"But, Alec, you wouldn't have gone after he had told you what his business was!" Philippa exclaimed, in a horrified tone. "You know that you wouldn't."

"No," he answered, slowly, "but I think now that he intended to keep me in the dark till he got me just where he wanted me, in too deep to inform on them. And I was so desperate for a job away from here that I would have accepted his offer with very few questions. Don't you see, my very ignorance of his schemes would have made me a better decoy in some cases than if I had not been such an innocent young duck. Of course, Stumpy Fisher told him all about me," he added, after a moment's thought. "He might have counted on my being enough like my father to take kindly to his crookedness."

"How queerly things work out!" said Philippa. "If you had had your own way, you'd have been off with that man and probably in jail with him now. But the fire stopped you. And if it hadn't been for the fire, Uncle d.i.c.k never would have been aroused to the necessity of leaving his business long enough to make us a visit, and if it hadn't been for the visit you never would have had this position in Salesbury."

"That's so," Alec a.s.sented, gravely. "It's a whole chain of those islands that you and Aunt Eunice are always singing about. I'll make a map of them some day and name each one: 'Fire Island,' 'Isle of Uncle d.i.c.k,' etc. Then I'll name the whole group after you: 'Flip's Providence Islands,' or something like that."

Then the subject was dropped, as Macklin came clattering back up the stairs.

If the history of Alec's experiences during the next few weeks could have been written, it would have differed little from that of thousands of boys who yearly leave farm and village to push their way into the already overcrowded cities. Eager and hopeful, his ambition placed no limit to the success he meant to achieve. That he might fall short of the goal he set for himself never once entered his thoughts. He knew the conditions requisite to success, and felt an honest pride in the consciousness that he could meet them. He had a strong, healthy body, a thorough education so far as the high school could take him, good habits, and high ideals.

As the train whirled him on toward Salesbury, he felt that at last he was placing himself in line with the long list of ill.u.s.trious men who had begun life as poor boys and ended it as the benefactors of mankind. And he felt that he had a distinct advantage over Franklin and some of his ilk, for he faced his future with far more than a loaf of bread under his arm. Forward in the baggage-car his grandfather's old leather trunk held ample provision for his present, and an a.s.sured position awaited him.

Salesbury was not a large city, but it seemed a crowded metropolis to Alec's eyes, accustomed to the quiet life of the little inland village. But it was not as a gaping backwoodsman he viewed its sights. If he had never seen a trolley-car before, he had carefully studied the power that propels one. The whir and clang, the rush of automobiles, the pounding of machinery in the great factory all seemed familiar, because they were a part of the world he had learned to know in his extensive reading. Keenly alive to new impressions, he was so interested in everything that went on round him that he had little time to be lonesome at first.

He stayed only a few days at the hotel. Anxious to repay his Aunt Eunice as soon as possible the money she had spent in replenishing his wardrobe after the fire, and defraying his travelling expenses, he took a room in a lodging-house, and his meals at a cheap restaurant. In that way he was able to save nearly twice as much each week toward cancelling his indebtedness.

The letters he wrote home were re-read many times. They were so bright and cheerful and full of interesting descriptions. He didn't like the work in the factory, but he liked the manager, and with the determination to make his apprenticeship as short as possible and gain a place in the office, he pegged away with a faithfulness and energy that he felt sure must bring a speedy reward.

Not till the cold November nights came did Miss Eunice detect a little note of homesickness creeping into his letters. She would not have wondered could she have looked in on him while he wrote, b.u.t.toned up in his overcoat and with his hat on. His chilly little bedroom, with its dim lamp and worn matting, was a dismal contrast to the cheerful home where he had always spent his winter evenings. Then she noticed that there was nearly always some reference to the restaurant fare, some longing expressed for one more taste of her cooking--the good cream gravy, the mince turnovers, the crisp doughnuts that had been his favourite dishes at home.

Once he wrote to Philippa:

"Think of it, Flip! I don't know a single girl in town.

Excepting my landlady, I haven't spoken to a woman since I pulled out of the depot at Ridgeville two months ago. It seems so strange to know only the factory fellows, when at home I was acquainted with everybody. The manager, Mr. Windom, has a pretty daughter whom I'd give a good deal to know. She drives down to the office with him sometimes, and I see her at church.

She looks something like your chum, Nordic Gray, laughing sort of eyes, and soft, light hair, and a saucy little nose like your own."

Later, in a reply to a question from Miss Eunice, he wrote:

"No, I haven't put in my church letter yet. I took it with me every Sunday for awhile, but I can't get screwed up to the point, somehow. People here are so stand-offish with strangers.

I've gone pretty regularly, but n.o.body has spoken to me yet. I suppose they think that a gawky country boy doesn't belong in such a fashionable congregation. The minister doesn't come down after service to shake hands with people, as Doctor Meldrum does at home. They have a Christian Endeavour Society that I think might be nice if there was any way of breaking the ice to get into it. The young people seem to have the best kind of times among themselves, but they don't seem to care for anybody that hasn't the inside track in their exclusive little circle."

Then the letters grew shorter. "He had no time to write during the day," he explained. At night he was either so tired that he went to bed as soon as he had his supper, or some of the boys that worked where he did came round for him to go out with them. He had been to the library several times, and to a free band-concert. When he was out of debt, he intended to get a season lecture course ticket and go to other entertainments once in awhile to keep from getting the blues.

He did not mention some of the other places to which he had gone with the boys. It would only worry his Aunt Eunice, he thought. Probably she wouldn't think it was any harm if she lived in the city. People in little places were apt to be narrow-minded, he told himself. He could feel that his own opinions were broadening every day.

He wrote to Macklin on Thanksgiving Day, saying that he intended to make the most of his holiday and skate all the afternoon. He was glad that he had brought his skates, for the ice was in fine condition.

That was the last letter home for two weeks.

While Miss Eunice worried, and Philippa haunted the post-office, he was lying ill in his cheerless little bedroom, on the top floor of the cheap lodging-house. He had skated not only Thanksgiving afternoon, but again at night when the ice was illuminated by bonfires and lanterns. There was a danger-signal posted farther down where the ice was thin. He had avoided it all the afternoon, but intent on cutting some fancy figure one of the boys had taught him, he did not notice how near he was to the dangerous spot until he heard a cracking noise all round him, and it was too late to save himself from a plunge into the icy water.

Although he was helped out immediately, and ran every step of the way to his room, he was shaking with a chill when he reached it. All the covering he could pile on the bed did not stop the chattering of his teeth as he lay shivering between the cold sheets. In the morning he was burning with fever. There was such a sharp pain in his lungs that he could not draw a full breath.

He tried to get up and dress, but the attempt made him so weak and dizzy that he could only stagger back to bed and lie there in a sort of stupor. It was not quite clear to him who brought a doctor, but one came in the course of the morning and left two kinds of little pellets and a gla.s.s of water on the chair beside his bed. He was to take two pink pellets every hour and one white one every two hours, he was told.

There was no clock in the room, and he had no watch, but the engine-house bell in the next block clanged the alarm regularly.

The responsibility of giving himself his own medicine kept him from dropping asleep as he longed to do. He would doze for a few minutes and start up, fearing that he had let the time go by, or that he had taken a double dose, or that he had confused directions. Was it two pink ones or two white ones, or one hour or two hours? He said it over and over with every variation possible. The confusion was maddening.

The pain in his lungs grew worse. He was burning with thirst, but there was no more water in the gla.s.s. He looked round the room with feverish, aching eyes, that suddenly filled with hot tears. If he could only be back in his own room at home, with Aunt Eunice to care for him, and Flip to make him comfortable, how good it would seem! He was tasting to the dregs the misery of being ill, all alone among strangers.

Toward evening the woman who kept the lodging-house sent a little coloured boy up to ask if he wanted anything. A pitcher of water was all that Alec asked for. That being supplied, the boy shut the door and clattered down the hall, whistling. The night seemed endless.

Hour after hour he started up shuddering, as the bell's loud clang awakened him, not knowing what it was that startled him. In his feverish hallucinations he thought he was continually breaking through the ice into a sea of burning water. He kept clutching at the pillows, thinking they were islands that he was for ever drifting past and could never reach.

When morning came at last, and the doctor made his second visit, he found Alec delirious and the medicine still on the chair beside the bed. With one glance round the cheerless room, he shrugged his shoulders and went out for help.

When Alec next noticed his surroundings with eyes that were once more clear and rational, he saw that the dingy little grate had been opened and a bright fire was burning in it. The clothing he had left on the floor in a heap had been put away. The window shade no longer hung askew. He looked round half-expecting to see his Aunt Eunice or Flip, and wondered if he had been so ill that some one had sent for them. Then his glance fell on a grizzled old man with a wooden leg, dozing in a rocking-chair by the fire.

"Old Jimmy Scott!" Alec said to himself after a moment's puzzled scrutiny, in which he racked his brain to recall where he had seen the face before. Finally he remembered. One of the boys had pointed him out as an old soldier who had taken to nursing when he could no longer fight. He held no diploma from any training-school for nurses, he was uncouth and rough in many ways, but his varied experiences had made him a valuable a.s.sistant to the doctor, whom he called his general, and obeyed with military exactness.

As Alec stirred on his pillow, the old soldier looked up, and then hobbled over to the bed as quietly as his wooden leg would allow. He bent over him, felt his pulse, and then said, cheerfully, "All right, buddy, guess it's time now for rations." Taking a covered cup from the hob on the grate, he deftly put a spoonful of hot beef tea to Alec's lips.

"You had a pretty close call, young man," he said, in response to Alec's attempt to question him. "A leetle more and it would have been double pneumonia. But you're about out of the woods now. We'll soon have you on your feet." Giving his patient a few more spoonfuls, he drew the covers gently in place, saying, "Now don't you talk any more. Turn over and go to sleep."

Weak, yet thrilled with a delightful sense of comfort and freedom from pain, Alec obeyed unquestioningly. True, a thought did trail teasingly across his mind for a moment, a dim wonder as to where the money was to come from to pay for the expensive luxuries of nurse and doctor and medicines and fire, but it faded presently, and instead his Aunt Eunice's old song took its place:

"I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond--beyond--beyond--"

He groped languidly for the final words, but could not recall them.

"Never mind," he thought, drowsily; "I've got as far as old Jimmy Scott, and that's a big enough island for this trip."

A most comfortable stopping-place old Jimmy proved to be.

Considerate as a woman of his patient's comfort, cheerful, tireless, and prompt as a minute-gun in carrying out the doctor's instructions, it was not long before he had Alec sitting up for a little while each day. With such an old philosopher to keep him company, and entertained by the old veteran's endless fund of anecdote, Alec enjoyed those few days of convalescence more than he could have believed possible.

"It isn't such a bad sort of world, after all," he remarked one morning, the day after the minister had called. "It is strange what a difference knowing persons makes in the way you feel toward them. The minister was as cordial and friendly as Doctor Meldrum used to be in Ridgeville. Wonder how he found out about me? I didn't know he'd ever heard of me or noticed me in the congregation."

Old Jimmy made no reply, although he longed to say: "He came because I sent for him, buddy, as people ought to do. They are quick enough to send for a doctor when their bodies are sick, but when they are out of sorts either physically or mentally they never think of letting their minister know. They hang back and feel hurt if he doesn't come, just as if he could tell by intuition or a sort of sixth sense that he's needed. How can a D. D. be expected to know when you want him, any more than an M. D.?"

That afternoon as Alec sat propped up by the window for a little while, looking down on the snowy street, there was a knock at the door. Old Jimmy, answering it, came back with a florist's box addressed, "Mr. Alec Stoker, with best wishes and sympathy of the Grace Church Christian Endeavour Society." Inside was a fragrant bunch of hothouse roses.

Alec held them up in amazement. "Why should they have sent them to me?" he cried. There was no Endeavour society in Ridgeville, and he did not understand its methods.

"The flower committee sends 'em to all the sick people in the congregation," explained Jimmy. "Posies and piety always sorter go together, seems like. Pretty, ain't they? But they ain't half so pretty as the young ladies that brought 'em."

"Young ladies!" gasped Alec, looking toward the door.

"Yes, the flower committee itself, I suppose. I didn't know two of them. But one of them you ought to know, buddy, seeing as it's the daughter of your boss. Thomas Windom's daughter--Avery, I believe they call her."

Alec's heart gave a thump. Avery Windom was the pretty girl he had written to Flip about; the one whom he had wanted of all others to know; and she had climbed to his door, had left the roses; it seemed too strange to be true.

He leaned toward the window and looked down. Yes, there she went with her friends, fluttering along the snowy street. He could see the gleam of her soft, light hair under her velvet hat. Her cheeks were flushed with her walk in the cold. He leaned eagerly nearer the window as she fluttered along, farther and farther down the street, until she was lost in the crowd. Then he lay back in the chair with a sigh. It seemed so long since he had lived in a world where there were bright, friendly girls like Flip. The sight of these who had been so near made him homesick for the old friends of his school days, and he began to talk to old Jimmy about his sister and the good times they used to have together.

"I wonder which one wrote this card," he thought, as he slipped it out of the box. "I am sure she did. The handwriting is so light and graceful, just like her. So her name is Avery. I might have known it would be different from other girls'. Avery! Avery!" he repeated softly, while old Jimmy stumped out into the hall for some water in which to put the roses. "It's a pretty name. I wonder if I'll ever know her well enough to call her that."

"Time to get back into bed now," said old Jimmy, coming in with the pitcher. He placed the roses in it on a stand beside the bed.

"Mustn't overdo matters."