Risen from the Ranks: Harry Walton's Success

Harry Walton.

“I am sorry to part with you, Harry,” said Professor Henderson.  “You have been a very satisfactory and efficient assistant, and I shall miss you.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Harry.  “I have tried to be faithful to your interests.”

“You have been so,” said the Professor emphatically.  “I have had perfect confidence in you, and this has relieved me of a great deal of anxiety.  It would have been very easy for one in your position to cheat me out of a considerable sum of money.”

“It was no credit to me to resist such a temptation as that,” said Harry.

“I am glad to hear you say so, but it shows your inexperience nevertheless.  Money is the great tempter nowadays.  Consider how many defalcations and breaches of trust we read of daily in confidential positions, and we are forced to conclude that honesty is a rarer virtue than we like to think it.  I have every reason to believe that my assistant last winter purloined, at the least, a hundred dollars, but I was unable to prove it, and submitted to the loss.  It may be the same next winter.  Can’t I induce you to change your resolution, and remain in my employ?  I will advance your pay.”

“Thank you, Professor Henderson,” said Harry gratefully.  “I appreciate your offer, even if I do not accept it.  But I have made up mind to learn the printing business.”

“You are to enter the office of the ‘Centreville Gazette,’ I believe.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How much pay will you get?”

“I shall receive my board the first month, and for the next six months have agreed to take two dollars a week and board.”

“That won’t pay your expenses.”

“It must,” said Harry, firmly.

“You have laid up some money while with me, haven’t you!”

“Yes, sir; I have fifty dollars in my pocket-book, besides having given eighty dollars at home.”

“That is doing well, but you won’t be able to lay up anything for the next year.”

“Perhaps not in money, but I shall be gaining the knowledge of a good trade.”

“And you like that better than remaining with me, and learning my business?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, perhaps you are right.  I don’t fancy being a magician myself; but I am too old to change.  I like moving round, and I make a good living for my family.  Besides I contribute to the innocent amusement of the public, and earn my money fairly.”

“I agree with you, sir,” said Harry.  “I think yours is a useful employment, but it would not suit everybody.  Ever since I read the life of Benjamin Franklin, I have wanted to learn to be a printer.”

“It is an excellent business, no doubt, and if you have made up your mind I will not dissuade you.  When you have a paper of your own, you can give your old friend, Professor Henderson, an occasional puff.”

“I shall be glad to do that,” said Harry, smiling, “but I shall have to wait some time first.”

“How old are you now?”

“Sixteen.”

“Then you may qualify yourself for an editor in five or six years.  I advise you to try it at any rate.  The editor in America is a man of influence.”

“I do look forward to it,” said Harry, seriously.  “I should not be satisfied to remain a journeyman all my life, nor even the half of it.”

“I sympathize with your ambition, Harry,” said the Professor, earnestly, “and I wish you the best success.  Let me hear from you occasionally.”

“I should be very glad to write you, sir.”

“I see the stage is at the door, and I must bid you good-by.  When you have a vacation, if you get a chance to come our way, Mrs. Henderson and myself will be glad to receive a visit from you.  Good-by!” And with a hearty shake of the hand, Professor Henderson bade farewell to his late assistant.

Those who have read “Bound to Rise,” and are thus familiar with Harry Walton’s early history, will need no explanation of the preceding conversation.  But for the benefit of new readers, I will recapitulate briefly the leading events in the history of the boy of sixteen who is to be our hero.

Harry Walton was the oldest son of a poor New Hampshire farmer, who found great difficulty is wresting from his few sterile acres a living for his family.  Nearly a year before, he had lost his only cow by a prevalent disease, and being without money, was compelled to buy another of Squire Green, a rich but mean neighbor, on a six months’ note, on very unfavorable terms.  As it required great economy to make both ends meet, there seemed no possible chance of his being able to meet the note at maturity.  Beside, Mr. Walton was to forfeit ten dollars if he did not have the principal and interest ready for Squire Green.  The hard-hearted creditor was mean enough to take advantage of his poor neighbor’s necessities, and there was not the slightest chance of his receding from his unreasonable demand.  Under these circumstances Harry, the oldest boy, asked his father’s permission to go out into the world and earn his own living.  He hoped not only to do this, but to save something toward paying his father’s note.  His ambition had been kindled by reading the life of Benjamin Franklin, which had been awarded to him as a school prize.  He did not expect to emulate Franklin, but he thought that by imitating him he might attain an honorable position in the community.

Harry’s request was not at first favorably received.  To send a boy out into the world to earn his own living is a hazardous experiment, and fathers are less sanguine than their sons.  Their experience suggests difficulties and obstacles of which the inexperienced youth knows and possesses nothing.  But in the present case Mr. Walton reflected that the little farming town in which he lived offered small inducements for a boy to remain there, unless he was content to be a farmer, and this required capital.  His farm was too small for himself, and of course he could not give Harry a part when be came of age.  On the whole, therefore, Harry’s plan of becoming a mechanic seemed not so bad a one after all.  So permission was accorded, and our hero, with his little bundle of clothes, left the paternal roof, and went out in quest of employment.

After some adventures Harry obtained employment in a shoe-shop as pegger.  A few weeks sufficed to make him a good workman, and he was then able to earn three dollars a week and board.  Out of this sum be hoped to save enough to pay the note held by Squire Green against his father, but there were two unforeseen obstacles.  He had the misfortune to lose his pocket-book, which was picked up by an unprincipled young man, by name Luke Harrison, also a shoemaker, who was always in pecuniary difficulties, though he earned much higher wages than Harry.  Luke was unable to resist the temptation, and appropriated the money to his own use.  This Harry ascertained after a while, but thus far had succeeded in obtaining the restitution of but a small portion of his hard-earned savings.  The second obstacle was a sudden depression in the shoe trade which threw him out of work.  More than most occupations the shoe business is liable to these sudden fluctuations and suspensions, and the most industrious and ambitious workman is often compelled to spend in his enforced weeks of idleness all that he had been able to save when employed, and thus at the end of the year finds himself, through no fault of his own, no better off than at the beginning.  Finding himself out of work, our hero visited other shoe establishments in the hope of employment.  But his search was in vain.  Chance in this emergency made him acquainted with Professor Henderson, a well-known magician and conjurer, whose custom it was to travel, through the fall and winter, from town to town, giving public exhibitions of his skill.  He was in want of an assistant, to sell tickets and help him generally, and he offered the position to our hero, at a salary of five dollars a week.  It is needless to say that the position was gladly accepted.  It was not the business that Harry preferred, but he reasoned justly that it was honorable, and was far better than remaining idle.  He found Professor Henderson as he called himself, a considerate and agreeable employer, and as may be inferred from the conversation with which this chapter begins, his services were very satisfactory.  At the close of the six months, he had the satisfaction of paying the note which his father had given, and so of disappointing the selfish schemes of the grasping creditor.

This was not all.  He met with an adventure while travelling for the Professor, in which a highwayman who undertook to rob him, came off second best, and he was thus enabled to add fifty dollars to his savings.  His financial condition at the opening of the present story has already been set forth.

Though I have necessarily omitted many interesting details, to be found in “Bound to Rise,” I have given the reader all the information required to enable him to understand the narrative of Harry’s subsequent fortunes.