Chester Rand

Chapter 2

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Chester had a talk with his mother that evening. She felt indignant at Silas Tripp's meanness, but advised Chester to remain in the store for the present.

It would be humiliating enough to accept the reduction, but he felt that duty to his mother required the sacrifice. He started on his way to the store in the morning, prepared to notify Mr. Tripp that he would remain, but he found that it was too late. Just before he reached the store, he met Abel Wood, a loose-jointed, towheaded boy, with a stout body and extraordinarily long legs, who greeted him with a grin.

He went about his work in a mechanical way, but neglected nothing. When the time came for the store to close, Silas Tripp took three dollars from the drawer and handed it to him, saying: "There's your wages, Chester. I expect it's the last I'll pay you."

"If you want to stay for two and a quarter—the same I'm going to give him—I'll tell him I've changed my mind."

He turned and left the store, walking with a slower step than usual. His heart was heavy, for he felt that, poorly as they lived hitherto, they must live more poorly still in the days to come. He reached home at last, and put the three dollars in his mother's hands.

There was something in these simple words that cheered Chester, and a weight seemed lifted from his heart. He felt that they were not quite friendless, and that there was still One, kinder and more powerful than any earthly friend, to whom they could look for help.

Almost unconsciously, he took the familiar way to the store, and paused at a little distance from it. He saw Abel come out with some packages to carry to a customer. It pained him to see another boy in his place, and he turned away with a sigh.

During the night four or five inches of snow had fallen. This gave him an idea. As he came to the house of the Misses Cleveland, two maiden sisters who lived in a small cottage set back fifty feet from the road, he opened the gate and went up to the front door.

"So I would; Hannah tried to do it last time it snowed, but she caught an awful cold. But ain't you working up at the store?"

Chester reflected that he could probably do the job in half an hour, and he accepted. It cheered him to think he was earning something, however small.

"You're spry," said Jane Cleveland, when he brought the shovel to the door. "It took Hannah twice as long, and she didn't do it as well."

"I'm reely ashamed," she said. "I'll have to owe you a cent. But here's a mince pie I've just baked. Take it home to your ma. Maybe it'll come handy. I'll try to think of the other cent next time you come along."

"Don't trouble yourself about it, Miss Cleveland. The pie is worth a good deal more than the cent. Mother'll be very much obliged to you."

Chester made his way homeward, as he did not care to carry the pie about with him. His mother looked at him in surprise as he entered the house.

"I shoveled a path for her, and she gave me a pie and ten cents—no, nine. So you see, mother, I've earned something this week."

"I'll go out in the yard and work at the wood pile till dinner time. Then this afternoon I will go out again and see if I can find some more paths to shovel."

But Chester was not destined to earn any more money that day. As a general thing, the village people shoveled their own paths, and would regard hiring such work done as sinful extravagance. Chester did, however, find some work to do. About half-past three he met Abel Wood tugging a large basket, filled with groceries, to the minister's house. He had set it down, and was resting his tired arms when Chester came along.

Between the two the basket was easily carried. In a short time they had reached the minister's house. They took the basket around to the side door, just as Mr. Morris, the minister, came out, accompanied by a young man, who was evidently a stranger in the village, as Chester did not remember having seen him before.

"Then perhaps you will walk around with my friend, Mr. Conrad, and show him the village. I was going with him, but I have some writing to do, and you will do just as well."

"Thank you, sir. I suppose you will be able to carry back the empty basket, Abel," added Chester, as his successor emerged from the side door, relieved of his burden.

"I was never in Wyncombe before," began Mr. Conrad, "though I am a second cousin of your minister, Mr. Morris. I have to go away to-morrow morning, and wish to see a little of the town while I am here."

"Oh, no!" laughed the young man. "I am in a very different business. I am an artist—in a small way. I make sketches for books and magazines."

Before the walk was over Chester had become much interested in his new friend. He listened eagerly to his stories of the great city, and felt that life must be much better worth living there than in Wyncombe.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.