"Another steamer'll be in day after to-morrow," went on the agent. "Better be around early."
"I will, thanks."
Then, as there was no further opportunity for work on the pier that day, Nat started for the place he called home. It was in a poor tenement, in one of the most congested districts of Chicago.
But if there were dirt and squalor all about, Mrs. Miller did her best to keep her apartment clean. So though the way up to it was by rather dirty stairs, the rooms were neat and comfortable.
"Well, Nat, you're home early, aren't you?" asked the woman, who, with her husband, had befriended the orphan lad.
"Yes, Mrs. Miller."
"I suppose you couldn't get any work?"
"Oh, yes, I got some."
"What's the matter, then? Don't you feel well?"
She could not understand any one coming away so early from a place where there was work, for work, to the poor, means life itself.