Chapter II Dan, the Newsboy by Jr. Horatio Alger
DAN AT HOME
While Dan was strong, sturdy, and the picture of health, his mother was evidently an invalid. She was pale, thin, and of delicate appearance. She was sitting in a cane-seated rocking-chair, which Dan had bought second-hand on one of his flush days at a small place on the Bowery. She looked up with a glad smile when Dan entered.
"I am so glad to see you, my dear boy," she said.
"Have you been lonely, mother?" asked Dan, kissing her affectionately.
"Yes, Dan, it is lonely sitting here hour after hour without you, but I have my work to think of."
"I wish you didn't have to work, mother," said Dan. "You are not strong enough. I ought to earn enough to support us both."
"Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear boy. I should feel more lonely if I had nothing to do."
"But you work all the time. I don't like to have you do that."
In truth the mother was very tired, and her feeble fingers were cramped with the stitch, stitch, stitch in endless repetition, but she put on a cheerful countenance.
"Well, Dan, I'll stop now that you are at home. You want some supper."
"Let me get it, mother."
"No, Dan, it will be a relief to me to stir around a little, as I have been sitting so long."
"Oh, I nearly forgot, mother—here's a nice pear I bought for you."
"It does look nice," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "I don't feel hungry, but I can eat that. But where is yours, Dan?"
"Oh, I've eaten mine," answered Dan, hastily.
It was not true, but God will forgive such falsehoods.
"You'd better eat half of this."
"No; I'll be–flummuxed if I do," said Dan, pausing a little for an unobjectionable word.
Mrs. Mordaunt set the little table for two. On it she spread a neat cloth, and laid the plain supper—a plate of bread, ditto of butter, and a few slices of cold meat. Soon the tea was steeped, and mother and son sat down for the evening meal.
"I say, mother, this is a jolly supper," said Dan. "I get awfully hungry by supper-time."
"You are a growing boy, Dan. I am glad you have an appetite."
"But you eat next to nothing, mother," said Dan, uneasily.
"I am not a growing boy," said Mrs. Mordaunt, smiling. "I shall relish my supper to-night on account of the pear you brought me."
"Well, I'm glad I thought of it," said Dan, heartily. "Pears ain't solid enough for me; I want something hearty to give me strength."
"Of course you do, Dan. You have to work hard."
"I work hard, mother! Why, I have the easiest time going. All I do is to walk about the streets, or stand in front of the Astor House and ask people to buy my papers. Oh, by the way, who do you think I saw to-day?"
"Any of our old friends?" asked Mrs. Mordaunt.
"Any of our old friends! I should say not," answered Dan, disdainfully. "It was Tom Carver."
"Was it he? He used to sit next you in school, didn't he?"
"Yes, for six months. Tom and I were chums."
"Did he say whether his family was well?"
"What are you thinking of, mother? Do you suppose Tom Carver would notice me, now that I am a poor newsboy?"
"Why shouldn't he?" demanded the mother, her pale face flushing. "Why shouldn't he notice my boy?"
"Because he doesn't choose to," answered Dan, with a short laugh. "Didn't you know it was disgraceful to be poor?"
"Thank Heaven, it isn't that!" ejaculated Mrs. Mordaunt.
"Well, it might as well be. Tom thinks me beneath his notice now. You should have seen him turn his head to the other side as he walked by, twirling his light cane."
"Did you speak to him, Dan?"
"What do you take me for, mother? Do you think I'd speak to a fellow that doesn't want to know me?"
"I think you are proud, my boy."
"Well, mother, I guess you're right. I'm too proud to force myself upon the notice of Tom Carver, or any other purse-proud sneak."
Dan spoke with a tinge of bitterness, and it was evident that he felt Tom's slight more than he was willing to acknowledge.
"It's the way of the world, Dan," said his mother, sighing. "Not one of all my friends, or those whom I accounted such, in my prosperous days, has come to see us, or shown any interest in our fate."
"They can stay away. We can do without them," said Dan, sturdily.
"We must; but it would be pleasant to see some of the old faces," said his mother, plaintively. "There is no one in this house that is company for me."
"No, mother; you are an educated and refined lady, and they are poor and ignorant."
"They are very good people, some of them. There is Mrs. Burke on the next floor. She was in this afternoon, and asked if she couldn't do something for me. She thought I looked poorly, she said."
"She's a brick, mother!"
"My dear Dan, you do use such extraordinary language sometimes. You didn't talk so when we lived on Madison avenue."
"No, mother, but I associate with a different class now. I can't help catching the phrases I hear all the time. But don't mind, mother; I mean no harm. I never swear—that is, almost never. I did catch myself at it the other day, when another newsboy stole half a dozen of my papers."
"Don't forget that you are a gentleman, Dan."
"I won't if I can help it, mother, though I don't believe anybody else would suspect it. I must take good care not to look into the looking-glass, or I might be under the impression that I was a street-boy instead of a gentleman."
"Clothes don't make the gentleman, Dan. I want you to behave and feel like a gentleman, even if your clothes are poor and patched."
"I understand you, mother, and I shall try to follow your advice. I have never done any mean thing yet that I can remember, and I don't intend to."
"I am sure of that, my dear boy."
"Don't be too sure of anything, mother. I have plenty of bad examples before me."
"But you won't be guided by them?"
"I'll try not."
"Did you succeed well in your sales to-day, Dan?"
"Pretty well. I made ninety-six cents."
"I wish I could earn as much," said Mrs. Mordaunt, sighing. "I can only earn twenty cents a day."
"You earn as much as I do, mother, but you don't get it. You see, there's a difference in earning and being paid. Old Gripp is a mean skinflint. I should like to force one of his twenty-cent vests down his miserly throat."
"Don't use such violent language, Dan. Perhaps he pays me all he can afford."
"Perhaps he does, but I wouldn't bet high on it. He is making a fortune out of those who sew for him. There are some men that have no conscience. I hope some time you will be free from him."
"I hope so, too, Dan, but I am thankful to earn something. I don't want all the burden of our maintenance to fall on you."
"Don't call it a burden, mother. There's nothing I enjoy so much as working for you. Why, it's fun!"
"It can't be fun on rainy, disagreeable days, Dan."
"It wouldn't be fun for you, mother, but you're not a boy."
"I am so sorry that you can't keep on with your education, Dan. You were getting on so well at school."
It was a thought that had often come to Dan, but he wouldn't own it, for he did not wish to add to his mother's sadness.
"Oh, well, mother," he said, "something may turn up for us, so we won't look down in the mouth."
"I have got my bundled work ready, Dan, if you can carry it round to Mr. Gripp's to-night."
"Yes, mother, I'll carry it. How many vests are there?"
"There are six. That amounts to a dollar and twenty cents. I hope he'll pay you to-night, for our rent comes due to-morrow."
"So it does!" ejaculated Dan, seriously. "I never thought of it. Shall we have enough to pay it? You've got my money, you know."
"We shall be a dollar short."
"Even if old Gripp pays for the vests?"
"Yes."
Dan whistled—a whistle of dismay and anxiety, for he well knew that the landlord was a hard man.