'How much money?' asked Jack.
'A hundred dollars, I dare say. Dr. Wilkinson's cook told me once that he done something to a lady's eyes, and asked a thousand dollars for it.'
Jack sighed a long, hopeless sigh, and went away to fill the water-pails; but he remembered the doctor's name, and began to wonder how many years it would take to earn a hundred dollars.
Nanny was very patient; but, by and by, Mrs. Quinn began to talk about sending her to some almshouse, for she was too poor to be burdened with a helpless child. The fear of this nearly broke Jack's heart; and he went about with such an anxious face that it was a mercy Nanny did not see it. Jack was only twelve, but he had a hard load to carry just then; for the thought of his little friend, doomed to lifelong darkness for want of a little money, tempted him to steal more than once, and gave him the first fierce, bitter feeling against those better off than he. When he carried nice dinners to the great houses and saw the plenty that prevailed there, he couldn't help feeling that it wasn't fair for some to have so much, and others so little. When he saw pretty children playing in the park, or driving with their mothers, so gay, so well cared for, so tenderly loved, the poor boy's eyes would fill to think of poor little Nanny, with no friend in the world but himself, and he so powerless to help her.
When he one day mustered courage to ring at the great doctor's bell, begging to see him a minute, and the servant answered, gruffly, as he shut the door, 'Go along! he can't be bothered with the like of you!' Jack clenched his hands hard as he went down the steps, and said to himself, with a most unboyish tone, 'I'll get the money somehow, and make him let me in!'
He did get it, and in a most unexpected way; but he never forgot the desperate feeling that came to him that day, and all his life long he was very tender to people who were tempted in their times of trouble, and yielded, as he was saved from doing, by what seemed an accident.
Some days after his attempt at the doctor's, as he was grubbing in a newly-deposited ash-heap, with the bitter feeling very bad, and the trouble very heavy, he found a dirty old pocket-book, and put it in his bosom without stopping to examine it; for many boys and girls were scratching, like a brood of chickens, all round him, and the pickings were unusually good, so no time must be lost. 'Findings is havings' was one of the laws of the ash-heap haunters; and no one thought of disputing another's right to the spoons and knives that occasionally found their way into the ash-barrels; while bottles, old shoes, rags, and paper, were regular articles of traffic among them. Jack got a good basketful that day; and when the hurry was over sat down to rest and clear the dirt off his face with an old silk duster which he had picked out of the rubbish, thinking Mrs. Quinn might wash it up for a handkerchief. But he didn't wipe his dirty face that day; for, with the rag, out tumbled a pocket-book; and on opening it he saw—money. Yes; a roll of bills with two figures on all of them,—three tens and one twenty. It took his breath away for a minute; then he hugged the old book tight in both his grimy hands, and rocked to and fro all in a heap among the oyster-shells and rusty tin kettles, saying to himself, with tears running down his cheeks, 'O Nanny! O Nanny! now I can do it!'
I don't think a basket of cinders ever travelled at such a rate before as Mrs. Quinn's did that day; for Jack tore home at a great pace, and burst into the room, waving the old duster, and shouting, 'Hooray! I've got it! I've got it!'
It is no wonder Mrs. Quinn thought he had lost his wits; for he looked like a wild boy, with his face all streaked with tears and red ashes, as he danced a double-shuffle till he was breathless, then showered the money into Nanny's lap, and hugged her with another 'Hooray!' which ended in a choke. When they got him quiet and heard the story, Mrs. Quinn rather damped his joy, by telling him the money wasn't his, and he ought to advertise it.
'But I want it for Nanny!' cried Jack; 'and how can I ever find who owns it, when there was ever so many barrels emptied in that heap, and no one knows where they came from?'