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In: Children's Fiction·Children & Young Adult Reading·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #23108.
Chester Rand, or The New Path to Fortune is a late‑nineteenth‑century American novel that blends the themes of friendship, conduct of life, and adventure with a vivid portrait of small‑town commerce. The story opens in a modest village store where the young clerk Chester confronts his miserly employer Silas Tripp over a meager wage of three dollars a week. Their terse dialogue, rendered in colloquial dialect, quickly establishes Chester’s dilemma: accept a reduced salary or leave a job that barely sustains his family. The narrative then follows Chester’s resignation, his mother’s counsel, and his encounters with the rival boy Abel Wood, a minister’s visitor, and an artist from New York, all of which set the stage for a quest toward a better future.
The novel’s voice is unmistakably of its period, plain, dialogue‑heavy prose that captures regional speech and the moral earnestness of post‑Civil War America. Horatio Alger Jr. weaves a straightforward, didactic style that emphasizes perseverance, honest labor, and the hope of upward mobility. Readers who enjoy earnest, character‑driven tales of youthful ambition, especially those interested in historical depictions of rural life, small‑town economies, and the early American art world, will find this work both engaging and reflective of its era.
The opening · free to read
This struck Chester as ludicrous, but he did not feel inclined to laugh. Here was Silas Tripp gathering in trade from the entire village and getting not a little in addition from outlying towns, complaining that he would find it hard to make both ends meet, though everyone said that he did not spend one-third of his income. On the whole, things did not look very encouraging.
“Perhaps,” he said, nervously, “you would raise me to three dollars and a half?”
“What is the boy thinkin’ of? You must think I’m made of money. Why, three dollars is han’some pay for what little you do.”
“Why, I work fourteen hours a day,” retorted Chester.
“I’m afraid you’re gettin’ lazy. Boys shouldn’t complain of their work. The fact is, Chester, I feel as if I was payin’ you too much.”
“Too much! Three dollars a week too much!”
“Too much, considerin’ the state of business, and yourself bein’ a boy. I’ve been meanin’ to tell you that I’ve got a chance to get a cheaper boy.”
“Who is it?” asked Chester, in dismay.
“It’s Abel Wood. Abel Wood is every mite as big and strong as you are, and he come round last evenin’ and said he’d work for two dollars and a quarter a week.”
“I couldn’t work for that,” said Chester.
“I don’t mind bein’ generous, considerin’ you’ve been working for me more than a year. I’ll give you two dollars and a half. That’s twenty-five cents more’n the Wood boy is willin’ to take.”
“Abel Wood doesn’t know anything about store work.”
“I’ll soon learn him. Sitooated as I am, I feel that I must look after every penny,” and Mr. Tripp’s face looked meaner and more weazened than ever as he fixed his small, bead-like eyes on his boy clerk.
“Then I guess I’ll have to leave you, Mr. Tripp,” said Chester, with a deep feeling of disgust and dismay.
“Do just as you like,” said his employer. “You’re onreasonable to expect to get high pay when business is dull.”
“High pay!” repeated Chester, bitterly. “Three dollars a week!”
“It’s what I call high pay. When I was a boy, I only earned two dollars a week.”
“Money would go further when you were a boy.”
“Yes, it did. Boys wasn’t so extravagant in them days.”
“I don’t believe you were ever extravagant, Mr. Tripp,” said Chester, with a tinge of sarcasm which his employer didn’t detect.
“No, I wasn’t. I don’t want to brag, but I never spent a cent foolishly. Do you know how much money I spent the first three months I was at work?”
“A dollar?” guessed Chester.
“A dollar!” repeated Mr. Tripp, in a tone of disapproval. “No, I only spent thirty-seven cents.”
“Then I don’t wonder you got rich,” said Chester, with a curl of the lip.
“I ain’t rich,” said Silas Tripp, cautiously. “Who told you I was?”
“Everybody says so.”
“Then everybody is wrong. I’m a leetle ’forehanded, that’s all.”
“I’ve heard people say you could afford to give up work and live on the interest of your money.”
Silas Tripp held up his hands as if astounded.
“’Tain’t so,” he said, sharply. “If I gave up business, I’d soon be in the poorhouse. Well, what do you say? Will you stay along and work for two dollars and a half a week?”
“I couldn’t do it,” said Chester, troubled.
“All right! It’s jest as you say. Your week ends to-morrow night. If you see Abel Wood, you can tell him I want to see him.”
“I will,” answered Chester, bitterly.
As he walked home he felt very despondent. Wouldn’t it have been better, he asked himself, to accept reduced wages than to give up his job? It would have been hard enough to attempt living on two dollars and a half a week, but that was better than no income at all. And yet, it looked so mean in Silas Tripp to present such an alternative, when he was abundantly able to give him the increase he asked for.
“I must tell mother and see what she thinks about it,” he said to himself.
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.
“I’d rather work anywhere else for two dollars,” said Chester, bitterly.
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.
“I’m goin’ to work in your place Monday mornin’,” he said.
“Has Mr. Tripp spoken to you?” asked Chester, his heart sinking.
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