Six months have passed and brought with them some changes. At the end of two months Ruth Patton sent for her mother, who was feeling very lonely at Port Jervis, and engaged a suite of three rooms over those occupied by Mrs. Fenton and Fred. Though she was away during the day, the two ladies, living so near together, were company for each other. Ruth had now become advanced to twelve dollars a week, not out of charity, but because Alfred Lindsay's business had considerably increased and gave his copyist more to do.
Fred was still on the Erie road, but it was now winter, and the travel had so much diminished that where he had formerly earned seven or eight dollars a week he now averaged no more than four. He began to be dissatisfied, for his income now was inadequate to meet his expenses, and he had been obliged to spend twenty dollars out of the two hundred which he had received from Mr. Lawrence at Niagara Falls. He was now seventeen, and he felt that it was high time he had entered upon some business in which he could advance by successive steps. On the road, if he remained till he was thirty years of age, he could earn no more than at present. He answered several advertisements, but secured nothing likely to be an improvement upon his present place.
One evening toward the end of December he was about to leave the cars, when his attention was drawn to an old gentleman with hair nearly white, who did not rise with the rest of the passengers, but remained in his seat with his head leaned back and his eyes closed.
The train boy, concluding that he had fallen asleep, went up to him and touched him gently.
"We have reached Jersey City," he said.
The old man opened his eyes slightly and gazed at him bewildered.
"I—I don't know where I am," he murmured vaguely.
"You are in Jersey City, sir."
"I want to go to New York."
"You have only to cross the ferry."