"No, indeed," said Alec, with a new note of determination in his voice which did not escape old Jimmy. "I've got to get well in a hurry now, and go back to work." Then he settled himself on his pillow, and lay smiling happily at the roses.

CHAPTER IV.

If the calendar over Alec's mantel could have told the history of the next few weeks, it would have been the record of a hard struggle with homesickness and discouragement. There was a heavy black cross drawn through the date of his return to work. He had come in that night when it was over weighed down with the fact that his wages had been stopped in his absence, and that it would take a long time to pay the debts incurred during his illness.

There was a zigzag line struck twice across the calendar below that date. "That much goes for the doctor!" he exclaimed, fiercely checking off the time with a stubby pencil. "And that much to old Jimmy, and that much for fire and extras. It'll take way into the new year to get straightened out. Luckily I am nearly through with my debt to Aunt Eunice."

Later there was a tiny star drawn in the corner of one date. It marked the Sabbath evening he had gone to the Christian Endeavour praise service and heard Avery Windom sing. He had been introduced to half a dozen of the boys and girls, and been invited to come again, and had gone back to his calendar to count the nights until the next meeting. Ever since he had left home, he had longed with a longing that was like hunger for the companionship of young people such as he had known at home. There was a blur over one of the dates, the little square that marked the twenty-fifth of December. It was a red-letter day on the calendar, but in Alec's bare little room a holiday that dragged its dismal length out toward dark, like a dull ache.

The box that had been sent him from home failed to reach him till the next day. Standing with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the snowy roofs of the city, he recalled all the merry Christmas days at home, since the first time he and Flip had hung up their stockings beside their grandfather's wide chimney-seat. This was the first time he had ever missed following the old custom. The city seemed overflowing with the joy and good-will of the Yuletide, yet none of it was for him. He had never felt so utterly left out and alone in all his life.

Despite his seventeen years, there was an ache in his throat that he could not drive back, and when he laid down the calendar he had been mechanically examining, although he whistled bravely, there was a telltale blur on the page.

But there came a day when he tore off the leaf that was crossed with the double black lines meaning debt and worry, and began a fresh sheet which seemed to promise better days. A change of work came the first of February, and a slight advance in wages. The manager, who had kept a keen eye on him, was beginning to think that at last he had found a boy who was worth training, and that if he proved as efficient in every stage of his apprenticeship as he had in the first, he would soon have the capable a.s.sistant that he had long been in search of.

Alec's notification of his promotion was in the envelope which held his check for the last week in January. He did not see it until he stepped into the bank to have the check cashed, and in his delight and surprise he could scarcely refrain from turning a handspring.

So many people were ahead of him that he had to stand several minutes awaiting his turn at the little barred window. In that time he made several rapid calculations on the back of the envelope.

"Can you give me five dollars of that in gold?" he asked of the cashier when his turn finally came. With a nod of a.s.sent, the cashier counted out several small bills, and laid a shining five-dollar gold piece on top. Alec seized it eagerly and, thrusting the bills into his pocket, walked out with the coin in his hand.

Long ago he had decided how to spend his first surplus five dollars if it came in time. It should go as a happy surprise to Flip on her sixteenth birthday. It had come in time. Her birthday was on the twenty-first of the month. At first he thought he could not wait three long weeks before sending it. He wanted her to have the pleasure and surprise of receiving it at once; and he wanted the thrill of feeling that he was man enough not only to be self-supporting, but to help care for his sister.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE MADE SEVERAL RAPID CALCULATIONS ON THE BACK OF THE ENVELOPE."]

He wrapped the coin in a bit of tissue-paper, torn from the shaving-case Flip had sent him in the delayed Christmas box. Then he carefully put it in the inner pocket of the old wallet he carried.

But scarcely a night pa.s.sed between that time and the twentieth that he did not take a peep at the coin, and then count the days on his calendar.

Ever since the night of the praise service, when he first heard Avery Windom sing, he had been a regular attendant at the Christian Endeavour meetings. It was like a bit of home to sit there in the midst of the young people, singing the familiar old hymns, and he sang them so heartily and entered into the exercises of the meeting with such zest that he soon lost the feeling that he was only a stranger within the gates.

There were some, it is true, who were only coolly polite to him, thinking of his position, an unknown boy working in the shoe factory as a common labourer. He felt the chill of their manner keenly, and he knew why he was so pointedly ignored. It was not a deeply spiritual society. Only a few of the members were really consecrated Christians. There were more socials and concerts and literary evenings than devotional meetings. Most of the members belonged to old, wealthy families, and had always been accustomed to leisure and pocket-money. Alec soon realized the bounds that were set to his social privileges. He might take a prominent part in the meetings, even be asked to lead on occasions, be put on committees, be a.s.signed many tasks in connection with suppers and festivals, but outside of his church relationship he was never noticed. No hospitable home swung open its doors for him.

Only one who has lived in a country place, which knows no cla.s.s distinctions, where character is all that counts, and where the butcher and baker may be bidden any day, in simple village fashion, to banquet with the judge, only such an one can understand the feeling of a boy in Alec's position. He wondered sometimes, with a sudden sinking of the heart, what would be the result if they knew about his father.

He never looked at Avery Windom without thinking of it. He used to watch her in church, sitting up between her aristocratic father and mother, sweet and refined, like a dainty white flower. He wondered if her slim-gloved hand would ever be held out to him again in greeting, as it had been on several occasions, if she knew that he was the son of a criminal.

Then he wondered what she would think if she knew that the touch of that little hand in his had been like the saving touch of a guardian angel. Once, urged on by one of the factory boys, an almost overwhelming temptation had seized him, but the remembrance that if he yielded he would never again be fit to take her hand made him thrust his into his pockets and turn away toward home with a shrug of the shoulders.

Avery, as ignorant of the influence she was exerting as a lily is of the fragrance it sheds, went serenely on in her gentle, high-bred way. Alec held no larger place in her thoughts than any other of the employees in her father's factory.

"Flip would call her one of my islands," he said to himself one night, as he parted on the corner from a crowd of boys who were begging him to go with them for a little game of cards and a lark afterward. "No telling where I would have drifted if it hadn't been for her. It's no easy matter to keep straight when you're all alone in a city as big and tough as this."

On his way home, he stopped at the library for a book he had heard her mention. He had overheard her quoting a line from Sir Galahad, and although he knew the story well of the maiden knight "whose strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure," it took on a new meaning because she had praised it. He learned the entire poem by heart, and the inspiration of the lines as he bent over his work in the factory gave him many an uplift that left him more nearly the man whom he imagined Avery's ideal to be.

One other date was marked on the calendar with a star before Flip's birthday came round. It was the night of the literary contest at the high school, when Avery's essay took the prize. Alec had manoeuvred for a week to get a ticket, and finally procured one from the head bookkeeper at the factory, whose sister taught in the high school.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'IT'S THE FIRST MONEY I EVER EARNED IN MY LIFE,' SHE SAID, GLEEFULLY."]

He lingered a little while after the contest in the outskirts of the crowd that flocked up to congratulate Avery. She came out to the carriage on her father's arm, with a fleecy evening cloak wrapped round her, and he saw the prize. She held it out a moment in her bare, white hand to some one who stood near Alec. It was a bright five-dollar gold piece.

"It's the first money I ever earned in my life," she said, gleefully, including Alec in her smile, so that he felt that the remark was addressed to him. "It is so precious I shall have to put it under a gla.s.s case. Maybe I can never earn another one."

In his room once more, Alec took out his little gold coin, and, looking at it, thought he could understand just how proud Avery must feel of hers.

The next time he saw her it was at a Christian Endeavour meeting.

Ralph Bently was with her, a gentlemanly, elegant boy in appearance, but Alec knew the reputation he had among the young fellows who knew him best, and it made him set his teeth together hard to see him with a girl as pure and refined as Avery.

"He isn't fit," he thought. "He shouldn't speak to Flip if I could prevent it, and even if he is Avery's cousin and such a young boy, Mr. Windom oughtn't to let him into the house."

For several weeks, at every meeting, the president had made an especial appeal for larger contributions. A large, expensive organ was being built for the church. The Christian Endeavour Society had pledged themselves to pay five hundred dollars of the amount due on it, but part of the sum was still lacking, even after all the socials and fairs that had been given to raise the amount. The president urged each member to add a little to his previous subscription, even at the cost of much self-denial.

Alec had been asked to a.s.sume the duty of regularly pa.s.sing one of the collection boxes at the Sunday night services. He had done this so often in the Sunday school at home that he felt no embarra.s.sment in doing so now, except when he reached the row of chairs where Avery and her cousin sat. He sneezed just as he extended the long-handled collection box toward them, and flushed hotly for having called every one's attention to himself by the loud noise.

The other collector, having finished first, placed his box on the secretary's little stand and went back to his seat. As Alec came forward, the president asked him in a low tone to count the money, and be ready to report the amount after the singing of the last hymn.

Turning his back to the audience, Alec emptied both boxes into the seat of the big pulpit chair standing next to the president's. The two chairs were old Gothic ones, recently retired from the church pulpit to make room for new furniture. There were a number of pennies in the lot, and during the singing he counted them carefully several times, in order to be sure that he had made no mistake.

The hymn was a short one. It came to an end as Alec laid several little piles of coin on the table at the secretary's elbow.

"Four dollars and ninety-six cents, did you say?" repeated the president, leaning over to catch the report Alec gave in an undertone. "Four dollars and ninety-six cents," he announced aloud.

"Really we must do better than that."

Alec saw Avery and Ralph exchange surprised glances. The president went on repeating his former explanations of their financial difficulties. Alec, still watching, saw Ralph Bently make a move to rise, and Avery's hand was laid detainingly on his arm. She was whispering and shaking her head; but Ralph was not to be deterred by any remonstrance. He was on his feet, exclaiming:

"Mr. President, pardon the interruption. There is some mistake in that report! The collection should amount to far more than four dollars and ninety-six cents. Miss Windom alone gave more than that.

I saw her drop a five-dollar gold piece into the box."

Avery blushed furiously at being called into public notice in such a manner by her impetuous young cousin. Every drop of blood seemed to leave Alec's face for an instant, and then rushed back until it burned a fiery crimson. He was indignant that Ralph Bently should have been so wanting in courtesy as to proclaim in public the amount of his cousin's donation, the cherished gold piece she had won at the prize contest. And he was deeply mortified to think that he could have made a mistake in counting it. He wondered if he could have been such a fool as to have mistaken the coin for a new penny. What would Avery think of him?

He turned toward the table, evidently disturbed, and counted the money again. Then he shook his head.

"You can see for yourself," he said; "four dollars and ninety-six cents!"

The president picked up both boxes, and, turning them upside down over the table, shook them energetically. The secretary shoved back the chair in which the money had been counted, gave it a tip that would have dislodged any coin left on its smooth plush seat, and peered anxiously round on the floor.

"Don't give it another thought, Mr. Stoker, please don't!" exclaimed Avery, going up to him when her attention was called to his worried expression. "I'm sure it has rolled off into some corner and the janitor will find it when he sweeps. I'll speak to him about it.

Anyhow, it is too small a matter to make such a fuss over. I never should have told Ralph what it was if he hadn't teased me about what I had tied up in the corner of my handkerchief." Then she pa.s.sed on with a smile.

Alec lingered to help collect the hymn-books, and when he pa.s.sed into the vestibule he heard voices on the outer steps. One of them sounded like Ralph Bently's.

"Oh, maybe so!" it exclaimed, with a disagreeable little laugh; "but it's queer how money will stick to some people's fingers."

Alec, who was in the act of opening the door to go from the prayer-meeting room into the auditorium of the church for the evening service, paused an instant. He was overwhelmed by the sudden conviction that he was the person meant.