“No; I saved the money for car fare, as I didn’t know how far I’d have to go before I struck a job. Then, when I got this one in the book store, I thought I might as well come home and get a bite as to go to a restaurant, so I’ve got the quarter left.”
“But, Tom, you must take care of your health,” said his mother. “Going without your dinner, to save money, is poor economy. You can’t afford to get sick, with two women to look after,” and she smiled fondly at her son.
“Oh, I guess it didn’t hurt me, mother. But I certainly am hungry now. Is there any jam left?”
“Yes; you’ll find it in the pantry.”
Tom went downstairs, and was soon rattling away at the dishes in the cupboard.
“Look at that!” exclaimed his aunt, as she pointed to a patch of snow and mud left by Tom’s shoes in the middle of the sewing room. “Isn’t that awful! Oh, boys are such terrible creatures!”
“I’m glad I have one,” declared Mrs. Baldwin fondly, as she wiped up the mud with an old rag. “There are worse things than muddy shoes, Sallie.”
Miss Ramsey sighed, but said nothing. Meanwhile, the “terrible boy” was satisfying a very healthy appetite, thinking, between bites, of his good luck in finding work.
For he needed employment very much. Tom Baldwin’s father had died about three years before this story opens, leaving his wife and son a small house, in Boston, but no money. Of course, Mrs. Baldwin could have sold the house, and lived for a time on what she got for it, but she preferred to keep it. She had been a good seamstress in her younger days, and she determined to try to earn her living by dressmaking.
But she soon found that dressmaking, as she had seen it conducted when she was a girl in the country, and the way it is done now-a-days, was quite different. She could barely get enough to do to make a living for herself and Tom, who was too young to go to work, and who attended a public school.