Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way by William O. Stoddard (top novels txt) 📖

could laugh merrily, and that any other men who might happen to be standing by were more than likely to join with him in his mirth, but the color came at once to his cheeks when the Governor began to smile.

"In the grocery business?" laughed the Governor. "Do you supply the Equatorial?"

"No, not yet; but I'd like to," said Jack. "I think our house could give them what they need."

"Let me have your card then," said one of the gentlemen who had joined in the Governor's merriment; "for the Governor has no time to spare—"

Jack handed him the card of Gifford & Company.

"Take it, Boulder, take it," said the Governor. "Mr. Ogden and I are old acquaintances."

"He's a prot�g� of yours, eh?" said Boulder. "Well, I mean business. Write your own name there, Mr. Ogden. I'll send our buyer down there, to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done. Shall we go in, Governor?"

Jack understood, at once, that Mr. Boulder was one of the proprietors of the Equatorial Hotel.

"I'm called for, Jack," said the Governor. "You will be in the city awhile, will you not? Well, don't stay here too long. I came here once, when I was about your age. I staid a year, and then I went away. A year in the city will be of great benefit to you, I hope. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Governor," said Jack, seriously. "We'll do the right thing by Mr. Boulder;" and there was another laugh as Jack shook hands with the Governor, and then with the very dignified manager of the Equatorial Hotel.

"That will do, for one evening," thought Jack, as the distinguished party of gentlemen walked away. "I'd better go right home and go to bed. The Governor's a brick anyhow!"

Back he went to the Hotel Dantzic, and he was soon asleep.

The Alligator press in Gifford & Company's was opening and shutting its black jaws regularly over the sheets of paper it was turning into circulars, about the middle of Wednesday forenoon, when a dapper gentleman with a rather prominent scarf-pin walked briskly into the store and up to the desk.

"Mr. Gifford?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm Mr. Barnes," said the dapper man. "General buyer for the Equatorial Hotel. Your Mr. Ogden was up with us, last night, to see some of his friends, and I've come down to look at your price-list, and so forth."

"Oh!" quietly remarked Mr. Gifford, "our Mr. Ogden. Oh, quite right! I think we can satisfy you. We'll do our best, certainly. Mr. Jones, please confer with Mr. Barnes—I'll be back in a minute."

Up toward the door walked Mr. Gifford, but not too fast. He stood still when he arrived at the Alligator press.

"Ogden," he said, "you can leave that work. I've another printing hand coming."

Jack's heart beat quickly, for a moment. What,—could he be discharged so suddenly? He was dismayed. But Mr. Gifford went on:

"Wash your hands, Ogden, and stand behind the counter there. I'll see you again, by and by. The buyer is here from the Equatorial."

"I promised them you'd give them all they wanted, and as good prices as could be had anywhere," said Jack, with a great sense of relief, and recovering his courage.

"We will," said Mr. Gifford, as he turned away, and he did not think he must explain to Jack that it would not do for Mr. Barnes to find Gifford & Company's salesman, "Mr. Ogden," running an Alligator press.

Mr. Barnes was in the store for some time, but Jack was not called up to talk with him. Mr. Gifford was the right man for that part of the affair, and in the course of his conversation with Mr. Barnes he learned further particulars concerning the intimacy between "your Mr. Ogden" and the Governor, with the addition that "Mr. Boulder thinks well of Mr. Ogden too."

Jack waited upon customers as they came, and he did well, for "a new hand." But he felt very ignorant of both articles and prices, and the first thing he said, when Mr. Gifford again came near him, was:

"Mr. Gifford, I ought to know more than I do about the stock and prices."

"Of course you ought," said Mr. Gifford. "I don't care to have you try any more 'drumming' till you do. You must stay a few months behind the counter and learn all you can. You must dress neatly, too. I wonder you've looked as well as you have. We'll make your salary fifteen dollars a week. You'll need more money as a salesman."

Jack flushed with pleasure, but a customer was at hand, and the interruption prevented him from making an answer.

"Jones," remarked Mr. Gifford to his head clerk, "Ogden is going to become a fine salesman!"

"I thought so," said Jones.

They both were confirmed in this opinion, about three weeks later. Jack was two hours behind time, one morning; but when he did come, he brought with him Mr. Guilderaufenberg of Washington, with reference to a whole winter's supplies for a "peeg poarding-house," and two United States Army contractors. Jack had convinced these gentlemen that they were paying too much for several articles that could be found on the list of Gifford & Company in better quality and at cheaper rates.

"Meester Giffort," said the German gentleman, "I haf drafel de vorlt over, und I haf nefer met a better boy dan dot Jack Ogden. He knows not mooch yet, alretty, but den he ees a very goot boy."

"We like him," said Mr. Gifford, smiling.

"So do I, und so does Mrs. Guilderaufenberg, und Miss Hildebrand, und Miss Podgr-ms-chski," said the German. "Some day you lets him visit us in Vashington? So?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I will," said Mr. Gifford; but he afterward remarked grimly to Mr. Jones: "If I should, and he should meet the President, Ogden would never let him go until he bought some of our tea and coffee!"

That day was a notable one in both Crofield and Mertonville. Jack's first long letter, telling that he was in the grocery business, had been almost a damper to the Ogden family. They had kept alive a small hope that he would come back soon, until Aunt Melinda opened an envelope that morning and held up samples of paper bags, cards, and circulars of Gifford & Company, while Mrs. Ogden read the letter that came with them. Bob and Jim claimed the bags next, while Susie and Bessie read the circulars, and the tall blacksmith himself straightened up as if he had suddenly grown prouder.

"Mary!" he exclaimed. "Jack always said he'd get to the city. And he's there—and earning his living!"

"Yes, but—Father," she said, with a small shake in her voice, "I—wish he was back again. There'd be almost room for him to work in Crofield, now."

"Maybe so, maybe so," he replied. "There'll be crowds of people coming in when they begin work on the new rail way and the bridge. I signed the deeds yesterday for all the land they're buying of Jack and me. I won't tell him about it quite yet, though. I don't wish to unsettle his mind. Let him stay where he is."

"This will be a trying day for Mary," said Aunt Melinda, thoughtfully. "The Academy will open at nine o'clock. Just think of what that child has to go through! There'll be a crowd there, too,—oh, dear me!"

Mary Ogden sat upon the stage, by previous orders from the Academy principals, awaiting the opening exercises; but the principals themselves had not yet arrived. She looked rather pale, and she was intently watching the nickel-plated gong on the table and the hands of the clock which hung upon the opposite wall.

"Perhaps the principals are here," Mary thought as the clock hands crept along. "But they said to strike the bell at nine, precisely, and if they're not here I must do it!"

At the second of time, up stood Mary and the gong sounded sharply.

That was for "Silence!" and it was very silent, all over the hall, and all the scholars looked at Mary and waited.

"Clang," went the gong again, and every boy and girl arose, as if they had been trained to it.

Poor Mary was thinking, "I hope nobody sees how scared I am!" but the Academy term was well opened, and Dr. Dillingham was speaking, when the Reverend Lysander Pettigrew and Mrs. Henderson, the tardy principals, came hurrying in to explain that an accident had delayed them.

CHAPTER XIX. COMPLETE SUCCESS.

Two years passed. There was a great change in the outward aspect of Crofield. The new bridge over the Cocahutchie was of iron, resting on stone piers, and the village street crossed it. The railroad bridge was just below, but was covered in with a shed, so that the trains might not frighten horses. The mill was still in its place, but the dam was two feet higher and the pond was wider. Between the mill and the bridge was a large building of brick and stone that looked like a factory. Between the street and the railway, the space was filled by the station-house and freight depot, which extended to Main Street; and there were more railway buildings on the other side of the Cocahutchie. Just below the railroad and along the bank of the creek, the ground was covered by wooden buildings, and there was a strong smell of leather and tan-bark. Of course, the old Washington Hotel was gone; but across the street, on the corner to the left, there was a great brick building, four stories high, with "Washington Hotel" painted across the front of it. The stores in that building were just finished. Looking up Main Street, or looking down, it did not seem the same village. The new church in the middle of the green was built of stone; and both of the other churches were rapidly being demolished, as if new ones also were to take their places.

It was plain, at a glance, that if this improvement was general, the village must be extending its bounds rapidly, for there never had been too much room in it, for even the old buildings with which Jack had been familiar.

Jack Ogden had not been in Crofield while all this work was going on. His first week with Gifford & Company seemed the most exciting week that he had ever known, and the second was no less busy and interesting. He did not go to the German church the second Sunday, but later he did somehow drift into another place of worship where the sermon was preached in Welsh.

"Well!" said Jack, when he came out, at the close of the service, "I think I'll go back to the church I went to first. I don't look so green now as I did then, but I'm sure the General will remember me."

He carried out this determination the next Sunday. The sexton gave him a seat, and he took it, remarking to himself:

"A fellow feels more at home in a place where he's been before. There's the General! I wish I was in his pew. I'll speak to him when he comes out."

The great man appeared, in due season, and as he passed down the aisle he came to a boy who was just leaving a pew. With a smile on his face, the boy held out his hand and bowed.

"Good-morning," said the General, shaking hands promptly and bowing graciously in return. Then he added, "I hope you'll come here every Sunday."

Jack speaks to the General.

That was all, but Jack received at least a bow, every Sunday, for four weeks. On the Monday after the fourth Sunday, the door of Gifford & Company's store was shadowed by the entrance of a very proud-looking man who stalked straight on to the desk, where he was greeted cordially by Mr. Gifford, for he seemed to be an old friend.

"You have a boy here named John Ogden?" asked the General.

"Yes, General," said Mr. Gifford. "A fine young fellow."

"Is he doing well?" asked the General.

"We've no fault to find with him," was the answer. "Do you care to see him? He's out on business, just now."

"No, I don't care to see him," said the General. "Tell him, please, that I called. I feel interested in his progress, that's all. Good-morning, Mr. Gifford."

The head of the