CHAPTER VIII.

JACK'S NEW HOME.

"I SAY, mother, what do you think?"

Jack Bond burst in at the back door of their new home one Saturday with this exclamation, threw down his carpenter's basket of tools on the floor, and his cap in the air, in joyful excitement over the news he had to tell.

"What do you think, mother?" he repeated.

"Why, that I shall box your ears, big as you are, if you throw down your tools on my new oil cloth. Take 'em away," called Mrs. Bond, raising her voice above the hissing of the frying-pan, where she was cooking steak and onions for the dinner.

Jack slowly picked up the tool-basket, and put it into the cupboard under the stairs. "The kitchen do look nice," he said, as he stepped back and surveyed it, as though he had never seen it before.

"I should think it did," said his mother, turning from her pan for a moment to admire it again. "Quite as nice as anything them stuck-up friends of yours, the Winns, have got; and I mean to have a best parlour too," added Mrs. Bond.

"But Tom Winn and his mother and sister ain't stuck-up," said Jack, still lost in admiration of the kitchen floor. "I don't think their kitchen ever looked so spick and span nice as this does, but everything about 'em was somehow different from us and our things," he added, but still looking with admiration at the new floor-cloth.

Her son's appreciation of her smart kitchen pleased Mrs. Bond, and she turned from her steaming, hissing, frying-pan to join in his admiration of her handy-work.

A change had come over the fortunes of the Bonds. Just before they left Sadler Street, a small legacy had been left them, and Jack's talk about Tom and Mrs. Winn, had given Mrs. Bond the notion that, when she got to her new home, she would turn over a new leaf, and have it neat and tidy—more like the home her son admired so much—for she was very fond of Jack, and felt half jealous of the Winns because he was so often talking about them.

So Jack's admiration, and his admission that her kitchen was now smarter than the Winns', was a gratification to her, and she was ready to hear what he had to say when he once more began.

"I haven't told you the news yet, mother."

"No; what is it, my boy?" said Mrs. Bond in a pleasant tone.

"Why, I've just found out that we ain't more than ten miles from Fairfield, the place where the Winns have gone to live."

"Ten miles is a long way, Jack," said his mother.

"Oh, but I thought it was nigh upon a hundred, and that I should never be able to see poor old Tom again. I say, mother, you would like little Tom Winn," he added.

Mrs. Bond sniffed. "They're a stuck-up lot," she said shortly.

"Who are a stuck-up lot?" asked Jack's younger sister, who came into the kitchen in time to hear these words.

"Why, Jack's fine friends, the Winns," said her mother.

"Well, you see they've got something to be stuck-up about. Look at Elsie's scholarship. Why, all the school was proud of Elsie Winn," said Annie Bond, in a tone of admiration. "I tell you, mother, now we have moved away from Sadler Street, and I'm going to a new school, I mean to try and be like Elsie, for all the girls liked her, and the teachers too."

Jack clapped his hands. "That's it, Annie; you try and be like Elsie, and I must try to go to see Tom; for if ever I get a chance to help him, I must, for the mischief I did for him."

"What could you do for people like the Winns?" said his sister. She had heard Elsie talked about, and admired at a distance, but the thought of emulating her, and giving more attention to her lessons, and the neatness of her appearance, had not entered her head until she heard her mother say she should try and make their new home as nice as the Winns'. And then the idea had occurred to Annie, that she might copy Elsie's example, now that she had got away from Sadler Street and her rude, rough companions.

When dinner was served, and they were all seated round the table, there were still scraps of talk about the Winns; but until he had satisfied his appetite, Mr. Bond, Jack's father, spoke no word beyond asking for more potatoes. But although he did not talk, he was listening, and at last he said, "I wish you had stuck to your lessons a bit closer, Jack; it would ha' been a deal better for yourself, and you wouldn't have led this little chap into mischief."

"That's true enough, dad; and if ever I get the chance to pick up what I lost last year in book learning, why, I'll do it," said Jack.

"Ah! If you get the chance. But will you get it now your school days are over? Boys are fools. I was, I know, and you haven't been much better, Jack, though you had better chances of getting a bit of good schooling than I had."

"Yes, I suppose I did; and I wish now I'd stuck to figures a bit more when I had the chance!" said Jack, with something like a sigh.

"Ah, you're beginning to find out already that a carpenter wants to have figures at his finger ends, if ever he is to be more than a drudge at his trade. That is where the shoe pinches for most of us, lad. We don't think of it when we are at school, and got the chance of learning, but when we leave and find out what we have lost, it is too late to pick up the wasted time. Look at me, now! I've got this bit of money your uncle left me, and if I was only a bit more of a scholard, why, I could take a building job for myself, and make it double itself in a year, but I can't figure it out for myself, and so—"

"Dad, I'll go to the evening school as soon as ever it opens," said Jack. "It ain't too late for me to learn; and I'll stick to the figures, that we may both have a better chance."

"Ah! If you only would," said his father. "Why, we might soon have a board out, 'Bond & Son, Carpenters and Builders.'"

And then Jack Bond burst into a hearty fit of laughing at the mere thought of such glory. Jack's face flushed with pride and pleasure at the thought of being their own masters by-and-bye, while mother and sister looked from one to the other, and wished they could help in the grand scheme.

"I wish Tom Winn lived close by us now; he'd help me pick up a bit, I know," said Jack, at last.

"Ah, he was a nice little chap; quick and handy, too," said Jack's father, who remembered him helping to build the rabbit hutch.

"I've found out to-day, dad, that Fairfield ain't so far off," said Jack, a little eagerly.

"Not so far! Why, it's close on twenty miles by the railway."

"Yes, because the line goes such a round-about way; but by road it ain't more than ten or eleven miles."

"Ten or eleven miles are more than a good walk, my lad."

"Yes, I know; but I'm learning to ride a bicycle," said Jack.

"What!" exclaimed father and mother in a breath.

"It's true enough," said Jack, laughing. "My foreman comes to work on a jigger, and he let me try it to-day, for he said I might find it handy."

"Well," said his father, "what then?"

"Why, I think he might lend it to me now and then to go and see Tom Winn, and I might get a hint or two from him how to begin the figuring out things."

"So you might, so you might; so you might, lad. Why, you might even buy it, perhaps, if it wasn't too dear, and you didn't mind sticking to a bit of work after hours, by way of overtime."

"Only give me the chance! See if I wouldn't stick to it," said Jack, eagerly.

"All right, we'll see, we'll see," said Bond, rubbing his hands, with a smile on his face. But beyond this, Jack could not get him to say a word just then, though it was evident that his father had some plan in view, or he would not have said so much.

Work was over for the day by dinner time on Saturday, and Jack went to wash himself and change his clothes after dinner, for he had promised to take his sister for a long walk to see some famous woods about a mile beyond the town. And as soon as the brother and sister were fairly started on their walk, the conversation, of course, turned upon what had been said at dinner time.

"Do you know what dad means, Annie?" asked Jack, eagerly.

"No, I don't; but I heard him say something last night to mother about having the first offer. I say, it would be fine if we could have a board like father says," she added.

"Aye! 'Bond & Son, Builders.' But we've got to earn the right to put it up first, Annie. The board won't do us any good, if we can't do the building, you see," he said, thoughtfully.

"Why, of course not! only I should like to tell you that I will help if I can. I can't get a scholarship like Elsie Winn did, but if I can help you and dad to get that board put up, you'll see if I won't do it."

"Bravo, Annie! But what do you think you could do? You're only a girl," said her brother, in rather a disparaging tone.

"Only a girl!" said Annie, with a little toss of the head. "If I am only a girl, I can do sums better than you can, and my new governess at this new school says I am very quick at arithmetic. There is a girl, too, in my class, who is learning arithmetic on purpose to keep her father's books when she leaves school, and so I don't see why I should not do the same."

The idea of a girl learning to keep accounts was altogether a new one to Jack, and he did not see at first how it was to be done, if she did not understand the use of plane, and saw, and hammer, and chisel, as well. But he was willing to admit that it was worth trying; and if she could only succeed in helping her father and himself, why, it would be quite as useful to them as if she had won a scholarship like Elsie Winn.

The talk with his sister strengthened Jack's resolution to join an evening class in the autumn, and do what he could to make up for the time he had wasted at school. And, perhaps, between them they might help his father sufficiently to enable him to make a beginning, and take small jobs for himself. For now the idea had been suggested to them, the brother and sister were both eager to do what they could to realise their father's ambition in this way.

"I'm pretty sure there is an evening school where I go, Jack," said his sister, after they had walked a little way in silence. "Of course it is only for the winter, not for the summer," she added.

"The winter is quite enough for me," said Jack, with a wry face at the prospect of going to school again, and adding up long rows of figures once more.

"But you will go, won't you?" said Annie, who saw the look.

"Oh, yes, I'll go for dad's sake; I must, I suppose, if we are ever to have that board out he was talking about at dinner time."

"It won't be a bit like Sadler Street then, will it, Jack?"

"It ain't like Sadler Street now, with our tidy kitchen; and perhaps I shall have a bicycle soon. I wonder what father meant when he said I might be able to buy it?"

Annie shook her head. She was not much interested in bicycles, and wondered what Jack could want one for, and said so.

"Oh, it's nice to have a bicycle, if it is a bit old-fashioned. I could go to Fairfield and see Tom Winn if I only had a bicycle."

"I thought Tom Winn was in it," said Annie, a little tartly.

"And why shouldn't he be? I tell you what, if we ever do get that board outside, it will be all Tom's doing. See what a fellow I was till I got pulled up short, and learned to know the Winns. I tell you what, Annie, poor Tom's illness did me a world of good. For it made me think, and a fellow ain't much use in the world till he does learn to think a bit. And so I feel as though I owe them a debt that I've got to pay somehow, for Tom being ill like that was awful hard on his mother; and it was more my fault than his that he caught the fever. So if ever I get the chance of doing any of 'em a good turn, I'll do it, you bet."

"But what can you do?" asked his sister.

"How can I tell? I shall try and get that bicycle, if Jackson will sell it, and go and see them sometimes, and then, perhaps, I may find out. There is no telling what may come in a fellow's way; and when he begins to think a bit, why, he may be able to put this and that together, and see how he can help a friend. Tom now wants to be a gardener, and where I'm at work, they teach chaps to be first-rate gardeners—real tip-toppers; that would be good enough for Tom Winn.

"Well, I mean to keep my eyes and ears open about how the fellows get in there. I know some of them have to pay a pile of money for the chance. Tom couldn't do that now his father's dead, but there might be some other way of getting in, you know; and if I could only find out, and get that bicycle to go and see Tom, why—"

"If ifs and ands were pots and pans," laughed Annie, "Jack Bond would soon have a bicycle."

Jack made a dash as though he would pull her hair, and then the brother and sister turned into the woods, and went hunting for wild flowers, and the talk about bicycles and Tom Winn was forgotten for a little while.