Part 3 (1/2)
James nudged Joe and whispered: ”Brother Joe, this is no place for fellows like we are. No place for lads who have come to seek employment.
Let's get out of here as quickly as we can and hunt a different lodging house.” Joe, who acted as the treasurer, having in mind the sum that they could save by stopping at a reasonably-priced lodging place, calmed his brother's fears by replying: ”Wait and see what sort of a place this is. The company may not exactly suit us, but has not the policeman told us that this is the best hotel in Minneapolis for us, and look, Jim, doesn't this office look rather inviting?” While they yet argued the point, the manager of the hotel, an oily-faced fellow, accosted them: ”Strangers in Minneapolis, eh?” he queried, with utmost kindness, while at the same time his s.h.i.+fty eyes scanned the country-style suits they wore. ”I welcome you to our hustling city, and invite you to make your headquarters at the ”Golden Rule Hotel” during your stay.” Noting that the lads were yet undecided what to do and correctly surmising that they had received an old-fas.h.i.+oned, Christian home training, he suavely added: ”Our charges are most reasonable, only fifteen cents per night, and every Sunday morning we hold here in the office a most beautiful song and prayer service, and I am sure you lads will be glad to join us in singing grand hymns.”
This last statement settled the whole matter, for the twins felt that a place in which prayer meetings were held and holy hymns chanted could never be an unfit place for the likes of them, and instead of landing in a ”hobo-joint” as they had first feared, they concluded that they had actually struck a home. Perceiving the splendid impression his appeal had made upon the newcomers, the manager almost pushed the lads before the counter and made them write their names upon the soiled and tattered register. Then he explained to them that the charge was fifteen cents for one night's lodging, but if they wished to settle in advance by the week only seventy-five cents would be the rate. Seeing that he could save sixty cents, Joe paid for each a week's lodging. They left their bundles in the manager's care, and then inquired for a reasonable priced restaurant, to which they went and satisfied their appet.i.tes.
It was nearly midnight when they found their way back to the ”Golden Rule Hotel”, whose manager was waiting their return, and who explained to them that as every ”room” was taken he was anxious to show them to their ”beds”, so he could lock the hotel and retire for the night. He lighted the stub of a candle, and telling the boys to follow him, he led them up a creaky stairway. Higher and higher he mounted, and when the twins thought he must have almost reached the roof, he opened a small door, and picking his way by the flickering light of the candle between wooden part.i.tions, he at last stopped in front of two unoccupied bunks, one above the other, and after telling his surprised guests that these were the ”beds” for which they had paid, and after cautioning them to blow out the candle as soon as possible, he bade them good-night and vanished into the darkness, and a moment later the slamming of a door below them told the lads that they were virtually prisoners, as the hotel had been locked for the night.
”Joe,” whispered Jim to his brother, after both had inhaled several whiffs of the foul atmosphere into their lungs, which had heretofore only been accustomed to breathing the pure air of the prairie, ”in what sort of an inferno have we landed?” And then he held the candle high, and by its unsteady, sickly-yellow light he counted five bunks, one above the other, in the tier they were to sleep, built from the floor right up to the ceiling, with only sufficient s.p.a.ce intervening for a human being to crawl into. These vertical tiers of bunks looked for all the world like boarded up book shelves in a library, one adjoining the other as far as their eyes could penetrate the darkness of the hall, and in each and every bunk was a snoring human wretch, while the suffocating atmosphere caused by the overcrowding and the insufficient ventilation, which was greatly enhanced by the heat of the summer, made the ”Golden Rule Hotel” an absolutely unfit place for human habitation.
”Let's get out of this horrid place, even if we have to sleep upon the chairs down below in the office,” whispered Jim; but before he could add another word or make a move to leave the hall, a threatening voice, emanating from the tier of bunks in the darkness behind them, whose owner had evidently been disturbed by their conversation, roughly commanded them to ”hush up and blow out the candle.”
Unused to the ways of the city, the frightened boys obeyed the command, and after they had undressed in the darkness, they climbed into the bunks and being tired out by their sight-seeing, they were soon asleep.
In the early morning, after they had made their toilets by an open faucet to which a cake of perforated laundry soap had been chained, they descended to the office and there demanded of the manager the return of the money they had paid for their week's lodging, less the cost of the lodging of the preceding night, but this worthy not only absolutely refused to refund a single cent, but derided them so for being ”Reubens”
that they decided to stop, just for spite, at the ”Golden Rule Hotel”
until they received their money's worth.
After a hasty breakfast, they copied from the want columns of the Minneapolis Tribune, the best paper in the city, the addresses of those who had inserted advertis.e.m.e.nts which the twins thought would suit them, and set out to search for a job, that they had long ago planned should form the first stepping stone towards the fortune and the fame they had resolved to gather in the city.
It is an easy job for someone who has had experience in this line to find employment in a city. Many a bright city chap quits his job in the evening to be almost certain to pick up a new one the following morning. But for Joe and Jim, filled as they were with childish dreams of easy fortune, it was a far different matter, especially while they had dollars clinking in their jeans, as a boy possessing plenty of loose change is mighty particular about the employment he accepts, so, although the lads hunted high and low, from early till late, they could not find suitable places, and after supper they returned to the ”Golden Rule Hotel” to ”roost” again in their bunks, surrounded by those occupied by the riff-raff of the slums.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Let's get out of this horrid place,” whispered Jim, when by the unsteady yellow light of the candle he counted five bunks, one above the other, each of which held a sleeping hobo.]
Joe and Jim were awakened the following morning by the racket the rising ”guests” of the hotel made, and when they reached for their trousers to dress themselves, they not only found that these had disappeared, but that their shoes, hats and what proved to be their heaviest loss, their coats in which they had their purses with every cent that they possessed, had taken wing during the night from beneath their pillows, where they had hidden them for safety. They tried to explain their loss to the other inmates, but instead of receiving sympathy for their trouble, only malicious grunts and malevolent leers were their reward.
A few moments later the manager, having been apprised of the theft, entered the dimly lighted quarters, not to search the other bunks for their stolen property, but merely to console his robbed guests, so they would not report their loss to the police and cause unpleasant comment in the papers. While they listened to him they saw only ugly scowls upon the rum-soaked visages of the other inmates of the place, who had crowded around and seemed to greatly enjoy their misfortune, and who broke into shouts of boisterous laughter when the manager explained to the boys that the golden rule of the ”Golden Rule Hotel” had always read: ”Do everybody--before they do you.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: decorative element]
CHAPTER VII.
”False Friends.”
The manager of the ”Golden Rule Hotel” raked up a couple of outfits of cast-off hobo clothing, and coaxed Joe and Jim into dressing themselves into these, and then advised the twins to quickly find employment so they could purchase better attire.
On the preceding day, when they were yet the possessors of almost fifty dollars, they had refused many offers of good employment, but now when they made the rounds calling upon the same employers, dressed as they were in their tattered clothes, to plead for a chance to be permitted to earn a living, these same men had suddenly become stony-hearted and some of them even refused to listen to their tale of how their clothes had been stolen from them. They attempted to fill jobs at common labor, but even in this they did not succeed, as their young bodies lacked the necessary strength to wield the heavy picks and shovels.
When the dinner hour arrived, Jim, who had never been in all his life as hungry as he was at this moment, remarked that he thought it would be best to hobo the next train back to their home, but Joe caused him to quickly get over this attack of homesickness, when he asked if Jim had the nerve to dare face their mother without a cent and in the rags he wore.
When the street lamps were lighted and the stores and offices commenced to be closed for the night, they made their way back to the ”Golden Rule Hotel” where, luckily for them, they had at least a place to sleep in the bunks for which they had settled a week in advance.
While they walked down the city's thoroughfares, they were attracted by the splendor and the brilliant illumination of a restaurant. They stopped and with famished countenances looked through the French plate gla.s.s windows and watched the diners enjoy toothsome tidbits, and then wearily moved on--their pride would not permit them to wait for a departing diner to accost him for the price of a loaf of bread wherewith to still their gnawing hunger.
When they entered the ”Golden Rule Hotel” office not a single word of greeting or sympathy was extended to them; on the contrary, the manager cautioned them to be careful not to have their present suits stolen from them during the night, and they realized how true was the perverted meaning he had given to the Golden Rule.
It was yet early in the evening and none of the other inmates had retired for the night, but so completely exhausted were the boys that they asked for a candle and then in the semi-darkness of the hall found the numbers of the bunks they had occupied the preceding nights.
Remembering the manager's warning to take better care of their property, they placed their clothes under the straw stuffed mattresses.
They blew out the candle, but just at the moment when they were ready to crawl into their bunks, Jim whispered to Joe: ”Brother, come let us pray the way, mother has taught us.” And there in the darkness of the hall they knelt upon the bare floor, and while their torturing consciences told them that their own misfortunes were only a fraction of the woe they themselves had inflicted upon their poor, widowed mother, they pleaded with G.o.d to a.s.sist them in the extremity of their distress and at least not permit them to perish of sheer starvation.