Time never waits for any one, and the hour of parting came. Harry hastily embraced his mother and little sister, and with a certain swelling of the heart which he could not quite repress, hurried out into the road to the carriage which was to convey him to the railroad station.
Mr. Falkland, his companion, was not a resident of Vernon, but had visited the place on business, and had readily undertaken to act as Harry’s guardian as far as the city. He spoke civilly to our hero, and asked him how he expected to like the city. But after getting into the cars, he took out a book and began to read. Harry took a seat behind, where he could look out of the window, and was sufficiently interested in watching the varied scenery through which he was whirled rapidly by the cars. His spirits began to rise once more, and bright dreams of the success he was going to achieve in the city swept across his mental vision. He was undecided whether, when he got rich, which he confidently hoped to be at twenty-five, he would install his mother in a nice house in the city, or build a house for her in Vernon, say as large as Squire Turner’s. However, as he wisely concluded, there was no immediate necessity for deciding about this. He might leave it subject to further reflection.
So the train whirled on at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, and in about two hours he found the houses growing more and more numerous, until the cars came to a final pause in the New York depot.
Mr. Falkland put his book into his carpet-bag.
“You have never been in the city before, I think,” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Then, of course, you don’t know the way anywhere. I’ll go with you at once to Nassau Street (that’s the place, I believe), and then you’ll be all right.”
Harry was a little bewildered by the strangeness and novelty of the scenes to which he was introduced. So this was the great city of which he had heard so much. It was here that he was to work his way. Most boys would have felt a momentary depression and loss of confidence, but Harry had a good deal of faith and courage.
“Plenty of men succeed here,” he said to himself; “and I’m bound to succeed too.”