Mark the Match Boy 9

Mark the Match Boy 9

"That's bad. Who will beat you?"

 

"Mother Watson."

 

"Tell Mother Watson, with my compliments, that she's a wicked old

tyrant. I'll tell you what, my lad, you must grow as fast as you can,

and by and by you'll get too large for that motherly old woman to whip.

But there goes the bell. I must be getting aboard."

 

This was the result of Mark's first begging appeal. He looked at the

money, and wished he had got it in any other way. If it had been the

reward of an hour's work he would have gazed at it with much greater

satisfaction.

 

Well, he had made a beginning. He had got ten cents. But there still

remained fifteen cents to obtain, and without that he did not feel safe

in going back.

 

So he looked about him for another person to address. This time he

thought he would ask a lady. Accordingly he went up to one, who was

walking with her son, a boy of sixteen, to judge from appearance, and

asked for a few pennies.

 

"Get out of my way, you little beggar!" she said, in a disagreeable

tone. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself, going round begging, instead of

earning money like honest people?"

 

"I've been trying to earn money all day," said Mark, rather indignant

at this attack.

 

"Oh no doubt," sneered the woman. "I don't think you'll hurt yourself

with work."

 

"I was round the streets all day trying to sell matches," said Mark.

 

"You mustn't believe what he says, mother," said the boy. "They're all

a set of humbugs, and will lie as fast as they can talk."

 

"I've no doubt of it, Roswell," said Mrs. Crawford. "Such little

impostors never get anything out of me. I've got other uses for my

money."

 

Mark was a gentle, peaceful boy, but such attacks naturally made him

indignant.

 

"I am not an impostor, and I neither lie nor steal," he said, looking

alternately from the mother to the son.

 

"Oh, you're a fine young man. I've no doubt," said Roswell, with a

sneer. "But we'd better be getting on, mother, unless you mean to stop

in Fulton Market all night."

 

So mother and son passed on, leaving Mark with a sense of mortification

and injury. He would have given the ten cents he had, not to have asked

charity of this woman who had answered him so unpleasantly.

 

Those of my readers who have read the two preceding volumes of

this series will recognize in Roswell Crawford and his mother old

acquaintances who played an important part in the former stories. As,

however, I may have some new readers, it may be as well to explain that

Roswell was a self-conceited boy, who prided himself on being "the

son of a gentleman," and whose great desire was to find a place where

the pay would be large and the duties very small. Unfortunately for

his pride, his father had failed in business shortly before he died,

and his mother had been compelled to keep a boarding-house. She, too,

was troubled with a pride very similar to that of her son, and chafed

inwardly at her position, instead of reconciling herself to it, as many

better persons have done.

 

Roswell was not very fortunate in retaining the positions he obtained,

being generally averse to doing anything except what he was absolutely

obliged to do. He had lost a situation in a dry-goods store in Sixth

Avenue, because he objected to carrying bundles, considering it beneath

the dignity of a gentleman's son. Some months before he had tried

to get Richard Hunter discharged from his situation in the hope of

succeeding him in it; but this plot proved utterly unsuccessful, as is

fully described in "Fame and Fortune."

 

We shall have more to do with Roswell Crawford in the course of the

present story. At present he was employed in a retail bookstore up

town, on a salary of six dollars a week.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

ON THE FERRY-BOAT.

 

 

Mark had made two applications for charity, and still had but ten

cents. The manner in which Mrs. Crawford met his appeal made the

business seem more disagreeable than ever. Besides, he was getting

tired. It was not more than eight o'clock, but he had been up early,

and had been on his feet all day. He leaned against one of the stalls,

but in so doing he aroused the suspicions of the vigilant old woman who

presided over it.

 

"Just stand away there," she said. "You're watchin' for a chance to

steal one of them apples."

 

"No, I'm not," said Mark, indignantly. "I never steal."

 

"Don't tell me," said the old woman, who had a hearty aversion to boys,

some of whom, it must be confessed, had in times past played mean

tricks on her; "don't tell me! Them that beg will steal, and I see you

beggin' just now."

 

To this Mark had no reply to make. He saw that he was already classed

with the young street beggars, many of whom, as the old woman implied,

had no particular objection to stealing, if they got a chance.

Altogether he was so disgusted with his new business, that he felt it

impossible for him to beg any more that night. But then came up the

consideration that this would prevent his returning home. He very well

knew what kind of a reception Mother Watson would give him, and he had

a very unpleasant recollection and terror of the leather strap.

 

But where should he go? He must pass the night somewhere, and he

already felt drowsy. Why should he not follow Ben Gibson's suggestions,

and sleep on the Fulton ferry-boat? It would only cost two cents to get

on board, and he might ride all night. Fortunately he had more than

money enough for that, though he did not like to think how he came by

the ten cents.

 

When Mark had made up his mind, he passed out of one of the entrances

of the market, and, crossing the street, presented his ten cents at

the wicket, where stood the fare-taker.

 

Without a look towards him, that functionary took the money, and pushed

back eight cents. These Mark took, and passed round into the large room

of the ferry-house.

 

The boat was not in, but he already saw it halfway across the river,

speeding towards its pier.

 

There were a few persons waiting besides himself, but the great rush

of travel was diminished for a short time. It would set in again about

eleven o'clock when those who had passed the evening at some place of

amusement in New York would be on their way home.

 

Mark with the rest waited till the boat reached its wharf. There was

the usual bump, then the chain rattled, the wheel went round, and the

passengers began to pour out upon the wharf. Mark passed into the boat,

and went at once to the "gentlemen's cabin," situated on the left-hand

side of the boat. Generally, however, gentlemen rather unfairly crowd

into the ladies' cabin, sometimes compelling the ladies, to whom it of

right belongs, to stand, while they complacently monopolize the seats.

The gentlemen's cabin, so called, is occupied by those who have a

little more regard to the rights of ladies, and by the smokers, who are

at liberty to indulge in their favorite comfort here.

 

When Mark entered, the air was redolent with tobacco-smoke, generally

emitted from clay pipes and cheap cigars, and therefore not so

agreeable as under other circumstances it might have been. But it was

warm and comfortable, and that was a good deal.

 

In the corner Mark espied a wide seat nearly double the size of an

ordinary seat, and this he decided would make the most comfortable

niche for him.

 

He settled himself down there as well as he could. The seat was hard,

and not so comfortable as it might have been; but then Mark was not

accustomed to beds of down, and he was so weary that his eyes closed

and he was soon in the land of dreams.

 

He was dimly conscious of the arrival at the Brooklyn side, and the

ensuing hurried exit of passengers from that part of the cabin in which

he was, but it was only a slight interruption, and when the boat,

having set out on its homeward trip, reached the New York side, he was

fast asleep.

 

"Poor little fellow!" thought more than one, with a hasty glance at the

sleeping boy. "He is taking his comfort where he can."

 

But there was no good Samaritan to take him by the hand, and inquire

into his hardships, and provide for his necessities, or rather there

was one, and that one well known to us.

 

Richard Hunter and his friend Henry Fosdick had been to Brooklyn that

evening to attend an instructive lecture which they had seen announced

in one of the daily papers. The lecture concluded at half-past nine,

and they took the ten o'clock boat over the Fulton ferry.

 

They seated themselves in the first cabin, towards the Brooklyn side,

and did not, therefore, see Mark until they passed through the other

cabin on the arrival of the boat at New York.

 

"Look there, Fosdick," said Richard Hunter. "See that poor little chap

asleep in the corner. Doesn't it remind you of the times we used to

have, when we were as badly off as he?"

 

"Yes, Dick, but I don't think I ever slept on a ferry-boat."

 

"That's because you were not on the streets long I took care of myself

eight years, and more than once took a cheap bed for two cents on a

boat like this. Most likely I've slept in that very corner."

 

"It was a hard life, Dick."