Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way, William O. Stoddard [lightest ebook reader TXT] 📗

she said, "Jack is in the city. Oh, how I wish I were with him!"

She was silent after that, but she had hardly said it before one of two small boys, who had been pounding one another with pillows in a very small bedroom in Crofield, suddenly threw his pillow at the other, and exclaimed:

"I s'pose Jack's there by this time, Jimmy!"

CHAPTER XII. IN A NEW WORLD.

Jack Ogden stood like a boy in a dream, as the "Columbia" swept gracefully into her dock and was made fast. Her swing about was helped by the outgoing tide, that foamed and swirled around the projecting piers.

A hurrying crowd of people was thronging out of the "Columbia," but Jack's German friend did not join them.

"De ceety vill not roon avay," he said, calmly. "You comes mit me."

They went to the cabin for the ladies, and Jack noticed how much baggage the rest were carrying. He took a satchel from Miss Hildebrand, and then the Polish lady, with a grateful smile, allowed him to take another.

"Dose crowds ees gone," remarked Mr. Guilderaufenberg. "Ve haf our chances now."

Afterward, Jack had a confused memory of walking over a wide gang-plank that led into a babel. Miss Hildebrand held him by his left arm while the two other ladies went with Mr. Guilderaufenberg. They came out into a street, between two files of men who shook their whips, shouted, and pointed at a line of carriages. Miss Hildebrand told Jack that they could reach their hotel sooner by the elevated railway.

"He look pale," she thought, considerately. "He did not sleep all night. He never before travel on a steamboat!"

Jack meanwhile had a new sensation.

"This is the city!" he was saying to himself. "I'm really here. There are no crowds, because it's Sunday,—but then!"

After walking a few minutes they came to a corner, where Mr. Guilderaufenberg turned and said to Jack:

"Dees ees Proadvay. Dere ees no oder street in de vorlt dat ees so long. Look dees vay und den look dat vay! So! Eh? Dot ees Proadvay. Dere ees no oder city in de vorlt vere a beeg street keep Soonday!"

It was indeed a wonderful street to the boy from Crofield, and he felt the wonder of it; and he felt the wonder of the Sunday quiet and of the closed places of business.

On Broadway, at last!

"There's a policeman," he remarked to Mr. Guilderaufenberg.

"So!" said the German, smiling; "but he ees a beople's boleeceman. Eef he vas a king's boleeceman, I vas not here. I roon avay, or I vas lock up. Jack, ven you haf dodge some king's boleecemen, like me, you vish you vas American, choost like me now, und vas safe!"

"I believe I should," said Jack, politely; but his head was not still for an instant. His eyes and his thoughts were busily at work. He had expected to see tall and splendid buildings, and had even dreamed of them. How he had longed and hoped and planned to get to this very place! He had seen pictures of the city, but the reality was nevertheless a delightful surprise.

Miss Hildebrand pointed out Trinity Church, and afterward St. Paul's.

"Maybe I'll go to one of those big churches, to-day," said Jack.

"Oh, no," said Miss Hildebrand. "You find plenty churches up-town. Not come back so far."

"I shall know where these are, any way," Jack replied.

After a short walk they came to City Hall Square.

"There!" Jack exclaimed. "I know this place! It's just like the pictures in my guide-book. There's the Post-office, the City Hall,—everything!"

"Come," said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, beginning to cross the street. "Ve must go ofer und take de elevated railvay."

"Come along, Meester Jack Ogden," added Mrs. Guilderaufenberg.

"There are enough people here now," said Jack, as they walked along—"Sunday or no Sunday!"

"Of course," said Miss Hildebrand, pointing with a hand that lifted a small satchel. "That's the elevated railway station over there, across both streets. There, too, is where you go to the suspension bridge to Brooklyn, over the East River. You see, when we go by. You see to-morrow. Not much, now. I am so hungry!"

"I want to see everything," said Jack; "but I'm hungry, too. Why, we're going upstairs!"

In a minute more Jack was sitting by an open window of an elevated railway car. This was another entirely new experience, and Jack found it hard to rid himself of the notion that possibly the whole long-legged railway might tumble down or the train suddenly shoot off from the track and drop into the street.

"Dees ees bretty moch American," said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, as Jack stared out at the third-story windows of the buildings. "You nefer vas here before? So! Den you nefer feels again choost like now. You ees fery moch a poy. I dell you, dere is not soch railvays in Europe; I vonce feel like you now. Dot vas ven I first come here. It vas not Soonday; it vas a day for de flags. I dell you vat it ees: ven dot American feels goot, he hang out hees flag. Shtars und shtripes—I like dot flag! I look at some boleece, und den I like dot flag again, for dey vas not hoont, hoont, hoont, for poor Fritz von Guilderaufenberg, for dot he talk too moch!"

"It's pretty quiet all along. All the stores seem to be closed," said Jack, looking down at the street below.

"Eet ees so shtill!" remarked Mr. Guilderaufenberg. "I drafel de vorlt ofer und I find not dees Soonday. In Europe, it vas not dere to keep. I dell you, ven dere ees no more Soonday, den dere ees no more America! So! Choost you remember dot, my poy, from a man dot vas hoonted all ofer Europe!"

Jack was quite ready to believe Mr. Guilderaufenberg. He had been used to even greater quiet, in Crofield, for after all there seemed to be a great deal going on.

The train they were in made frequent stops, and it did not seem long to Jack before Mrs. Guilderaufenberg and the other ladies got up and began to gather their parcels and satchels. Jack was ready when his friends led the way to the door.

"I'll be glad to get off," he thought. "I am afraid Aunt Melinda would say I was traveling on Sunday."

The conductor threw open the car door and shouted, and Mr. Guilderaufenberg hurried forward exclaiming: "Come! Dees ees our station!"

Jack had taken even more than his share of the luggage; and now his arm was once more grasped by Miss Hildebrand.

"I'll take good care of her," he said to himself, as she pushed along out of the cars. "All I need to do is to follow the rest."

He did not understand what she said to the others in German, but it was: "I'll bring Mr. Ogden. He will know how to look out for himself, very soon."

She meant to see him safely to the Hotel Dantzic, that morning; and the next thing Jack knew he was going down a long flight of stairs, to the sidewalk, while Miss Hildebrand was explaining that part of the city they were in. Even while she was talking, and while he was looking in all directions, she wheeled him suddenly to the left, and they came to a halt.

"Hotel Dantzic," read Jack aloud, from the sign. "It's a tall building; but it's very thin."

The ladies went into the waiting-room, while Jack followed Mr. Guilderaufenberg into the office. The German was welcomed by the proprietor as if he were an old acquaintance.

A moment afterward, Mr. Guilderaufenberg turned away from the desk and said to Jack:

"My poy, I haf a room for you. Eet ees high oop, but eet ees goot; und you bays only feefty cent a day. You bay for von veek, now. You puys vot you eats vere you blease in de ceety."

The three dollars and a half paid for the first week made the first break in Jack's capital of nine dollars.

"Any way," he thought, when he paid it, "I have found a place to sleep in. Money'll go fast in the city, and I must look out. I'll put my baggage in my room and then come down to breakfast."

"You breakfast mit us dees time," said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, kindly. "Den you not see us more, maybe, till you comes to Vashington."

Jack got his key and the number of his room and was making his way to the foot of a stairway when a very polite man said to him:

"This way, sir. This way to the elevator. Seventh floor, sir."

Jack had heard and read of elevators, but it was startling to ride in one for the first time. It was all but full when he got in, and after it started, his first thought was:

"How it's loaded! What if the rope should break!"

It stopped to let a man out, and started and stopped again and again, but it seemed only a few long, breathless moments before the man in charge of it said; "Seventh, sir!"

The moment Jack was in his room he exclaimed:

"Isn't this grand, though? It's only about twice as big as that stateroom on the steamboat. I can feel at home here."

It was a pleasant little room, and Jack began at once to make ready for breakfast.

He was brushing his hair when he went to the window, and as he looked out he actually dropped the brush in his surprise.

"Where's my guide-book?" he said. "I know where I am, though. That must be the East River. Away off there is Long Island. Looks as if it was all city. Maybe that is Brooklyn,—I don't know. Isn't this a high house? I can look down on all the other roofs. Jingo!"

He hurried through his toilet, meanwhile taking swift glances out of the window. When he went out to the elevator, he said to himself:

"I'll go down by the stairs some day, just to see how it seems. A storm would whistle like anything, round the top of this building!"

When he got down, Mr. Guilderaufenberg was waiting for him, and the party of ladies went in to breakfast, in a restaurant which occupied nearly all of the lower floor of the hotel.

"I understand," said Jack, good-humoredly, in reply to an explanation from Miss Hildebrand. "You pay for just what you order, and no more, and they charge high for everything but bread. I'm beginning to learn something of city ways."

During all that morning, anybody who knew Jack Ogden would have had to look at him twice, he had been so quiet and sedate; but the old, self-confident look gradually returned during breakfast.

"Ve see you again at supper," said Mr. Guilderaufenberg, as they arose. "Den ve goes to Vashington. You valks out und looks about. You easy finds your vay back. Goot-bye till den."

Jack shook hands with his friends, and walked out into the street.

"Well, here I am!" he thought. "This is the city. I'm all alone in it, too, and I must find my own way. I can do it, though. I'm glad it's Sunday, so that I needn't go straight to work."

At that moment, the nine o'clock bells were ringing in two wooden steeples in the village of Crofield; but the bell of the third steeple was silent, down among the splinters of what had been the pulpit of its own meeting-house. The village was very still, but there was something peculiar in the quiet in the Ogden homestead. Even the children went about as if they missed something or were listening for somebody they expected.

There were nine o'clock bells, also, in Mertonville, and there was a ring at the door-bell of the house of Mr. Murdoch, the editor.

"Why, Elder Holloway!" exclaimed Mrs. Murdoch, when she opened the door. "Please to walk in."

"Thank you, Mrs. Murdoch, but I can't," he said, speaking as if hurried, "Please tell Miss Ogden there's a class of sixteen girls in our Sunday school, and the teacher's gone; and I've taken the liberty of promising for her that she'll take charge of it."

"I'll call her," said Mrs. Murdoch.

"No, no," replied the elder. "Just tell her it's a nice class, and that