Tom the telephone boy; or, The mystery of a message

“Hurrah! Good news, mother!” cried Tom Baldwin, as he hurried into the house, throwing his hat on the rack. “Fine luck! Where are you?”

“Upstairs, sewing,” replied a woman’s voice. “My, Tom, but you are making quite a noise.”

“Can’t help it, mother! I’ve got good news! I’ve got a job!”

“Have you really, Tom? Come right up and tell us about it. I’m very glad!”

“Tell him to be sure and wipe his feet,” added another woman’s voice, from the same upstairs-room where Mrs. Baldwin was sewing. “The snow’s melting outside, and he’ll track it all over the house.”

“I guess he has already done so, Sallie,” said Tom’s mother a little ruefully. “He’s half-way upstairs now.”

“Land sakes! And that carpet only just cleaned! What terrible creatures boys are!”

“Not so very bad, Sallie,” replied Mrs. Baldwin with a smile.

Meanwhile, Tom was coming up the stairs with a rush, and when he reached the top he found his mother in the hall waiting for him. He kissed her affectionately, and then followed her into the room from which she had emerged to greet him.

The apartment was a small front one, and contained two sewing machines, and, from the cloth, patterns, needles and thread scattered about, it did not need a sign to tell that dressmaking was conducted in it.

“Hello, Aunt Sallie!” exclaimed Tom, as he prepared to sit down on a chair near the door.

“Mercy! Goodness me! Don’t sit there!” cried Miss Sarah Ramsey, Tom’s maiden aunt, who was called “Sallie” by Tom and by his mother. “Look out, Thomas!”

“Why? What’s the matter? Is there a pin or a needle in it?” asked Tom, as he paused and looked apprehensively at the chair, which contained some fluffy white material.

“Needle! Pin! Why, Thomas Jefferson Baldwin! That’s the ruching for the neck of Mrs. Anderson’s new dress, and if you had sat on that, and crushed it, I don’t know what I’d have done,” and Aunt Sallie became positively pale over the thought.

Tom knew she had been much wrought up over the threatened calamity, for she never gave him his full name--Thomas Jefferson Baldwin--unless she was very serious indeed.

“Huh!” exclaimed the boy. “I didn’t think that bunch of white stuff was anything.”

“There, Tom, I’ll take it out of the way,” said his mother. “Now you can sit down and tell us all about it.”

“Yes, and try and be quiet about it,” cautioned his aunt. “When you talk so loud you make my head ache, and my nerves are all unstrung now with trying to get the sleeves in this waist. I never saw such styles as they wear now-a-days.”

“Have you really got work, Tom?” asked Mrs. Baldwin.

“Yes, mother, and a good job, too.”

“Where is it?”

“I hope it is in some place where you will have a chance to advance, and improve yourself,” put in Miss Ramsey quickly. “Boys need improving very much, now-a-days.”

“Then this ought to be just the place for it,” said Tom, with a laugh. “It’s in a book store, and I expect, before long, I’ll know enough, from reading the books, to become a school teacher or a professor.”

“That would be very nice,” remarked Tom’s aunt, as if he really meant what he said.

“Have you really got a place in a book store, Tom?” inquired his mother, as she threaded a sewing machine, preparatory to doing some stitching.

“Yes, in Townsend’s Book Emporium, as it’s called. It’s on Milk Street, and it’s one of the largest book stores in Boston. I saw a sign out ‘Boy Wanted,’ and I went in. I didn’t expect to get the place, for I’ve been disappointed so often of late, but I made up my mind I’d try.

“Mr. Townsend--he’s a nice elderly gentleman--asked me a lot of questions, and when I got through answering them he told me to come to work in the morning. Isn’t that good news?”

“Indeed, it is,” replied Mrs. Baldwin.

“How much will you get?” asked his aunt anxiously. “When I was a girl, boys in book stores didn’t get more than three dollars a week.”

“Times have changed since then,” declared Tom, with a laugh. “I’m to get five dollars. There’s only one bad thing about it, though.”

“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Baldwin.

“I’m only hired during the holiday rush. They want a boy to help out, and that’s what I’m to do. I’ll have to look for something else after the first of the year. Still, it’s better than nothing, and there are four weeks more of this year left.”

“I wish it was a permanent place,” remarked Tom’s mother. “But, of course, as you say, it’s better than nothing. Perhaps if you do well, they may keep you permanently.”

“I hope they do, mother. But have you any work that you want me to take home?”

“Not yet, Tom. Mrs. Anderson’s dress isn’t quite finished. There is more work on it than I thought there would be, and it is going to take me a day longer.”

“That means you won’t make so much money then,” said Tom, soberly.

“Yes, that is so. If I had it finished I could sew on that skirt for Mrs. Thompson, and she is prompt pay.”

“I can’t sew as fast as I once could,” remarked Tom’s aunt. “I’m afraid I’m not much help to you, Jeanette.”

“Indeed, you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Baldwin, kindly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you--and Tom.”

“If you haven’t anything for me to do then,” went on the lad, “I think I’ll get something to eat. I didn’t have any dinner.”