"If it did not break so cruelly into the poor boy's hours for sleep. In order to dress and snatch a bite before he goes down to the stable and harnesses, he has to rise at 3 o'clock. This enables the milkman to sleep until Jim arrives with the milk at 6 o'clock, in time to begin the morning rounds. I make the boy take an hour's sleep after this, but it is not enough."
"He ought to go to bed very early."
"Yes, but the lessons; when are they to be learned? He shouts them out in his sleep. 'If I gain seven hundred dollars from a rise of 2½ per cent. in Pennsylvania Railroad stock, what was my original investment?' He has his father's quickness for figures. Bless his heart! he never had any money to invest in railroad stocks, and by heaven's help he never will."
"I am not so sure about that," said Witch Winnie. "How did it happen that you lost your position at Madame Céleste's on account of Jim?" She had finished the fitting and was removing the pins from her mouth, but Winnie drew on her gloves very slowly; we were both interested.
"Madame kept me for such late hours that I did not reach home until Jim was asleep, and at last she proposed to raise my salary, but said that I must sleep in the establishment, so as to be on hand to open early in the morning. This was after Madame's very successful winter, when she bought a house out of town, and did not find it convenient to come in until late in the day. I told her that I would accept her offer if Jim could be with me; but there was no room for him, and we thought it best to stick together. I get through here at 6 o'clock, and can cook Jim's dinner. But it's hard for the boy. If I could only afford to let him have his entire time for his study—but his dollar a week half pays our rent."
"Wouldn't it have been better for you both if you had remained at Madame Céleste's, and had sent Jim to boarding-school? There are such nice cadet schools up the Hudson."
A faint smile overspread the woman's face. "Madame always insisted that her employees should dress well. I know exactly what it cost me. It would have left just a dollar and a half a week for Jim. Do you know of any boarding-school that would have taken him at those rates?"
Winnie sorrowfully confessed that she did not, and we reluctantly took our leave, Mrs. Halsey promising to finish the costume immediately, and to send it by Jim in ample time for the evening's performances.
Our escapade lay heavily upon my conscience in spite of our success in obtaining the costume, but I felt still more troubled for poor Mrs. Halsey and her overworked boy. "I wonder," I said to Winnie, "if Madame could not make him useful here at the school, and let him work for his board, tend furnace and run errands."
"You could not tell her about him without confessing our lark, and don't you do that for the world!"