"BOY WANTED."
PEOPLE laughed when they saw the sign again. It seemed to be always in Mr. Peters's window. Not that there was a lack of boys—as many as a dozen used sometimes to appear in the course of a morning, trying for the situation. Mr. Peters was said to be rich and queer; and for one or both of these reasons, boys were very anxious to suit him. "All he wants is a fellow to run on errands; it must be easy work and sure pay." This was the way they talked to each other.
But Mr. Peters wanted more than a boy to run on errands. John Simmons found that out, and this is the way he did it. He had been engaged that very morning, and had been kept busy all the forenoon at pleasant enough work; and, although he was a lazy fellow, he rather enjoyed the place. Toward the middle of the afternoon, he was sent up to the attic, a dark, dingy place, inhabited by mice and cobwebs.
"You will find a long, deep box there," said Mr. Peters, "that I want to have put in order. It stands right in the middle of the room; you can't miss it." John looked doleful.
“A long, deep box, I should think it was!" he said to himself, as the attic door closed after him.
"It would weigh 'most a ton, I guess; and what is there in it?—Nothing in the world but old nails, and screws, and pieces of iron, and broken keys and things—rubbish, the whole of it. Nothing worth touching; and it is as dark as a pocket up here, and cold besides. How the wind blows in through those knot-holes! There's a mouse! If there is anything I hate, it's mice! I'll tell you what it is, if old Peters thinks I'm going to stay up here and tumble over his rusty nails, he's much mistaken. I wasn't hired for that kind of work."
Whereupon John bounced down the attic stairs, three at a time, and was found lounging in the show-window half an hour afterward, when Mr. Peters appeared. "Have you put the box in order already?" was the gentleman's question.
"I didn't find anything to put in order; there was nothing in it but nails and things."
"Exactly. It was the 'nails and things' that I wanted put in order. Did you do it?"
"No, sir.' It was dark up there, and cold; and I didn't see anything worth doing. Besides, I thought I was hired to run of errands."
"Oh," said Mr. Peters, "I thought you were hired to do as you were told." But he smiled pleasantly enough, and at once gave John an errand to do down town; and the boy went off chuckling, declaring to himself that he knew how to manage the old fellow — all it needed was just a little standing up for your rights. Precisely at six o'clock, John was called and paid the sum promised for a day's work, and then, to his dismay, he was told that his services would not be needed any more. He asked no questions.
Indeed, he had time for none, as Mr. Peters immediately closed the door.
The next morning the old sign, "Boy wanted," appeared in its usual place. Before noon it was taken down, and Charlie Jones was the fortunate boy. Errands?—plenty of them. He was kept busy until within an hour of closing; then, he was sent up to the attic to put the long box in order. He was not afraid of a mouse nor of the cold, but he grumbled much over the box. 'Nothing in it was worth his attention. However, he tumbled over the things, growling all the time, picked out a few straight nails, a key or two, and finally appeared with this message: "Here's all that is worth keeping in that box. The rest of the nails are rusty, and the hooks are bent or something."
"Very well," said Mr. Peters, and he sent him to the post office. By the close of the next day, Charlie had been paid and discharged, and the old sign hung in the window.
"I've no kind of a notion why I was discharged "grumbled Charlie to his mother. "He said he had no fault to find, only he saw that I wouldn't suit. It's my opinion that he doesn't want a boy at all, and that he takes that way to cheat. Mean old fellow!
"It was Crawford Mills who was hired next. He knew neither of the other boys, and so did his errands in blissful ignorance of the "long box," until the second morning of his stay, when, in a leisure hour, he was sent to put it in order.
The morning passed, dinner-time came, and still Crawford had not appeared from the attic. At last Mr. Peters called him: "Got through?"
"No, sir; there is ever so much more to do."
"All right. It is dinner-time now; you may go back to it after dinner." After dinner, back he went. All the short afternoon he was not heard from; but just as Mr. Peters was deciding to call him again, he appeared.
"I've done my best, sir," he said, "and down at the very bottom of the box I found this." "This" was a five-dollar gold piece.
"That's a queer place for gold," said Mr. Peters.
"It's good you found it. Well, sir, I suppose you will be on hand tomorrow morning? "This he said as he was putting the gold piece into his pocket-book.
After Crawford had said good-night, and gone, Mr. Peters took the lantern, and went slowly up the attic stairs. There was the long, deep box, in which the rubbish of twenty-five years had gathered. Crawford had evidently been to the bottom of it. He had fitted in pieces of shingle to make compartments, and in these different rooms he had placed the articles, with bits of shingles laid on top, and labeled thus: "Good screws," "Picture nails," "Small keys, somewhat bent,”
"Picture hooks," "Pieces of iron, whose use I do not know." So on through the long box. In perfect order it was at last, and very little that could be called useful could be found within it. But Mr. Peters, as he bent over and read the labels, laughed gleefully, and murmured to the mice: "If we are not both mistaken, I have found a boy, and he has found a fortune." Sure enough. The sign disappeared from the window, and was seen no more. Crawford became the well-known errand boy of the firm of Peters & Co. He had a little room neatly fitted up, next to the attic, where he spent his evenings, and at the foot of the bed hung a motto, which Mr. Peters gave him. "It tells your fortune for you. Don't forget it," he said when he handed it to Crawford. And the boy laughed, and read it curiously: "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful in much." "I'll try to be, sir," he said; and never once thought of the long box over which he had been faithful. All this happened years ago. Crawford Mills is errand boy no more, but the firm is Peters, Mills & Co. A young man and a rich man! ”He found his fortune in a long box of rubbish," Mr. Peters said once, laughing. "Never was a five dollar gold piece so successful in business as that one of his has been; it is good he found it." Then, after a moment of silence, he said, gravely: "No, he didn't; he found it in his mother's Bible—'He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.' It is true; Mills the boy was faithful, and Mills the man we trust."
The Pansy.
"LET all children remember," says Dr. Dwight, "if ever they are weary of laboring for their parents, that Christ labored for his; if impatient of their commands, that Christ cheerfully obeyed; if reluctant to provide for their parents, that Christ forgot himself, and, provided for his mother amid the agonies of the crucifixion. The affectionate language of this divine example to every child is, Go thou and do likewise."