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The Running Away Of Chester
by
Once there seemed a chance of success. He had gone into a big provision store and asked the clerk behind the counter if they wanted a boy.
“Well, we do,” said the clerk, looking him over critically, “but I hardly think you’ll fill the bill. However, come in and see the boss.”
He took Chester into a dark, grimy little inner office where a fat, stubby man was sitting before a desk with his feet upon it.
“Hey? What!” he said when the clerk explained. “Looking for the place? Why, sonny, you’re not half big enough.”
“Oh, I’m a great deal bigger than I look,” cried Chester breathlessly. “That is, sir–I mean I’m ever so much stronger than I look. I’ll work hard, sir, ever so hard–and I’ll grow.”
The fat, stubby man roared with laughter. What was grim earnest to poor Chester was a joke to him.
“No doubt you will, my boy,” he said genially, “but I’m afraid you’ll hardly grow fast enough to suit us. Boys aren’t like pigweed, you know. No, no, our boy must be a big, strapping fellow of eighteen or nineteen. He’ll have a deal of heavy lifting to do.”
Chester went out of the store with a queer choking in his throat. For one horrible moment he thought he was going to cry–he, Chester Stephens, who had run away from home to do splendid things! A nice ending that would be to his fine dreams! He thrust his hands into his pockets and strode along the street, biting his lips fiercely. He would not cry–no, he would not! And he would find work!
Chester did not cry, but neither, alas, did he find work. He parted with ten cents of his precious hoard for more crackers, and he spend the night again in the lumber yard.
Perhaps I’ll have better luck tomorrow, he thought hopefully.
But it really seemed as if there were to be no luck for Chester except bad luck. Day after day passed and, although he tramped resolutely from street to street and visited every place that seemed to offer any chance, he could get no employment. In spite of his pluck, his heart began to fail him.
At the end of a week Chester woke up among his lumber to a realization that he was at the end of his resources. He had just five cents left out of the four dollars that were to have been the key to his fortune. He sat gloomily on the wall of his sleeping apartment and munched the one solitary cracker he had left. It must carry him through the day unless he got work. The five cents must be kept for some dire emergency.
He started uptown rather aimlessly. In his week’s wanderings he had come to know the city very well and no longer felt confused with its size and bustle. He envied every busy boy he saw. Back in Upton he had sometimes resented the fact that he was kept working continually and was seldom allowed an hour off. Now he was burdened with spare time. It certainly did not seem as if things were fairly divided, he thought. And then he thought no more just then, for one of the queer spells in his head came on. He had experienced them at intervals during the last three days. Something seemed to break loose in his head and spin wildly round and round, while houses and people and trees danced and wobbled all about him. Chester vaguely wondered if this could be what Aunt Harriet had been wont to call a “judgement.” But then, he had done nothing very bad–nothing that would warrant a judgement, he thought. It was surely no harm to run away from a place where you were treated so bad and where they did not seem to want you. Chester felt bitter whenever he thought of Aunt Harriet.
Presently he found himself in the market square of Montrose. It was market day, and the place was thronged with people from the surrounding country settlements. Chester had hoped that he might pick up a few cents, holding a horse or cow for somebody or carrying a market basket, but no such chance offered itself. He climbed up on some bales of pressed hay in one corner and sat there moodily; there was dejection in the very dangle of his legs over the bales. Chester, you see, was discovering what many a boy before him has discovered–that it is a good deal easier to sit down and make a fortune in dreams than it is to go out into the world and make it.