Horatio Alger - Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World

“If I might be so bold, what kind of work are you going to do?”

“I hardly know. It has come upon me so suddenly. I shall have to do something, for I haven’t got much money. What I should like best would be to write–”

“Is it for the papers you mean?”

“Oh, no; I mean for some author or lawyer.”

“I don’t know much about that,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “In fact, I don’t mind tellin’ you, my dear, that I can’t write myself, but I earn a good livin’ all the same by my apple-stand. I tell you, my dear,” she continued in a confidential tone, “there is a good dale of profit in sellin’ apples. It’s better than sewin’ or writin’. Of course, a young leddy like you wouldn’t like to go into the business.”

Florence shook her head, with a smile.

“No, Mrs. O’Keefe,” she said. “I am afraid I haven’t a business turn, and I should hardly like so public an employment.”

“Lor’, miss, it’s nothin’ if you get used to it. There’s nothin’ dull about my business, unless it rains, and you get used to havin’ people look at you.”

“It isn’t all that are worth looking at like you, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Dodger, slyly.

“Oh, go away wid your fun, Dodger,” said the apple-woman, good-naturedly. “I ain’t much to look at, I know.”

“I think there’s a good deal of you to look at, Mrs. O’Keefe. You must weigh near three hundred.”

“I’ve a good mind to box your ears, Dodger. I only weigh a hundred and ninety-five. But I can’t be bothered wid your jokes. Can you sew, Miss Florence?”

“Yes; but I would rather earn my living some other way, if possible.”

“Small blame to you for that. I had a girl in Dodger’s room last year who used to sew for a livin’. Early and late she worked, poor thing, and she couldn’t make but two dollars a week.”

“How could she live?” asked Florence, startled, for she knew very little of the starvation wages paid to toiling women.

“She didn’t live. She just faded away, and it’s my belief the poor thing didn’t get enough to eat. Every day or two I’d make an excuse to take her in something from my own table, a plate of meat, or a bit of toast and a cup of tay, makin’ belave she didn’t get a chance to cook for herself, but she got thinner and thinner, and her poor cheeks got hollow, and she died in the hospital at last.”

The warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described.

“You won’t die of consumption, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Dodger. “It’ll take a good while for you to fade away.”

“Hear him now,” said the apple-woman, laughing. “He will have his joke, Miss Florence, but he’s a good bye for all that, and I’m glad he’s goin’ to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld.”

“Now, Mrs. O’Keefe, you know you’d marry Tim if he’d only ask you.”

“Marry him, is it? I’d lay my broom over his head if he had the impudence to ask me. When Maggie O’Keefe marries ag’in, she won’t marry a man wid a red nose.”

“Break it gently to him, Mrs. O’Keefe. Tim is just the man to break his heart for love of you.”

Mrs. O’Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name, and skillfully evaded it.

“I must be goin’,” he said. “I’ve got to work, or I can’t pay room rent when the week comes round.”

“What are you going to do, Dodger?” asked Florence.

“It isn’t time for the evenin’ papers yet, so I shall go ’round to the piers and see if I can’t get a job at smashin’ baggage.”

“But I shouldn’t think any one would want to do that,” said Florence, puzzled.

“It’s what we boys call it. It’s just carryin’ valises and bundles. Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a gentleman, he was. I’d like to meet him ag’in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I’ll be back some time this afternoon.”

“And I must be goin’, too,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “I can’t depend on that Kitty; she’s a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I’ll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won’t feel lonely, my dear.”

“I think I will lie down a while,” said Florence. “I have a headache.”

She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her.

Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle’s love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.