Tom went out with Mrs. Murphy, helping her to carry her basket of apples. Leaving her at her accustomed stand, she went to the newspaper offices, and laid in a small supply. With these she went to Fulton Ferry, partly because she fancied that there was no danger of granny’s coming there in pursuit of her. Even if the encounter did take place she was resolved not to go back. Still it was better to avoid it altogether.
Tom was rather late in the field. Most of her competitors had been selling papers for an hour, and some had already sold quite a number. However, not being in the least bashful, she managed to obtain her share of the trade that remained. The boats came in at frequent intervals, loaded down with passengers,—clerks, shop-boys, merchants, bankers, book-keepers, operatives, who made a home in Brooklyn, but spent the day in the busy metropolis.
“Morning papers, sir?” asked Tom, to a rather portly gentleman, who did business in Wall Street.
“Yes; give me the ‘Herald.’”
He drew a coin from his pocket, and handed to Tom.
“Never mind about the change,” he said.
Tom was about to put it in her pocket, supposing from the size that it was a five-cent piece; but, chancing to glance at it more particularly, she saw that it was a five-dollar gold piece.
Her eyes sparkled with joy. To her it was an immense fortune. She had never, in all her life, had so much money before. “But did he mean to give her so much?” was the question that suggested itself to her immediately. He had, to be sure, told her to keep the change, but Tom knew too much of human nature and the ways of the world to think it likely that anybody would pay five dollars in gold for a morning paper, without asking for a return of the change.
Now I am quite aware that in three cases out of four the lucky news-vender would have profited by the mistake, and never thought of offering to correct it. Indeed, I am inclined to think that Tom herself would have done the same three months before. Even now she was strongly tempted to do so. But she remembered the false charge that had been made against her by Mrs. Merton the day before, and the indignation she felt.
“If I keep this, and it’s ever found out, she’ll be sure I took the twenty dollars,” thought Tom. “I won’t do it. I won’t let her call me a thief. I’ll give it back.”