“Granny, I’am goin’ inter business, like other men.”
It was probably the last awful threat that awed Chub into obedience, for he gave no more thought to Sim’s way of getting a machine for him, but tried to think of another plan.
It wasn’t long, however, before his friends among the bootblacks raised a sum between them and presented Chub with the necessary capital with which to begin business in earnest. And to granny’s delight her boy started off one fine morning regularly equipped for his first battle for daily bread—and an orange.
For a long time the little, six-years-old bootblack sat on the Astor House steps awaiting custom. But big boys somehow grabbed all the jobs, and nobody noticed little Chub, nor heard his weak cry, “Shine yer up fur ten cents! Want a shine, sir?”
So when night came, the little fellow shouldered his box and went home, minus his orange, and with pockets as empty as when he started from home. He cried a little, to be sure, and granny comforted him with kisses, and put him to bed tenderly. For nearly a week things worked very badly for Chub. Business didn’t prosper, and sitting all day in the hot sun made the little fellow sick of trying to be a man and do business. He couldn’t somehow make the thing work, and Sim Hardy, the friend who would have taught him, was busy on another route, and so Chub sat swinging his little bare feet all day, with nothing to do but watch the sky and wish he could fly up to “that other world” where he didn’t believe the “angels would let him go so long without a job.”
One night he went home with two ten cent stamps in his pocket, and a prouder boy never lived. But granny’s anxious eyes saw an unusual flush on the boy’s cheeks, and the little hands felt dry and hot. And that night the boy was restless and talked in his sleep.
It had been a fearfully hot day, and granny feared the child was suffering from sunstroke. So she kept ice on his head, and with part of the newly-earned money bought some medicine which quieted Chub and gave him an hour’s sweet sleep just before sunrise.
Then he opened his blue eyes and told granny about a dream in which he had seen a beautiful angel peep out of a little window in the sky and look all about as if searching for something. And presently Chub heard a voice say, “Oh, there’s little Chub! I’ve found him.” Then, as he looked up to see who had called his name from the clouds, the window opened wide, and the angel spread beautiful white wings, as white as snow, and fluttered gently down with arms opened lovingly towards Chub, who dreamed he was sitting with his box all that time on the Astor House steps. But just before she reached him he woke up, and, lo and behold, all the angel his waking eyes saw was dear old granny, who stood with a cooling drink beside the bed, and fanned away the tormenting flies.
So Chub told his dream. Granny wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, and hugged her boy closer.
