“Here’s a go!” said Sandy, for once a little cast down. “We might walk it,” Oscar whispered, as they moved away from the desk. But to this Charlie, asserting the authority of an elder brother, steadfastly objected. He knew his Uncle Oscar better than the younger boys did. He remembered that he was a very precise and dignified elderly gentleman. He would be scandalized greatly if 243 his three wandering nephews should come tramping out to his handsome villa on a Sunday, like three vagabonds, to borrow money enough to get home to Dixon with. No; that was not to be thought of. Charlie said he would pawn his watch on Monday morning; he would walk the streets to keep out of the way of the much-dreaded hotel clerk; but, as for trudging out to his Uncle Oscar’s on Sunday, he would not do it, nor should either of the others stir a step. So they went to bed, and slept as comfortably in their luxurious apartment as if they had never known anything less handsome, and had money in plenty to pay all demands at sight.
It was a cloudy and chilly November Sunday to which the boys awoke next day. The air was piercingly raw, and the city looked dust-colored and cheerless under the cold, gray sky. Breaking their fast (Charlie keeping one eye on the hotel office), they sallied forth to see the city. They saw it all over, from one end to the other. They walked and walked, and then went back to the hotel; and after dinner, walked and walked again. They hunted up their uncle’s store in one of the deserted business streets of the city; and they gazed at its exterior with a curious feeling of relief. There was the sign on the prosperous-looking outside of the building,––“Oscar G. Bryant & Co., Agricultural Implements.” There, at least, was a gleam of comfort. The store was a real 244 thing. Their uncle, little though they knew about him, was a real man.
Then, as the evening twilight gathered, they walked out to the borders of the suburb where he lived. They did not venture into the avenue where they had been told his house was, vaguely fearing that he might meet and recognize them. As they turned their steps towards the hotel, Oscar said: “It’s lucky there are three of us to keep ourselves in countenance. If that wasn’t the case, it would be awfully lonely to think we were so near home, and yet have gone ashore, hard and fast aground; right in sight of port, as it were.”
The parents of these boys had been born and brought up near the seacoast of New England, and not a few marine figures of speech were mingled in the family talk. So Charlie took up the parable and gloomily said: “We are as good as castaways in this big ocean of a city, with never a soul to throw us a spar or give us a hand. I never felt so blue in all my life. Look at those children playing in that dooryard. Pretty poor-looking children they are; but they’ve got a home over their heads to-night. We haven’t.”
“Oh, pshaw, Charlie!” broke in Sandy; “why will you always look on the dark side of things? I know it’s real lonesome here in a strange city, and away from our own folks. But they are not so far away but what we can get to them after a while. And we have got a roof over our heads for 245 to-night, anyway; the Planters’ is good enough for me; if you want anything better, you will have to get outside of St. Louis for it; and, what is more, they are not going to dun us for our board bill until after to-day. I’m clean beat out traipsing around this town, and I give you two fellows notice that I am not going to stir a step out of the hotel to-night. Unless it is to go to church,” he added by way of postscript.
They did go to church that night, after they had had their supper. It was a big, comfortable, and roomy church, and the lads were shown into a corner pew under the gallery, where they were not conspicuous. The music of choir and organ was soothing and comforting. One of the tunes sung was “Dundee,” and each boy thought of their singing the song of “The Kansas Emigrants,” as the warbling measures drifted down to them from the organ-loft, lifting their hearts with thoughts that the strangers about them knew nothing of. The preacher’s text was “In my father’s house are many mansions.” Then they looked at each other again, as if to say, “That’s a nice text for three homeless boys in a strange city.” But nobody even so much as whispered.
Later on in the sermon, when the preacher touched a tender chord in Oscar’s heart, alluding to home and friends, and to those who wander far from both, the lad, with a little moisture in his eyes, turned to look at Sandy. He was fast asleep 246 in his snug corner. Oscar made a motion to wake him, but Charlie leaned over and said, “Leave the poor boy alone. He’s tired with his long tramp to-day.” When they went out after the service was over, Oscar rallied Sandy on his sleeping in church, and the lad replied: “I know it was bad manners, but the last thing I heard the minister say, was ‘Rest for the weary.’ I thought that was meant for me. Leastways, I found rest for the weary right off, and I guess there was no harm done.”
With Monday morning came sunshine and a clear and bracing air. Even Charlie’s face wore a cheerful look, the first that he had put on since arriving in St. Louis, although now and again his heart quaked as he heard the hotel porter’s voice in the hall roaring out the time of departure for the trains that now began to move from the city in all directions. They had studied the railroad advertisements and time-tables to some purpose, and had discovered that they must cross to East St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, and there take a train for the northern part of the State, where Dixon is situated. But they must first see their Uncle Oscar, borrow the needed money from him, settle with the steamboat people and the hotel, and then get to the railroad station by eleven o’clock in the forenoon. It was a big morning’s work.
They were at their uncle’s store before he arrived 247 from his suburban home; and, while they waited, they whisperingly discussed the question, Who should ask for the money? Charlie was at first disposed to put this duty on Sandy; but the other two boys were very sure that it would not look well for the youngest of the party to be the leader on an occasion so important; and Charlie was appointed spokesman.
Mr. Oscar Bryant came in. He was very much surprised to see three strange lads drawn up in a row to receive him. And he was still more taken aback when he learned that they were his nephews, on their way home from Kansas. He had heard of his brother’s going out to Kansas, and he had not approved of it at all. He was inclined to think that, on the whole, it would be better for Kansas to have slavery than to do without it. A great many other people in St. Louis thought the same way, at that time, although some of them changed their minds later on.