Horatio Alger - Chester Rand; or, The New Path to Fortune

Probably the best known citizen of Wyncombe, a small town nestling among the Pennsylvania mountains, was Silas Tripp. He kept the village store, occasionally entertained travelers, having three spare rooms, was town treasurer, and conspicuous in other local offices.

The store was in the center of the village, nearly opposite the principal church—there were two—and here it was that the townspeople gathered to hear and discuss the news.

Silas Tripp had one assistant, a stout, pleasant-looking boy of fifteen, who looked attractive, despite his well-worn suit. Chester Rand was the son of a widow, who lived in a tiny cottage about fifty rods west of the Presbyterian church, of which, by the way, Silas Tripp was senior deacon, for he was a leader in religious as well as secular affairs.

Chester's father had died of pneumonia about four years before the story commences, leaving his widow the cottage and about two hundred and fifty dollars. This sum little by little had melted, and a month previous the last dollar had been spent for the winter's supply of coal.

Mrs. Rand had earned a small income by plain sewing and binding shoes for a shoe shop in the village, but to her dismay the announcement had just been made that the shop would close through the winter on account of the increased price of leather and overproduction during the year.

"What shall we do, Chester?" she asked, in alarm, when the news came. "We can't live on your salary, and I get very little sewing to do."

"No, mother," said Chester, his own face reflecting her anxiety; "we can't live on three dollars a week."

"I have been earning two dollars by binding shoes," said Mrs. Rand. "It has been hard enough to live on five dollars a week, but I don't know how we can manage on three."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, mother. I'll ask Mr. Tripp to raise my pay to four dollars a week."

"But will he do it? He is a very close man, and always pleading poverty."

"But I happen to know that he has ten thousand dollars invested in Pennsylvania Railroad stock. I overheard him saying so to Mr. Gardner."

"Ten thousand dollars! It seems a fortune!" sighed Mrs. Rand. "Why do some people have so much and others so little?"

"It beats me, mother. But I don't think either of us would exchange places with Silas Tripp with all his money. By the way, mother, Mr. Tripp is a widower. Why don't you set your cap for him?"

Mrs. Rand smiled, as her imagination conjured up the weazened and wrinkled face of the village storekeeper, with his gray hair standing up straight on his head like a natural pompadour.

"If you want Mr. Tripp for a stepfather," she said, "I will see what I can do to ingratiate myself with him."

"No, a thousand times no!" replied Chester, with a shudder. "I'd rather live on one meal a day than have you marry him."

"I agree with you, Chester. We will live for each other, and hope for something to turn up."

"I hope the first thing to turn up will be an increase of salary. To-morrow is New Year's Day, and it will be a good time to ask."

Accordingly, that evening, just as the store was about to close, Chester gathered up courage and said: "Mr. Tripp."

"Well, that's my name," said Silas, looking over his iron-bowed spectacles.

"To-morrow is New Year's Day."

"What if 'tis? I reckon I knew that without your tellin' me."

"I came here last New Year's Day. I've been here a year."

"What if you have?"

"And I thought perhaps you might be willing to raise my salary to four dollars a week," continued Chester, hurriedly.

"Oho, that's what you're after, is it?" said Silas, grimly. "You think I'm made of money, I reckon. Now, don't you?"

"No, I don't; but, Mr. Tripp, mother and I find it very hard to get along, really we do. She won't have any more shoes to bind for three months to come, on account of the shoe shop's closing."

"It's going to hurt me, too," said Silas, with a frown. "When one business suspends it affects all the rest. I'll have mighty hard work to make both ends meet."

This struck Chester as ludicrous, but he did not feel inclined to laugh. Here was Silas Tripp gathering in trade from the entire village and getting not a little in addition from outlying towns, complaining that he would find it hard to make both ends meet, though everyone said that he did not spend one-third of his income. On the whole, things did not look very encouraging.

"Perhaps," he said, nervously, "you would raise me to three dollars and a half?"

"What is the boy thinkin' of? You must think I'm made of money. Why, three dollars is han'some pay for what little you do."

"Why, I work fourteen hours a day," retorted Chester.

"I'm afraid you're gettin' lazy. Boys shouldn't complain of their work. The fact is, Chester, I feel as if I was payin' you too much."

"Too much! Three dollars a week too much!"

"Too much, considerin' the state of business, and yourself bein' a boy. I've been meanin' to tell you that I've got a chance to get a cheaper boy."

"Who is it?" asked Chester, in dismay.

"It's Abel Wood. Abel Wood is every mite as big and strong as you are, and he come round last evenin' and said he'd work for two dollars and a quarter a week."

"I couldn't work for that," said Chester.

"I don't mind bein' generous, considerin' you've been working for me more than a year. I'll give you two dollars and a half. That's twenty-five cents more'n the Wood boy is willin' to take."

"Abel Wood doesn't know anything about store work."

"I'll soon learn him. Sitooated as I am, I feel that I must look after every penny," and Mr. Tripp's face looked meaner and more weazened than ever as he fixed his small, bead-like eyes on his boy clerk.

"Then I guess I'll have to leave you, Mr. Tripp," said Chester, with a deep feeling of disgust and dismay.

"Do just as you like," said his employer. "You're onreasonable to expect to get high pay when business is dull."

"High pay!" repeated Chester, bitterly. "Three dollars a week!"

"It's what I call high pay. When I was a boy, I only earned two dollars a week."

"Money would go further when you were a boy."

"Yes, it did. Boys wasn't so extravagant in them days."

"I don't believe you were ever extravagant, Mr. Tripp," said Chester, with a tinge of sarcasm which his employer didn't detect.

"No, I wasn't. I don't want to brag, but I never spent a cent foolishly. Do you know how much money I spent the first three months I was at work?"

"A dollar?" guessed Chester.

"A dollar!" repeated Mr. Tripp, in a tone of disapproval. "No, I only spent thirty-seven cents."

"Then I don't wonder you got rich," said Chester, with a curl of the lip.

"I ain't rich," said Silas Tripp, cautiously. "Who told you I was?"

"Everybody says so."

"Then everybody is wrong. I'm a leetle 'forehanded, that's all."

"I've heard people say you could afford to give up work and live on the interest of your money."

Silas Tripp held up his hands as if astounded.

"'Tain't so," he said, sharply. "If I gave up business, I'd soon be in the poorhouse. Well, what do you say? Will you stay along and work for two dollars and a half a week?"

"I couldn't do it," said Chester, troubled.

"All right! It's jest as you say. Your week ends to-morrow night. If you see Abel Wood, you can tell him I want to see him."

"I will," answered Chester, bitterly.

As he walked home he felt very despondent. Wouldn't it have been better, he asked himself, to accept reduced wages than to give up his job? It would have been hard enough to attempt living on two dollars and a half a week, but that was better than no income at all. And yet, it looked so mean in Silas Tripp to present such an alternative, when he was abundantly able to give him the increase he asked for.