’m off. That was a dandy breakfast. You know what I like, don’t you. I wish all the boys in the world had mothers like you. I don’t know when I’ll be back. If I don’t come home all day, you’ll know I’m working.” Reaching to the nail where he always hung his cap, Harry stood for an instant with it in his hand. Then he kissed his mother and went manfully down the two flights of stairs to the street.
He had clipped from the paper the section of the want column with the advertisements he had marked. Now he studied it earnestly and set out for the Tyler Street address. It was at least fifteen squares from his home, but the clock on a nearby church had just chimed out the hour of seven. In his pocket reposed twenty cents in small change. He had earned it by doing errands after school. But he made up his mind that not a penny of it should go for carfare if he could help it. He had plenty of time to walk. He would very likely reach the place he had selected for his first call before the office was open. He wondered what sort of building it would be, and whether it was an office building or a factory. More than one person glanced in friendly fashion at the erect, manly lad as he hurried along. There was something in his earnest young face that commanded attention and instant approbation.