Ben Bruce: Scenes in the Life of a Bowery Newsboy

BEN AND HIS STEPFATHER.

“Come here, you, sir!”

These words were spoken in a stern voice by Jacob Winter, and emphasized by a heavy frown. The speaker was rather an undersized man, with a rugged, weather-beaten face. He had seen but fifty years, though his wrinkles and bowed shoulders indicated ten more.

The boy addressed had a bright, intelligent face and a fearless look. Ben Bruce detected the danger signals in the tone and face of his stepfather, but without a sign of hesitation he walked up to the farmer, and responded, “Here I am, sir.”

The man seemed aching to lay hold of the fearless boy, but something in his steadfast look appeared to deter him.

“Ain’t you ashamed of yourself, sir?” exploded Jacob Winters.

“Please let me know what I am to be ashamed of, Mr. Winter.”

“Ez if you didn’t know,” ejaculated Jacob.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll tell you. Yesterday when I was away drivin’ your mother to the sewin’ circle two tramps came to the door, and you took it upon yourself to give ’em a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. Deny it if you dare!”

“I don’t deny it,” answered Ben boldly.

“You don’t!”

“No, why should I?”

“That’s the way my substance is wasted on the shiftless and undeservin’!”

“Mr. Winter, the two tramps, as you call them, were hungry, thin, and miserable. The man looked as if he had just got up from a fit of sickness. The boy was about ten and looked pale and famished. Wouldn’t you have given them something if you had been in my place?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” snarled Jacob.

“Then it seems to me you are the one that ought to feel ashamed.”

“What? what?” gasped Jacob, aghast. “You dare to stand there, Benjamin Bruce, and tell me to my face that I’d ought to be ashamed. You a mere boy, and I your stepfather!”

“I can’t help it if you are my stepfather. I’m sorry enough for it. If my mother had taken my advice she wouldn’t have married you.”

“Wuss and wuss!” ejaculated Jacob. “I didn’t know you was such a bad boy. You’ll come to the gallows some day, see if you don’t!”

“Look here, Mr. Winter; you call yourself a Christian, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I’ve been a member of the church for nine and thirty years.”

“And you believe in the Bible, don’t you?”

“I won’t answer your impudent question.”

“Yet,” continued Ben, “you blame me for feeding the hungry.”

“You fed ’em with my provisions,” snarled Jacob.

“Well, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll go without my supper.”

“You’ve a mighty independent way of talkin’, Benjamin Bruce, you that I feed and clothe.”

“I do work enough to pay for my keeping, Mr. Winter. Besides, you forget that you have got my mother’s money, which if she hadn’t married you would have been part mine.”

Jacob Winter winced. It was true that Mrs. Bruce had brought him two thousand dollars, which he had coolly deposited to his own account in a savings bank.

“That ain’t any of your business,” he said. “Now go out and feed the cows, and mind you don’t throw away any of my substance agin on beggars.”

Ben left the room without a reply, but his lip curled, for he thoroughly despised his stepfather for his meanness.

On the way to the barn he fell in with his mother, who was returning from the village.

“What’s the matter, Ben?” she said, for she saw signs of disturbance in her son’s face.

“I have had a little conversation with Mr. Winter.”

“Did he--scold you?”

“Yes, because I gave some bread and milk to two poor people who called at the door yesterday. Mother, if there’s a mean man in the world, it is Jacob Winter.”

“Hush, Ben! Don’t speak so of your stepfather.”

“Mother, why did you marry him? Why did you make him my stepfather?”

Mrs. Winter looked troubled.