Description
The Shortstop
CHAPTER I
PERSUADING MOTHER
Chase Calloway hurried out of the factory door and bent his steps
homeward. He wore a thoughtful, anxious look, as of one who expected
trouble. Yet there was a briskness in his stride that showed the
excitement under which he labored was not altogether unpleasant.
In truth, he had done a strange and momentous thing; he had asked the
foreman for higher wages, and being peremptorily refused, had thrown
up his place and was now on his way home to tell his mother.
He crossed the railroad tracks to make a short cut, and threaded his way
through a maze of smoke-blackened buildings, to come into narrow
street lined with frame houses. He entered a yard that could not boast of
a fence, and approached a house as unprepossessing as its neighbors.
Chase hesitated on the steps, then opened the door. There was no one
in the small, bare, clean kitchen. With a swing which had something of
an air of finality about it, he threw his dinner-pail into a corner. "There!"
He said grimly, as if he had done with it. "Mother, where are you?"
Mrs. Alloway came in, a slight little woman, pale, with marks of care on
her patient face. She greeted him with a smile, which faded quickly in
surprise and dismay.
Product ID: 9781776779659
Sku: 9781776779659
