In the evening Mrs. Danforth requested her son to give an account of his day's adventures.
"I went first," he began "to our room at Mrs. Cowles's. He had just come home to prepare to go to some committee meeting. I told him I was almost discouraged trying to get a place. He called me into his dressing room and made me give him an account of what I had done while he was shaving. Then he said, 'I must go right away now, to be in time for my business, but come in at noon, and if you have not found any place before that time, perhaps I can put you in a way to succeed. Don't be too sanguine though,' he said, as I suppose he saw how relieved I was. 'Do the very best you can for yourself, for maybe my plan will end in smoke.'"
"So after running in for a moment to tell Mrs. Cowles and Mary Jane we were coming back to-morrow, I again started forth to seek my fortune. Before I had gone far, I met Mr. Clarkson. He was very glad to see me, and almost the first question he asked, was, 'And how is our little friend Ella Haven? I suppose you see her occasionally.' 'I saw her this morning,' I answered. 'She speaks of you very often.'"
"I'm glad you told him that," cried Ella, clapping her hands.
Harrison smiled and went on. "I told him I was trying to look up a place in a store, and had been trying for more than a week."
"'Let me think,' he said, 'let me think if I can't do something for you'—scowling in his old way, you know, Ella."
"Oh, yes!"
"'Rather an unlucky time to be out of a place, my boy. The fact is, there's a terrible crisis ahead. Many of our wisest politicians predict a great crash in the commercial world. Our merchants have traded largely, more than their capital would warrant; there is too much show and too little reality; and things will have to come down to a more solid basis. Are you set upon the business of trade? Why not be a mechanic or an engineer, or something of that sort? Well,' said he, as I shook my head, 'perhaps you'll talk differently in the course of a year. I'll look around though, and see what I can do for you. If Mr. Haven were alive, he would get you a situation, perhaps giving you a chance in his own store.'"
One part of the conversation with Mr. Clarkson the boy omitted, as it related to Alfred the wayward son.
"After I left him," he continued, "I determined to begin at one end of ——— Street, and go into every store in it. Sometimes my heart beat so I thought I never could get across the long buildings into the office in the rear where the owner generally sits. Sometimes they would say, 'More boys now than we can employ.' Others would merely stop writing a moment, as I asked, Do you need a boy in your store, sir? and shake their heads and others still, would ask, 'Who are you references?' I thought they might have remembered a little how they felt when they were boys.