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My promises were easily broken, for before we got to Syracuse both her brother and I were pretty drunk. After reaching New York we went to mother's house and stayed there until we got rooms, which we did in a few days. Mary's brother got work in a lumberyard. I hunted as usual for a job, praying I wouldn't get it.
"Do you know what it is?" he asked Mr. Bobbsey. "Oh, let me tell him!" cried Bert "And I want to help!" added Nan. "We know where your father is!" went on Bert eagerly. "His name is Hiram Hickson!" broke in Nan. "And he works in our father's lumberyard," added Bert. "He said he had two boys who who went away from home," said Nan, not liking to use the words "ran away."
"Some one said it was the new Normal School. But that's farther to the north," was Ned's answer. "By the way the blaze has increased since I first saw it, I'd take it to be the lumberyard." "That would make a monster blaze!" observed Tom. "I don't believe I'll have chemicals enough for that," and he looked at the rather small supply in his craft. "However, I haven't time to get any more.
But I never expected he would leave me his fine ranch, to say nothing of a lumber tract." "What's a lumber tract?" Nan asked. "Is it a lumberyard like yours, Daddy?" "No, my dear," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "A lumber tract is what you children would call big woods. It is a place where trees grow that may be cut down and made into lumber.
So it was, in a disheartening number of instances; on a railroad grading force in an adjoining county, on city buildings where I asked to be taken as an unskilled helper, with a sewer contractor in another city, as a shoveler in a village brick-yard. Finally I landed a job as a stacker in a lumberyard; and now I found another of the day-laborer difficulties lying in wait for me.
They appeared to him ferocious, atavistic beasts as they broke into the lumberyard beneath his window to tear the cord-wood from the piles and rush out again, armed with billets....
"My older twins often play about the lumberyard, and they'll see that Billy and Nell come to no harm." So while the two men talked over lumber matters, Bert and Nan showed Billy and Nell the sights of their father's lumberyard, and took the Washington children down to Lake Metoka, where the blue waters sparkled in the sun. "Oh, this is lovely!" exclaimed Nell. "It's nicer than Washington!"
The little front bedroom was assigned to me, with only one partner, my sister Dora. A mouse could not have led a cat much of a chase across this room; still we found space for a narrow bed, a crazy bureau, and a small table. From the window there was an unobstructed view of a lumberyard, beyond which frowned the blackened walls of a factory.
"Of course I'm not sure this Hiram Hickson who works in your lumberyard is the same Hiram Hickson who is our father," he added to Mr. Bobbsey. "I believe he is," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "Three such names could hardly be alike unless the persons were the same. But I'll write to him and find out." "And tell him we are sorry we ran away from home," added Charles.
"We will," promised Mr. Bobbsey, but when the next day came the plan of the Bobbseys had to be changed. In Mr. Bobbsey's mail that morning was a letter from his bookkeeper at the lumberyard, which, when Mr. Bobbsey had read it, made him thoughtful. "I hope there isn't bad news," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "No, not exactly bad news," was her husband's answer. "But I think I shall have to go back home."
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