Part 4 (1/2)

Tode's fancy for attaching himself to Mr. Hastings still continued in full force, and brought him bright and early on Friday morning around to the hotel, where he had last seen him. Not one minute too early, however, and but for Mr. Hastings' own tardiness too late. He had just missed a car, and no other was in sight. Tode took in the situation at a glance, and hopped across the street.

”Carry your baggage, sir?”

Mr. Hastings had a valise, a package, a cane, an umbrella, and the great fur-lined cloak. He appreciated Tode's a.s.sistance.

”Yes,” he said. ”Take this, and this.”

Away they went down town to head off another car, which was presently signaled.

”Jump in, boy, and be ready to help me at the other end, if you're a mind to,” said Mr. Hastings, graciously, noticing the wistful look on the boy's face, and thinking he wanted a ride.

Tode obeyed in great glee; he considered this a streak of luck. He sat beside Mr. Hastings and watched with great satisfaction while that gentleman counted out double fare. For the first time, Tode thought they had a.s.sumed proper positions toward each other. Of course Mr. Hastings ought to pay his fare since he belonged to him.

Arrived at the depot, and Mr. Hastings' baggage properly disposed of, himself paid, and supposed to be dismissed, Tode was in a quandary. Here was the train, and on it he meant to travel; but how to manage it was another question. It was broad daylight; sleep and Wolfie couldn't serve him now. He stuffed his hands into his pocket, and studied ways and means; eyes bent on the ground, and the ground helped him, rather a bit of pasteboard did. He picked it up, and read, first in bewilderment then in delight: ”New York to Castleton.” A ticket! all properly stamped, and paid for, undoubtedly. Did Tode hesitate, have great qualms of conscience, consider what he ought to do, how to set about to find the owner? He never once thought of any thing. Poor Tode hardly knew so much as that there were such articles as consciences, much less that he had anything to do with them. Somebody had lost his ticket, and _he_ had found it, and it was precisely what he wanted. Once at Castleton, it would be an easy matter to get to Albany. He thrust the precious card into his pocket, swung himself on the train, and selected his seat at leisure. Tode had never been to Sabbath-school, had never in his life knelt at the family altar and been prayed for. There are boys, I fear me, who having been s.h.i.+elded by both these things, placed in like position would have followed his example.

The seat he selected was as far as possible removed from the one which Mr. Hastings occupied. It was no part of Tode's plan to be discovered by that gentleman just at present. On the whole, this part of his journey was voted ”tame.” He had to sit up in his seat, and show his ticket like any one else; and it required no skill at all to forget to jump off at Castleton, and so of necessity be carried on. He sauntered over in Mr.

Hastings' vicinity once, and heard an important conversation.

”Can you tell me, sir,” inquired that gentleman of his next neighbor, ”whether by taking the midnight train at Albany I shall reach Buffalo in time to connect with a train on the Lake Sh.o.r.e Road?”

”You will, sir; but it is a slow train. By keeping right on now you can connect with the Lake Sh.o.r.e Express.”

”I know; but I have business that will detain me in Albany.”

”So have I,” muttered Tode, well pleased with the arrangement, and went back to his seat.

”Halloo, Tode! where you been?” called out a sixteen-year old comrade from a cellar grocery window, as Tode turned out of Broadway that same evening.

”Been traveling for my health. Say, Jerry, seen anything of father lately?”

”He's gone off on a frolic. Went night before last--bag and baggage.”

”Where did he go?”

Jerry shook his head.

”More than I know. Doubt if he knew himself about the time he started; but he'll bring up all right after a spell, likely.”

Landed in Albany, the only home he knew, Tode had his first touch of loneliness and depression. The cellar was closed, his father gone, no one knew where nor for how long an absence, nor even if he meant to return at all. Tode was cold and dreary. Up to this time he had followed out his whim of belonging to the owner of the fur cloak, merely _as_ a whim, with no definite purpose at all; but now, queerly enough, parted with the man with whom he had journeyed, and over whom he kept so close a watch during these four days, he had a feeling of loneliness as if he had lost something--he begun to wish he did belong to him in very truth.

Suppose he did, worked for him say, and earned a warm place to sleep in of nights--this was the hight of his present ambition. The warm place to sleep suggested to him the good night's rest under the cloak, and also the fact that there was another bitter night shutting down rapidly over the earth, and that he had no spot for shelter.

”I'll push on,” he said at last, in a decisive tone. ”I'd as lief go to Buffalo as anywhere else--the thing is to get there; but then I can get _on_ the cars, and get _off_ at Buffalo if I can, and before if I _have_ to.”

This matter settled, his spirits began to rise at once; and by the time Mr. Hastings and he crowded their way through the midnight train, the cars contained no such gleeful spirit as Tode Mall's.

More skill was needed than on the preceding journey, for the fur-lined cloak was thrown over the back of the seat fronting him this time, and Mr. Hastings sat erect and wide awake, and looked extremely cross.

”I have the most extraordinary luck,” he was telling a man, as Tode entered. ”Nothing but delay and confusion since I left home. Never had such an experience before.”

But the car was warm and the air was heavy, and Mr. Hastings' erect head began to nod in a suspicious manner. Tode watched and waited, and was finally rewarded. The gentleman made deliberate preparations for a nap, and was soon taking it.