Her Benny: A Story of Street Life

by Silas K. Hocking

"Dear me, how old you talk!" laughed her cousin.

"Well, Dot, I am getting old; but never mind, I was only a little girl then. Pa and I were returning from Chester, and when we landed from the railway-boat, a pale hungry-looking lad came up to pa and asked him to carry his bag. Well, pa had been delayed, and consequently he was in a hurry, so he said 'No' to the boy in a stern voice, and pushed roughly past, and I saw the boy turn away and begin to cry; so scarcely thinking what I was doing, I went to the boy and asked him why he cried, and he said he was hungry and cold, that he had no father or mother, and that he had just buried his little sister, and nobody would employ him; so I gave him a new shilling that pa had given me, and asked him if he was generally on the landing-stage.

"'Yes,' he said; and his face brightened wonderfully at the sight of the shilling, and an honest-looking face it was too; 'I'm mostly hereabouts.'

"Well," continued Eva, after a pause, "I thought no more about the lad for several days, when one afternoon I was in the dining-room alone, and I began to play and sing 'Love at Home.' When I had finished, I rose to close the window, and there just outside was the very boy I had given the shilling to, his eyes full of tears; but when he saw he was noticed he shrank away, as if ashamed he had been caught listening."

"And so you conceived a romantic attachment to the lad?" chimed in Mr. Munroe.

"Of course I did, uncle; but to be serious. Teacher had been telling us that we ought to be little missionaries, etc, and I thought this was a likely case to experiment on. So I got pa interested, and in the end the boy was taken into his office, and a better boy pa said he never had. He was honest, truthful, industrious, and seemed very anxious to learn."

Then there was another pause, and if Benny ever felt thankful for the darkness, he did then. It was all clear to him now. This, then, was his little angel, grown into a grand lady! and yet she had not forgotten the poor street boy. He would like to have spoken, and put an end to further revelations, but he dared not trust himself to speak. Then Eva went on again:

"I am come to the most painful part of the story. This boy had been with pa six months, when one Saturday afternoon he left him in charge of the office, but he had scarcely got a hundred yards from the door when he remembered that he had left a bank note on his desk, and instantly turned back for it. Well, when he got into the office the note was gone. Nobody had been in the office but the boy, and yet he denied ever having seen it. Well, pa was quite in a way. He searched everywhere, but it was not to be found. So the boy was apprehended on suspicion, and taken to the police-station. I was in a great way too, for it was through me that pa had employed the boy; still, I could not believe that he was dishonest. At the trial he was given the benefit of the doubt and dismissed, and has never been seen or heard of since. But the strangest part of all is, about a month later pa wanted to look at the Directory—a book he does not use very often—and the first thing on which his eye fell as he opened the book was the missing bank-note. He was in a way when he came home, and we chatted about nothing else all the evening, for he remembered then very distinctly how he had laid the note on the open book, and before he went out had shut it up quickly, and placed it on the shelf. What troubled pa so much was, the boy had been robbed of his character, for the magistrates had little doubt of his guilt, though there was no positive evidence; and when a lad's character is gone his fortune is gone. All inquiries concerning him have been fruitless. And pa says sometimes that he feels occasionally as if he had driven the poor boy to destruction. So you see whenever I sing that song it always brings back to my mind this painful story."

After the story was ended there was silence for a few moments. Benny would liked to have spoken, but his heart was too full—to think that the shadow was lifted from his life at last! He wished he could have been alone for a few moments, that he might out of the fulness of his heart have thanked God.

"What a pity," said Mrs. Munroe at length, "that the boy could not be found."