Jim and his mother did not feel like strangers when they reached New York. Mrs. Manning knew the city well and Jim, boy-like, was overjoyed at the idea of being in the great town.
Mr. Dennis' brownstone front was one of the fine old houses on West 23rd street that are fast making way for stores. It was full of red Brussels carpets and walnut furniture of crinkly design. It had crayon enlargements of Mrs. Dennis and the two small Dennises in the parlor and in the guest room and in Mr. Dennis' room. Jim wondered how Mr. Dennis could be so genial when he had lost so much.
The third floor had two large rooms opening off a big central room, and this floor, comfortably furnished, was for the use of Mrs. Manning and Jim and the maid. Mrs. Manning solved the maid question by sending back to Exham for Annie Peyton. Annie was about forty. Her mother had been housekeeper for Mrs. Manning's mother and Annie was the domestic day worker for the village. Up in Exham English customs still obtained among the old families. Annie was "Peyton" to Mrs. Manning.
Jim guessed from his own feelings how her position as a servant hurt his mother. She herself never said anything, but Jim noticed that she made no friends. Mr. Dennis treated her with a very real courtesy and basked in her perfect housekeeping.
Jim entered school at once. In his own way, he was a brilliant student. He had the sort of mind that instinctively grasps fundamental principles, and this faculty, combined with a certain mental obstinacy and independence, made him at once the pride and terror of his teachers. He was a very firm rock on which to depend for exhibition purposes, but whenever he asked questions they were of a searching variety that made his teachers long to box his ears.
It was rather a pity that all Jim's spare moments when not in school had to be spent in janitor service. He missed the companionship of the boys in the public school which, in America, is an almost indispensable part of a boy's education. In his adult life he must meet and understand men and methods of every nationality. New York public schools are veritable congresses of nations and a boy who plans to go into business gets far more than mere book learning from them. Jim's poverty cut him out of athletics and clubs so that all his inherent New England tendency to mental aloofness would have been vastly increased if it had not been for his summer vacations.
The first day of his summer vacation, Jim applied for a job. A steel skyscraper was being erected in 42nd street and Jim asked the superintendent of construction for work. The superintendent looked at the lank lad, who now, fifteen, would have appeared eighteen were it not for his smooth, almost childish face.
"What kind of work, young fella?" asked the Boss.
"Anything to start with," replied Jim, "until we see what I can do."
"You're as thin as a lath. Ye can get down there with Derrick No. 2 and get some muscle laid on you. A dollar fifty a day is the best I can do for you. Get along now."