“Naw, der wan’t no bars to de windows. I wuz in de New York hospital, and I’ll leave it to de nurse, a dinky lady wot sat up all night wid us, and wore a white cap. Dat’s on de level, boss.”
The tall man regarded him suspiciously for a moment, and the boy squinted up at him with a defiant look in his sharp eyes that caused the other to smile and say to him in more conciliatory tones: “Well, I’ve got one or two errands for you to do, and if you do them properly, you’ll be well paid for them. If not, you’ll come to grief. How would you like to take a little trip into the country, to be gone two or three days? I hope that you have no pressing business engagements in the city that will interfere with the project.”
Skinny replied with perfect gravity that he had intended to take dinner with Mr. Vanderbilt that night, but that he would try and get him to excuse him, in which case he observed in his picturesque slang that it would be necessary for him to eat elsewhere, and at an early moment. The tall man was laughing broadly now—he always found a great deal of amusement in Skinny—and so he bade him go into the kitchen and tell the cook to let him have something to eat. “When you are through, come into the library, I want to talk to you.”
Chapter XXV.
The boy partook of a hearty meal in the kitchen of the great house, and while he was eating it, entertained the cook and the other servants with his droll comments on the food that was set before him. Having finished, he washed his face and hands at the sink, bowed politely to those who were in the room, and went up to the library where the master of the house was awaiting him.
“Do you think,” said the tall man, “that you could find your way to a place two or three hundred miles from here, do an errand for me without telling everything you know, and then come back?”
“I kin,” was Skinny’s answer.
“Very well,” rejoined the other producing a paper on which was written a number of names, “Can you read writing?”
Yes, thanks to the night school in the lodging house, Skinny could read, and he said so in accents of just pride mingled with contempt for those who were his inferiors in that point of education.
“All right then,” continued the other. “Take this paper and listen to what I tell you. Go up to the village of Rocky Point and try to get work there with some farmer or shopkeeper. That’s just for a blind, you know, so that nobody will guess that you’ve come up there all the way from New York. Perhaps it would be better for you to stop off the train at some other village and walk in on foot. As soon as you get a chance, take a walk out to the cemetery and look around for a grave marked Decker. I think it’s the grave of Mary Decker. When you find it, copy the inscription, every word of it, mind, dates and all, and stick it away somewhere where nobody will find it. Then see if there are any other graves in the same plot with the same name. See if there is the grave of a young boy, the son of this Mary Decker there, and if there is a grave without any headstone over it, find out who lies buried there. If there is no other grave, find out from some of the village folks whether this Mary Decker left any children, and if so what has become of them. It may take you a week, or it may take you only a day to do all this, but as soon as you get the information, come back to me and let me know about it. Here is money enough for your fare and other expenses, and perhaps you had better write me a letter as soon as you get settled there. Here is my address, Robert J. Korwein,—Eldridge Street.”