“Have you seen my mother?” asked the boy, his eyes filling with tears. “Did she send you to find me?”
“Then you are William Perry!” exclaimed Bart. “You guessed it, Frank!”
“We saw your mother Thanksgiving day,” went on Frank. “We were able to help her. We found her cabin just in the nick of time, for we were caught in a blizzard. So we have only paid back, in a measure, what she did for us.”
“Yes, I am William Perry,” the boy admitted, and now he made no effort to conceal his tears. “It’s the first time I’ve used my name, though, in many months. My poor mother! Yes, I will go back to her. I’d go now, only—”
“Don’t let the money part worry you,” said Fenn eagerly. “We’ll lend you some.”
“I’ve made a big failure of it all,” William went on. “I ought not to go home.”
“The more reason why you should,” interrupted Frank.
Then the waif told them his story. He had started off to go to sea, in order to earn money for his mother. But he only got as far as Boston. Then, unable to stand the hard work he deserted the ship. Fearing to go home, because he thought he might be arrested for leaving the vessel, he tried to find work. He did manage to get odd jobs here and there, and finally drifted to New York.
He found it was just as hard to earn a dollar there as it had been in Boston. He could barely get enough to buy himself food and he often went hungry. Finally he managed to get a permanent position, but he earned so little that he could only just live on it. He had slept in lodging houses, he said, and wore the poorest clothing he could buy.
“I was ashamed to go home without money,” he went on, “or I would have gone back long ago. I wanted to return with good clothes and gold jingling in my pocket, as I had read, in books, of boys doing. So I didn’t even write to let them know where I was. Poor mother!” and William sighed.