strange
faces? He was hungry, and stopped at an apple stand, where a woman in a
huge cap and plaid shawl sold him an apple and a molasses cake. He asked
her if she knew where he could get work.

"Shure an' I don't. It is hard enough to find it for my boy Jim, lettin'
alone sthrangers."

He went up to a man pitching boxes on a cart, and asked him the same
question.

"Be off, now! none of your nonsense with me," was the reply.

To a dozen he spoke, and with little variety in the replies.

This was somewhat disheartening, but of course he could not expect
success at once. He must keep up a stout heart, so on he walked. It was
a fine clear morning, but the air seemed to him heavy with bad odors,
and he had never seen such filth as lay in the streets before him. The
children looked wan and wizened and old, the grown people cross and
care-worn; but by-and-by the streets improved; he came to the region of
shops, where it was somewhat cleaner, and now every window attracted his
gaze. There was so much to look at that he forgot himself until hunger
again attacked him. One window was most inviting--raw oysters reposing
in their shells, boiled eggs, salad, strings of sausages, and a juicy
array of pies. He went in and asked the price of a dinner. "Fifty
cents," was the reply of a personage whose florid countenance and
well-oiled locks looked unctuous.

Tom glanced at his purse in a corner. It was all he possessed, so he
turned away. A little farther on was another window of the same sort,
only the pies looked drier, and the viands staler; and as an ornament,
flanked by beer bottles, was a queer, dwarfish-looking man built of
empty oyster shells. He peered into the shop, and looked so hungry, that
a man shouted at him in a manner that was not meant to be unkind, but
which startled him much: "Vat for you comes here, hey? Can you open
oyshters? Ve vant some one to open two or tree hundert; ve have one
supper here to-night--the 'Bavarian Brueders' meet. If you can do the
vork, you may have von goot sqvare meal." Tom hardly understood the man,
but the gestures aided him, and putting his bundle down, he set to work
on the cellar steps. Talk of farm-work being drudgery any more! In the
pure, sweet October air they were gathering apples for the cider-press
to-day. Tom remembered well what would have been his portion, as he sat
on the dirty cellar steps and pegged away with his oyster-knife. It took
him a long while to get the righ