AYS don’t always come out as we expect they will,” said Uncle John, as he and Billy started out together the next morning. “But it’s your birthday, just the same. Shut your eyes and hold out your hand.”
“Ready.”
Billy, opening his eyes, saw his uncle holding a jack-knife, which dangled from a chain.
“Just what I wanted,” exclaimed Billy, taking the knife.
“Thought it would be handy for an office boy,” said Uncle John, beaming with satisfaction.
“I’m going,” said he, as Billy put his dinner pail down on the sidewalk and opened both blades, “to give you something else, something to carry around in your head, instead of in your pocket. It’s an office boy motto: Whatever you do, do it right, just as right as you can.”
“That isn’t any new news,” said Billy, looking rather disappointed; “you told me that a long time ago.”
“Come to think of it, I did,” said Uncle John. “It’s good for any boy, any time; but it’s specially good for an office boy. I should like to talk it over, but we shall have to hurry now.”
Together they went through the gate, and stood in line, while lame Tom, the timekeeper, made marks against their names. Then Uncle John said cheerily, “Meet me behind the mill when the noon whistle blows.”
“Sure, sir,” said Billy.
Billy went on, through the great door, down the narrow corridor, and had a “good-morning” all ready to say when he opened the office door. Of course he didn’t find anybody there. The office didn’t seem to be in very good order; but nobody had told him what he was expected to do.
So he looked around for a moment. Then he put his pail on a stool in the corner, and picked up a pencil that lay on the floor under Mr. Prescott’s desk. The point was broken. That made him think of his knife. Then he looked for a waste-basket, for Aunt Mary was very particular about not having shavings and lead on the floor. On the top of the waste-basket he found a duster. Billy knew a duster when he saw it, for dusting was one of the things that Aunt Mary had taught him to do.
When the pencil was done—it was very well done, for he used both blades of his knife to do it—he put it on top of Mr. Prescott’s desk, and began to dust in good earnest.
When the postman came in, he looked a little surprised, but all he said was:
“New boy, are you?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Billy.
Then he put the letters in one pile and the papers in another, and was putting a finishing touch with his duster on the rungs of Mr. Prescott’s chair when he came in.
Billy was so busy that he didn’t hear him till he said, “Good-morning, William.”
“Good-morning, sir. Where shall I empty the waste-basket?”
“Really,” said Mr. Prescott, “unexpected pleasure, I am sure—barrel outside.”
Billy had hoped that Mr. Prescott would notice how well he had sharpened the pencil; but he put it into his pocket without saying a word.
Perhaps he did see more than he seemed to, for, when the expressman came in with a package, Mr. Prescott said, “William, cut the string.”
When Billy took out his knife, Mr. Prescott glanced up from his papers, saying, “Unexpected pleasure, really.”
Billy was beginning to feel that being an office boy wasn’t a bit social, when Mr. Prescott said:
“William, why is a jack-knife called a jack-knife?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Frenchman named Jacques first made them,” said Mr. Prescott.
Billy wanted very much to tell him where his knife came from; but he didn’t feel sure that office boys were supposed to have birthdays.
Then the stenographer came; and, before Billy knew it, it was noon, and he went to meet Uncle John behind the mill.
“Birthday coming on pretty well, Billy?” asked Uncle John, as they both opened their pails.
“Sure,” answered Billy, who was so hungry that he couldn’t stop to talk.
“Sorry we couldn’t celebrate,” said Uncle John. “Mustn’t give up the idea though, Billy. As you go around on errands, you’ll see a good many things. Some day we’ll piece them together. Watch for a chance and it’ll come some day.”
Billy, fast nearing the bottom of his pail, paused a moment to say, “Uncle John, were you ever an office boy?”
“Not just that,” answered Uncle John.
“There’s a lot to it,” said Billy.
“I suppose there is,” said Uncle John, gravely. “There is to almost anything, if you do it right.”
After that, Billy’s days went on, one very like another. It seemed to him that there was no end to the things he had to learn. He had very little time to spend in wishing, though every night he went out for a good look at the mountains. But he was beginning to think about the kind of man that he would like to be; and every day he was a little more sure that he wanted to be like the young superintendent.
He was so short himself that he was afraid that he would never be as tall as Mr. Prescott. So he began to stand as tall as he could, especially when he was in the office. Then he tried to remember to breathe deep, the way that the teacher at school had told the boys to do. But he wondered, sometimes, when he looked at Mr. Prescott’s broad shoulders, whether he had ever been as small as most boys.
The day that Billy had his first little brown envelope with three dollars and fifty cents in it, he stood very tall indeed. That night, at supper, he handed it to Aunt Mary, saying:
“That’s for you to put in the bank.”
“For Billy,” said Uncle John, looking up quickly and speaking almost sternly. “I’m the one to give Aunt Mary money.”
Then he said gently: “It’s a good plan, Billy, to put your first money in the bank. You’ll never have any more just like that.”
The thing that first excited Billy’s curiosity, as he went about on errands, was the big pile of old iron in the mill yard. There were pieces of old stoves, and seats from schoolhouses that had been burned, and engines that had been smashed in wrecks, and old ploughs, and nobody knew what else—all piled up in a great heap.
One day, when he carried an order to the man that tended the furnace in the cupola where they melted the iron, he saw them putting pieces of old iron on the scales; and he heard the man say to his helper: “We shall have to put in fifty pounds extra to-day.”
It seemed to Billy that it wasn’t quite fair to put in old iron, when they were making new machinery. So, one noon, he asked Uncle John about it.
“Using your eyes, are you, Billy? That’s quite likely to set your mind to working.
“I suppose you’ve heard them talking around here about testing machinery. That isn’t the first testing. They test iron all the way along, from the ore in the mine to the sticks of pig iron piled up in our yard.”
“Some of it is in cakes,” said Billy.
“Is that so?” asked Uncle John, as he took another sandwich out of his pail. “Now I think of it, they did tell me that cakes are the new style in pig iron.
“Well,” continued Uncle John, “there are men testing and experimenting all the time; and some of them found out that old iron and pig iron together make better new iron than they can make from pig iron alone. Since they found that out, scrap iron has kept on going up in price.
“Did you happen, Billy, to see any other heaps lying around?”
“I saw a pile of coke, over in the corner,” answered Billy.
“Somewhere,” said Uncle John, “there must have been a heap of limestone. They use that for what they call a flux. That unites with the waste things, the ashes of the coke and any sand that may have stuck to the pig iron. Those things together make slag. The slag is so much lighter than the iron that it floats on top, and there are tap holes in the cupola where they draw it off. Limestone helps the iron to melt, that’s another reason why they use it.”
“I saw some scales,” said Billy.
“Those,” said Uncle John, “are to weigh the things that they put into the cupola. There are rules for making cast iron. It all depends on what kind of machinery we want to make.
“First, in the bottom of the cupola, they make a fire of shavings and wood, with a little coal; then they put in coke, pig iron, scrap iron, and limestone, according to the rule for the kind of iron that they want to make.
“Those heaps all pieced together, Billy?”
“Sure,” answered Billy; and, then, the whistle blew.
Deep down in his heart, Billy didn’t like that whistle. He didn’t tell Uncle John, because William Wallace scorned anybody who felt like that. William Wallace said that being on time—on time to the minute—was only just business. Nevertheless, Billy missed being free. Aunt Mary’s errands hadn’t been timed by the clock.
There was another reason why he didn’t tell Uncle John how he felt.
“Stand by your job, every minute that you belong on it,” was one of the things that Uncle John had said so many times that it almost worried Billy.
But, before the summer was over, Billy was glad that he had kept that on his mind.
