Horatio Alger - Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success

"Then, Bessie, you may as well sit down here. I am very sorry you must take this long journey alone. I thought, till the last moment, that Mr. Armstrong was going."

"Oh! never mind, uncle; I can get along well enough."

"But it don't seem right; I am afraid your father will blame me."

"Perhaps," said Bessie, with a little coquettish glance at Tom, whom she privately thought a very good-looking boy; "perhaps this young gentleman will look after me."

The old gentleman looked dubious, and would have preferred a person of more maturity. Still, there was no choice, and he said:

"Young man, are you going to Cincinnati?"

"Yes, sir," said Tom.

"Then, if it won't be too much trouble, I will ask you to look after my niece a little. I am unable to go with her myself."

"All right, sir; I'll do it," said Tom, in a confident tone.

"There goes the bell, uncle," said Bessie. "You'd better go, or you will be carried along with us."

The old gentleman bent over and kissed his niece. Our hero thought he should have been willing to relieve him of the duty. The young girl beside him looked so fresh and pretty that, though he was too young to fall in love, he certainly did feel considerable pleasure in the thought that she was to be his companion in a journey of several hundred miles. It gave him a feeling of importance, being placed in charge of her, and he couldn't help wondering whether he would have got the chance if he had been dressed in his old street suit.

"There's a good deal in clo's," thought Tom, philosophically. "It makes all the difference between a young gentleman and a bootblack."

"Would you like to sit by the window?" he asked, by way of being sociable and polite.

"Oh, no! I can see very well from here," said the young lady. "Do you come from Buffalo?"

"No; I am from New York."

"I never was there; I should like to go very much. I have heard that Central Park is a beautiful place."

"Yes, it's a bully place," said Tom.

Bessie laughed.

"That's a regular boy's word," she said. "Miss Wiggins, our teacher, was always horrified when she heard any of us girls use it. I remember one day I let it out without thinking, and she heard it. 'Miss Benton,' said she, 'never again let me hear you employ that inelegant expression. That a young lady under my charge should, even once , have been guilty of such a breach of propriety, mortifies me extremely.'"

Bessie pursed up her pretty lips, and imitated the manner of the prim schoolmistress, to the great amusement of our hero.

"Is that the way she talked?" he asked.

"Yes; and she glared at me through her spectacles. She looked like a beauty, with her tall bony figure, and thin face. Did you ever go to boarding-school?"

"No," said Tom; "nor to any other," he might almost have added.

"You wouldn't like it, though boys' boarding-schools may be better than girls'. I have been two years at Miss Wiggins' boarding-school, in Buffalo. Now I'm going home, on a vacation, and I really hope papa won't send me there again."

"Do you live in Cincinnati?"

"Yes – that is, papa does. Are you going to stay there long?"

"I think I shall live there," said Tom, who fancied it would be agreeable to live in the same city with Bessie Benton.

"Oh, I hope you will! Then you could come and see us."

"That would be bully," Tom was about to say, but it occurred to him that it would be in better taste to say: "I should like to very much."

"Have you finished your education?" asked Bessie.

"There wasn't much to finish," thought Tom, but he said, aloud:

"Maybe I'll study a little more."

"Where did you study?" asked the persevering Bessie.

"I've been to Columbia College," said Tom, after a little pause.

So he had been up to the college grounds, but I am afraid he intended Bessie to believe something else.

"Then you must know a great deal," said Bessie. "Do you like Latin and Greek very much?"

"Not very much," said Tom.

"I never went farther than the Latin verbs. They're tiresome, ain't they?"

"I'll bet they are," said Tom, who wouldn't have known a Latin verb from a Greek noun.

"I suppose they come easier to boys. Were you long in college?"

"Not long."

"I suppose you were a Freshman?"

"Yes," said Tom, hazarding a guess.

"Don't the Sophomores play all sorts of tricks on the Freshmen?"

"Awful," said Tom, who found it safest to chime in with the remarks of the young lady.

"I had a cousin at Yale College," continued Bessie. "When he was a Freshman, the Sophomores broke into his room one night, blindfolded him, and carried him off somewhere. Then they made him smoke a pipe, which made him awful sick, and poured a pail of water over his head. Did they ever do such things to you?"

"No, they wouldn't dare to," said our hero.

"You couldn't help yourself."

"Yes, I could; I'd put a head on them."

"I don't know what Miss Wiggins would say if she should hear you talk. She'd have a fit."

"What did I say?" he asked, innocently.

"You said you'd put a head on them."

"So I would."

"Only it is a very inelegant expression, as Miss Wiggins says."

"If you don't like it, I won't say it any more."

"Oh! I don't care," said Bessie, laughing. "You needn't be afraid I'll have a fit. I ain't such a model of propriety as that. Perhaps I shall be some time, when I get to be a stiff old maid like Priscilla Wiggins."

"You won't be that."

"How do you know?" said Bessie, saucily.

"You don't look like it."

"Don't I? Perhaps nobody will marry me," she said, demurely.

"If nobody else will, send for me!" said Tom, blushing immediately at his unexpected boldness.

"Am I to regard that as a proposal?" asked Bessie, her eyes sparkling with fun.

"Yes, if you want to," said Tom, manfully.

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged," said the young lady. "I won't forget it, and, if nobody else will have me, I'll send for you."

"She's a trump," he thought, but fortunately didn't make use of a word which would have been highly objectionable to Miss Wiggins.

"You haven't told me your name yet," said Bessie, after a while.

"Gilbert Grey," said Tom.

The name sounded strange to himself, for he had always been called Tom; but his street-life was over. He had entered upon a new career, and it was fitting that he should resume the name to which he had a rightful claim.

"That's a good name," said Bessie, approvingly. "Would you like to know mine?"

"I know it already – it's Bessie Benton."

"Oh, you heard me use it. Do you like it?"

"Tip-top."

"That's another of your boy-words."

"Isn't it good?"

"I like it well enough. I'm not Miss Wiggins."

I am not going to inflict on the reader a full account of all that was said on the journey by Bessie and her young protector. They chatted upon a variety of topics, Tom taking care not to be too communicative touching his street experiences. He wanted to stand well with Bessie, and was afraid that she would not be quite so pleased and social with him if she should learn that he had been a knight of the blacking-brush.

It was early evening when the train reached Cincinnati.

"I think papa will be here to meet me," said Bessie, looking out of the car window, as they entered the depot. "Uncle telegraphed him from Buffalo that I would arrive by this train."

Our hero was sorry they were already at their journey's end. He had enjoyed Bessie's company, and he knew that he might never meet her again. Though he knew nothing of etiquette, he did what was proper on the occasion, and assisted Bessie to ascend the steps upon the platform.