Crowded Out o' Crofield Part 39

"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 princ.i.p.als, awaiting the opening exercises; but the princ.i.p.als 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 princ.i.p.als 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 n.o.body 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 princ.i.p.als, came hurrying in to explain that an accident had delayed them.

CHAPTER XIX.

COMPLETE SUCCESS.

Two years pa.s.sed. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Was.h.i.+ngton Hotel was gone; but across the street, on the corner to the left, there was a great brick building, four stories high, with "Was.h.i.+ngton 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 s.e.xton 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 pa.s.sed 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 firm bowed the general out, and came back to say to Mr.

Jones: "That youngster beats me! He can pick up a millionaire, or a governor, as easily as he can measure a pound of coffee."

"Some might think him rather bold," said Jones, "but I don't. He is absorbed in his work, and he puts it through. He's the kind of boy we want, no doubt of that."

"See what he's up to, this morning!" said Mr. Gifford. "It's all right. He asked leave, and I told him he might go."

Jack had missed seeing the General because he did not know enough of the grocery business. He had said to Mr. Gifford:

"I think, Mr. Gifford, I ought to know more about this business from its very beginnings. If you'll let me, I'd like to see where we get supplies."

That meant a toilsome round among the great sugar refineries, on the Long Island side of the East River; and then another among the tea and coffee merchants and brokers, away down town, looking at samples of all sorts and finding out how cargoes were unloaded from s.h.i.+ps and were bought and sold among the dealers. He brought to the store, that afternoon, before six o'clock, about forty samples of all kinds of grocery goods, all labeled with prices and places, and he was going on to talk about them when Mr. Gifford stopped him.

"There, Ogden," he said. "I know all about these myself,--but where did you find that coffee? I want some. And this tea?--It is two cents lower than I'm paying. Jones, he's found just the tea you and I were talking of--" and so he went on carefully examining the other samples, and out of them all there were seven different articles that Gifford & Company bought largely next day.

"Jones," said Mr. Gifford, when he came back from buying them, "they had our card in each place, and told me, 'Your Mr. Ogden was in here yesterday. We took him for a boy at first.'--I'm beginning to think there are some things that only that kind of boy can do. I'll just let him go ahead in his own way."

Mary had told Jack all about her daily experiences in her letters to him, and he said to himself more than once:

"Dudley Edwards must be a tip-top fellow. It's good of him to drive Mary over to Crofield and back every Sat.u.r.day. And they have had such good sleighing all winter. I wish I could try some of it."

There was no going to Crofield for him. When Thanksgiving Day came, he could not afford it, and before the Christmas holidays Mr. Gifford told him:

"We can't spare you at Christmas, Ogden. It's the busiest time for us in the whole year."

Mr. Gifford was an exacting master, and he kept Jack at it all through the following spring and summer. Mary had a good rest during the hot weather, but Jack did not. One thing that seemed strange to her was that so many of the Crofield ladies called to see her, and that Miss Glidden was more and more inclined to suggest that Mary's election had been mainly due to her own influence in Mertonville.

On the other hand, it seemed to Jack that summer, as if everybody he knew was out of the city. Business kept pressing him harder and harder, and all the plans he made to get a leave of absence for that second year's Thanksgiving Day failed to work successfully.

The Christmas holidays came again, but throughout the week, Gifford & Company's store kept open until eight o'clock, every evening, with Jack Ogden behind the counter. He got so tired that he hardly cared about it when they raised his salary to twenty-five dollars a week, just after Mr. Gifford saw him come down town with another coffee and tea dealer, whose store was in the same street.

"We mustn't let him leave us, Jones," Mr. Gifford had said to his head clerk. "I am going to send him to Was.h.i.+ngton next week."

Not many days later, Mrs. Guilderaufenberg in her home at Was.h.i.+ngton was told by her maid servant that, "There's a strange b'y below, ma'am, who sez he's a-wantin' to spake wid yez."

Down went the landlady into the parlor, and then up went her hands.