“I'm up in Michigan.”
“You have a position there?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have heard Mr. Bigelow say that there are really about as good openings in the country as in the city. It is so overcrowded in Chicago. Are you getting on well?”
“I—I guess so—as well as I could expect.”
“I am very glad to hear that—and Mr. Bigelow will be, too. He really took quite an interest in you, John. He is always glad to know that the young men he has been interested in are getting on.”
“I have come down to Chicago to-day, Mrs. Bigelow, to look for a boy; and I have heard he is here. His name is George—George Bigelow.”
“Oh, yes; George. It is odd that he should have our name. He is a Settlement boy—Mr. Babcock rescued him from I don't know what distress. I wondered if there were any distant branch of the family that could have dropped in the world, but Mr. Bigelow says there is no connection whatever. It is a very common name in Chicago, he says. It seems that the boy's family is worthless, and he himself has already been in jail. But he seems to feel some remorse, and I am not letting it make any difference here.”
“Captain Craig, his grandfather, heard to-day from George's mother, after a long separation. We happen to be employed by the same company and I have come down with him to find his family. He wants to take them all back with him.”
“To take him back? Why, he has been here only a little while. Did you mean to take him yourself?”