"Perhaps I did wrong not to take that position over in New Jersey," he thought, on his way to his boarding house. "But I don't want to go back to farm work if I can help it."
Two additional days passed, and still Nat found nothing to do, although he tramped from Forty-second Street clear down to the Battery several times. Then he obtained a job which lasted three days and paid him but two dollars.
"This isn't earning a living," he reasoned. "Unless I do better I'll have to try selling papers or blacking boots."
One morning he did try selling papers, under the tutorship of Dick, but the effort was not a success. By noon he had earned exactly nineteen cents and had sixteen papers still on hand.
"I guess you wasn't cut out for a newsboy," said Dick, frankly. "What you want to do is, to get a steady job in a store or office."
"Yes, but the jobs are mighty scarce," answered Nat.
A week passed, and the country boy could find nothing more to do that was steady. One day he helped a man distribute bills, and on another occasion he carried out packages for a florist, and the two jobs brought him in just a dollar. By this time the soles were worn from his shoes and he had to have them mended.
"Making one's way in the city isn't so easy after all," he thought one night, as he sat in his little room, on the edge of the bed. He had been counting up his money and found that he had but a little over four dollars left.
"I'll have to give Mrs. Talcott three and a half of that," he continued, "and that will leave me sixty-five cents. I've got to hustle or I'll be high and dry by next week."
Nat hustled all of the next week, but without results. In one store the proprietor was unusually harsh to him, and he came back to Mrs. Talcott's house more downcast than ever.