“Now for a job!” exclaimed Larry as he started off briskly.
He consulted the paper which he still had and went to several places that had advertised. But that day must have brought forth an astonishing crop of boys out of work, or else all places were quickly filled, for at every establishment where Larry called he was told that there was no need for his services.
Signs of “Boy Wanted” became “as scarce as hen’s teeth,” Larry said afterward, which are very scarce indeed, as no one ever saw a hen with teeth. About four o’clock in the afternoon he found himself at the junction of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, where the big Flatiron Building, as it is called, stands. Larry had walked several miles and he was tired and discouraged.
The day, which had been pleasant when Larry started out, had become cloudy, and a dark bank of clouds rolling up in the west indicated that a thunderstorm was about to break. As Larry stood there, amid all the bustle and excitement of the biggest city in the United States, he felt so lonely and worried that he did not know what to do. He thought of his mother and the children at home, and wondered whether he would ever get work so that he could take care of them.
Suddenly, from out of the western sky, there came a dazzling flash of lightning. It was followed by a crashing peal of thunder, and then the storm, which had been gathering for some time, burst. There was a deluge of rain, and people began running for shelter.
Larry looked about, and, seeing that many were making for the open doorway of the Flatiron Building, on the Fifth Avenue side, ran in that direction. He had hardly reached the friendly shelter when there came a crash that sounded like the discharge of a thirteen-inch gun, and a shock that seemed to make the very ground tremble.
At the same time Larry felt a queer tingling in the ends of his fingers, and several persons near him jumped.
“That struck near here!” a man at his side exclaimed.
“Guess you’re right,” another man said. “Lucky we’re in out of the wet.”
By this time the rain was coming down in torrents, and several more persons crowded into the lobby of the big building. Larry stayed near the door, for he liked to watch the storm and was not afraid.