Shovelling coal in the hot furnace-room of a steamer is work by the side of which almost any other seems like mere play, and if Andrew Jackson Washington Jones could suddenly have been carried back to that wood-pile he would have attacked it with an energy that would have astonished his mother.
But he was not there, which was his own fault, and he was obliged to shovel coal, which was the fault of the ill-natured fireman, both of which facts made of Andrew Jackson as miserable a little colored boy as ever strayed into mischief for the sake of a few cat-fish.
For nearly two hours—and he would not have been surprised had he been told two days had passed—he shovelled coal, while the perspiration rolled down in streams from his face, and to add to his misery he lost his valued clappers through the grating. Then the fireman said:
"Now, then, boy, we're going to stop pretty soon, and you'd better get on deck if you want to go ashore; for you're only about twenty miles from home now, and at the next stopping-place you'll be fifty miles away."
Andrew dropped that shovel as if it had suddenly become hot, and when the steamer stopped he was the first person who landed, having carelessly stepped on the mate's foot, and been thrown ashore by him before the gang plank was out.
The moment he was fairly on his feet he started up the pier toward the town at a speed that would have persuaded his mother he had a fit, could she have seen him, and it was not until he got into the very centre of the village that he attempted to form any plan as to the future.
There he was, twenty miles from home, without any money, and his clappers lost. His hands were blistered, his clothes covered with cinders and coal dust, and he was more thoroughly hungry and tired than he ever remembered being before.
He looked down the road which a gentleman told him led to his home, and as he thought of that wood-pile twenty miles away, it seemed as if it would have been happiness indeed if he could only be there cutting it up and carrying it into the shed. He was hungry too, wonderfully hungry, but fortunately an old lady gave him two doughnuts and three crackers after she heard his story, and then she told him he was a cruel, wicked boy for not having done as his father had commanded him.
He knew it was necessary for him to trudge along if he ever wanted to get home, and every lazy bone in his body rebelled against the exercise.