Mr. Harris laughed. “I see that you seem to have a shrewd business head. You’ll make a man one of these days if you keep on. And you want my name on this first page?” he added, dipping his pen into the inkstand.

  “Yes, because you was my first friend in this business,” replied Theodore.

  Mr. Harris glanced at him with that amused twinkle in his eye, but he signed his name on the first page.

  Then he said, “I wish you success in your undertaking, and here’s a trifle for a send-off.” He held out a silver dollar as he spoke, but Theodore did not take it.

  “Thank ye, sir,” he said, gratefully; “you’ve been real good to me, but I can’t take any money now, ‘cept what I earn. I c’n earn all I need.”

  “So?” replied Mr. Harris, “you’re independent. Well, I like that, but I’ll keep this dollar for you, and if you ever get in a tight place you can come to me for it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Harris,” said the boy again. “I won’t forget, but I hope I won’t need it,” and then he picked up his belongings and left the office. As he passed Mr. Hammond’s desk, he said, “Good-morning, sir,” but the clerk pretended not to hear.

  All through the next week and for weeks after, Theodore spent his time from nine to five o’clock, cleaning brasses and making contracts for the regular care of them, until he had secured as much work as he could attend to himself.

  Meantime, Jimmy Hunt had taken entire charge of the stand and was doing well with it. Theo gave him four-fifths of the profits and he was perfectly satisfied, and so was his mother, who found his earnings a welcome addition to the slim family income, and it was so near the end of the school term that she concluded it did not matter if Jimmy did stay out the few remaining weeks.

  But busy as Theodore was, he still found time to carry out what Nan cooked for the people in the two houses, as well as to drop in on one and another of his many neighbours every evening—for by this time the night school had closed for the season. His Saturday evenings were still spent at the flower stand, and now that blossoms were more plentiful, he received more and better ones in payment for his work, and his Sunday morning visits to the different rooms were looked forward to all the week by many of those to whom he went, and hardly less so by himself, for the boy was learning by glad experience the wonderful joy that comes from giving happiness to others. When he saw how the flowers he carried to stuffy, dirty, crowded rooms, were kept and cherished and cared for even until they were withered and dead—he was sure that his little flower mission was a real blessing.

  Before the hot weather came, Tommy O’Brien was carried away out of the noisy, crowded room to the Hospital for Incurables. Theo had brought one of the dispensary doctors to see the boy, and through the doctor’s efforts and those of Mr. Scott, Tommy had been received into the hospital. He had never been so comfortable in his brief life as he was there, but at first he was lonely, and so Theodore went once or twice a week to see him, and he never failed to save out some flowers to carry to Tommy on Sunday.

  But, however full Theodore’s time might be, and however busy his hands, he never forgot the search for Jack Finney. His eyes were always watching for a blue-eyed, sandy-haired boy of sixteen, and he made inquiries for him everywhere. Three times he heard of a boy named Finney, and sought him out only to be disappointed, for the first Jack Finney he found was a little chap of ten or eleven, and the next was a boy of sixteen, but with hair and eyes as black as a Jew’s—and besides, it turned out that his name wasn’t Finney at all, but Findlay; and the third time, the boy he found was living at home with his parents, so Theo knew that no one of the three was the boy of whom he was in search and although he did not in the least give up the matter, he came to the conclusion at last that his Jack Finney must have left the city.

  Mr. Scott interested himself in the search because of his great interest in Theodore, and he went to the reform school and the prison, but the name he sought was on neither record.

  Although Theodore said nothing to any one about it, he was also on the lookout for another boy, and that boy was Carrots. Ever since Carrots had stolen the food from the stand, Theo had wanted to find him. More than once he had caught a glimpse in the streets of the lank figure and the frowzy red head, but Carrots had no desire to meet Theo and he took good care to keep out of his way.

  XII. Nan Finds Friends

  So the spring days slipped away until March and April were gone and the middle of May had come. Theodore was counting the days now, for it was in May that the bishop was to return—so Mrs. Martin had told him—and the boy began to watch eagerly for the word that the housekeeper had promised to send him. So full of this were his thoughts and so busy was he with his work for himself and for others, that he spent much less time than usual with Nan and Little Brother.

  About this time there was a week of extremely hot weather. One day toward the close of this week as Theodore was passing Mrs. Hunt’s door, she called him in.

  “You’d better come here for your supper tonight,” she said.

  Theodore looked at her with a quick, startled glance.

  “Why—where’s Nan?” he inquired.

  “Nan’s in her room, but she can’t get you any supper tonight. She’s sick. I’ve seen for weeks past that Nan was overworkin’ with all that cooking she’s been doin’, and to-day she just gave out—an’ she’s flat on her back now.”

  Theodore was silent in blank dismay. Until that moment he had not realised how much he had come to depend upon Nan.

  “Has she had a doctor, or anything?” he asked, in such a troubled voice that Mrs. Hunt could not but be sorry for him.

  “No, I offered to send Jimmy for a doctor, but she said she only wanted to rest, but I tell you what, Theo, she ain’t goin’ to get much rest in that room, hot’s an oven with the constant cooking, an’ what’s more that baby can’t stand it neither.”

  “I’ll go an’ see her,” replied the boy, slowly, “an’—I guess I don’t want any supper tonight, Mrs. Hunt.”

  “Yes, you do want supper, too, Theodore. You come back here in half an hour an’ get it, an’ look here—Don’t worry Nan, talkin’ ‘bout her being sick,” Mrs. Hunt called after him in a low voice, as he turned toward the girl’s door.

  It seemed strange enough to Theodore to see bright, energetic Nan lying with pale face and idle hands on the bed. She smiled up at the boy as he stood silent beside the bed finding no words to say.

  “I’m only tired, Theo,” she said, gently. “It has been so hot to-day, and Little Brother fretted so that I couldn’t get through my work so well as usual.”

  “He’s sick too,” answered Theodore, gravely.

  Nan turned her head to look at the little white face on the pillow beside her.

  “Yes, he’s sick. Oh Theo”—and then the girl covered her face with her hands, and Theodore saw the tears trickling through her fingers.

  “Don’t Nan, don’t!” he cried, in a choked voice, and then he turned and ran out of the room and out of the house. Straight to his teacher he went, sure of finding there sympathy, and if possible, help.

  He was not disappointed. Mr. Scott listened to what he had to say, and wrote a note to a friend of his own who was a physician, asking him to see Nan and the baby at his earliest convenience. Then having comforted Theodore, and compelled him to take some supper, Mr. Scott sent him away greatly refreshed, and proceeded to talk the matter over with his aunt, Mrs. Rawson.

  “Those two children ought to be sent away into the country, Aunt Mary,” he began.

  “Nan and Theodore, do you mean?”

  “No, no! Theodore’s all right. He’s well and strong. I mean Nan and her little brother. Aunt Mary, it would make your heart ache to see such a girl as that working as she has worked, and living among such people. I wish you would go and see the child.”

  “I’ll try to go tomorrow, Allan. I’ve been intending to ever since you told me about her, but the days do slip away so fast!” answered the lady.

  But she found time to go the next day, and the first sight of Nan’s sweet face was enough to make her as deeply interested in the two as her nephew had long been.

  “But what an uncomfortable place for a sick girl!” Mrs. Rawson thought, as she glanced at the shutterless windows through which the sun was pouring, making the small room almost unbearably hot, although there was no fire in the stove. She noticed that the place was daintily clean and neat, though bare as it well could be, but noisy children were racing up and down the stairways and shouting through the halls, making quiet rest impossible. Mrs. Rawson’s kind heart ached as she looked from the room to the pure face of the girl lying there with the little child beside her.

  “She must be a very unusual girl to look like that after living for months in this place,” she thought to herself.

  While she was there the doctor came, and when he went away, Mrs. Rawson went with him that she might tell him what she knew about the girl’s life and learn what he thought of the case.

  “It is a plain case of overwork,” he said. “From what you tell me the girl has been doing twice as much as she was able to do, and living in that little oven of a room with nothing like the fresh air and exercise she should have had, and very likely not half enough to eat. The baby seems extremely delicate. Probably it won’t live through the summer, and a good thing too if there’s no one but the girl to provide for them. What they need is—to go straight away into the country and stay there all summer, or better yet, for a year or two, but I suppose that is out of the question.”

  “I must see what can be done, doctor. Such a girl as that surely ought not to be left to struggle along unfriended.”

  “No, but there are so many such cases. Well, I hope something can be done for her. I’ll call and see her again tomorrow, but medicine is of little use in a case like this,” the doctor replied.

  Mrs. Rawson was not one to “let the grass grow under her feet,” when she had anything to do, and she felt that she had something to do in this case. She thought it over as she went home, and before night she had written to a relative in the country—a woman who had a big farm and a big heart—to ask if she would board Nan and her little brother for the summer. She described the two, and told how bravely the girl had battled with poverty and misfortune until her strength had failed. The letter went straight from the warm heart of the writer to that of her friend and the response was prompt.

  “Send those two children right to me, and if rest and pure air and plenty of wholesome food are what they need, please God, they shall soon be strong and well. They are surely His little ones, and you know I am always ready and glad to do His work.”

  Such was the message that Mrs. Rawson read to her nephew two days after her visit to Nan, and his face was full of satisfaction as he listened to it.

  “Nothing could be better,” he said. “It will be a splendid place for those children, and it will be a good thing too for Mrs. Hyde to have them there.”

  “Yes, I think so,” replied Mrs. Rawson, “but now the question is—will Nan consent to go? From what little I have seen of her I judge that she will not be at all willing to accept help from strangers.”

  “She will shrink from it, perhaps, for herself, but for the sake of that little brother I think she will consent to go. Theo tells me that she has been exceedingly anxious about the child for weeks past,” answered Mr. Scott.

  “Well, I’ll go tomorrow and see if I can prevail upon her to accept this offer, but Allan, one thing you must do, if Nan does consent to go—and that is, you must break it to Theodore. It’s going to be a blow to him, to have those two go away from the city. He’ll be left entirely alone.”

  “So he will. I hadn’t thought of that. I must think it over and see what can be done for him. He certainly must not stay there, with no place but that dark little closet in which he sleeps,” replied the gentleman.

  Mrs. Rawson’s kindly sympathy and gentle manners had quickly won Nan’s confidence and the girl welcomed her warmly when she appeared in the little room the next morning. She found Nan sitting by the open window, with her pale little brother in her arms.

  “Oh, I’m ever so much better,” she said, in reply to Mrs. Rawson’s inquiries. “The doctor’s medicine helped me right away, but I don’t feel very strong yet—not quite well enough to begin my cooking again. I’m going to begin it tomorrow,” she added.

  “Indeed, you’ll not do any cooking tomorrow, Nan,” said the lady, decidedly. “You’re not fit to stand over the stove or the mixing board, and besides, it would make the room too hot for the baby.”

  Nan glanced anxiously at the little face on her arm.

  “I can carry him in to Mrs. Hunt’s. He’s no trouble, and she’s always willing to keep him,” she answered.

  “Now, my child, I want you to listen to me,” Mrs. Rawson began, and went on to tell the girl about the plans she had made for her and her little brother.

  Nan listened, with the colour coming and going in her face.

  “It is so good—so kind of you to think of this,” she exclaimed, earnestly, “and I’d love to go. Mrs. Rawson, you don’t know how I hate living in a place like this,” she shuddered, as she spoke, “and it would be like heaven to get away into the sweet clean country, with good people—but I can’t go unless there is something I can do there. I couldn’t go and live on charity, you know.”

  “It wouldn’t be charity, Nan; it would be love,” answered Mrs. Rawson, gently. “Mrs. Hyde keeps one room in her house always ready for any guest whom the Lord may send her and I think He is sending you there now. Remember, my child, you have this dear sick baby to think of, as well as yourself. Nan, the doctor thinks Little Brother will not live through the summer unless he is taken away from the city.”

  Nan gave a quick, gasping breath, as she drew the baby closer and bent her face over his. When she looked up again her eyes were wet, and she said, in a low tone,

  “If that is so, I can’t refuse this kind offer, and I will try to find some way to make it right.”

  “There’s nothing to make right, dear; you’ve only to go and be just as happy and contented as you can be. I know you will be happy there. You can’t help loving Mrs. Hyde. And now, my child, there’s another matter.” She paused and added, in a low tone, “I had a little girl once, but God took her away from my home. She would have been about your age now if she had staid with me. For her sake, Nan, I want you to let me get a few things that you and the baby will need. Will you, dear?”

  Nan was proud. She had never gotten accustomed to poverty and its painful consequences, and she would have preferred to do without, any time, rather than accept a gift from those on whom she had no claim; but she realised that she could not go among strangers with only the few poor garments that she now had, so, after a moment’s silence, she answered, in a voice that was not quite steady,

  “You are very, very good to me, Mrs. Rawson. I’ll try to be good too, only, please don’t get a single thing that I can do without.”

  “Nan, if you had plenty of money and you found a girl who had been left all alone in the world, with no one to do anything for her—would you think it was any wonderful kindness in you to spend a few dollars for her?”

  “N—no, of course not. I’d just love to do it,” replied Nan, “but”—

  “That’s enough, then, and now there’s only one more thing I have to speak about. I know some girls, who have formed themselves into a band called a ‘King’s Daughter Circle,’ and they meet once a week to sew for somebody who is not able to do her own sewing. I’ve told these girls a little about you and they want very much to do some sewing for Little Brother and you. Now, would you be willing to let them come here tomorrow afternoon? Would it trouble you?”

  The colour rose in Nan’s cheeks and her lips trembled, and for a moment she seemed to shrink into herself as she thought what a contrast her poor surroundings would be to these other girls, who lived such different lives from hers, but she saw that Mrs. Rawson was really desirous that they should come, and she was not willing to disappoint one who was doing so much for her; so after a moment’s silence she answered,

  “Of course they can come, if you think they won’t mind too much.” She glanced about the room as she spoke.

  Mrs. Rawson leaned over and kissed her. “Child,” she said, “they know nothing about the trials that come into other lives—like yours. I want them to know you. Don’t worry one bit over their coming. They are dear girls and I’m sure you will like them—as sure as I am that they will all love you—and Nan, one thing more, leave Mr. Scott to tell Theodore about your going.”

  Then she went away, leaving Nan with many things to think about. She could not help worrying somewhat over the coming of those girls. As she recalled her own old home, she realised how terribly bare and poor her one room would look to these strangers and she shrank nervously from the thought of meeting them. More than once, she was tempted to ask Theo to go to Mrs. Rawson and tell her that the girls could not come there.

  Mrs. Rawson went straight from Nan’s room to the shopping district, where she purchased simple but complete outfits for Nan and the baby. The under garments and the baby’s dresses she bought ready-made and also a neat wool suit for the girl and hats and wraps for both, but she bought enough pretty lawn and gingham to make as many wash dresses as Nan would require, and these she carried home and cut out the next morning. That evening too she sent notes to the members of the circle telling them to meet at her house before one o’clock the next day, which was Saturday.

  They came promptly, eleven girls between fifteen and seventeen, each with her sewing implements. Bright, happy girls they were, as Nan might have been, had her life been peaceful and sheltered like theirs, Mrs. Rawson thought, as she welcomed them. “Sit down, girls,” she said, “I want to tell you more about my poor little Nan before you see her.”

  She told the story in such fashion that the warm, girlish hearts were filled with a sweet and tender sympathy for this other girl, and they were eager to do all that they could for her.