“I’m glad I have one,” declared Mrs. Baldwin fondly, as she wiped up the mud with an old rag. “There are worse things than muddy shoes, Sallie.” Miss Ramsey sighed, but said nothing. Meanwhile, the “terrible boy” was satisfying a very healthy appetite, thinking, between bites, of his good luck in finding work. For he needed employment very much. Tom Baldwin’s father had died about three years before this story opens, leaving his wife and son a small house, in Boston, but no money. Of course, Mrs. Baldwin could have sold the house, and lived for a time on what she got for it, but she preferred to keep it. She had been a good seamstress in her younger days, and she determined to try to earn her living by dressmaking. But she soon found that dressmaking, as she had seen it conducted when she was a girl in the country, and the way it is done now-a-days, was quite different. She could barely get enough to do to make a living for herself and Tom, who was too young to go to work, and who attended a public school. Finding she had not the skill necessary to compete with the department stores and with modern dressmakers, Mrs. Baldwin sent for her maiden sister to come and help her. Miss Ramsey was a better sewer than Mrs. Baldwin, but her health was poor, and between them, the two women could barely make both ends meet. Much against her will Mrs. Baldwin had to take Tom from school and put him to work. He got a position in an office, where he earned three dollars a week. This helped a little, and as he proved efficient he was advanced until in about two years he was earning eight dollars. Times seemed better then, for, having no house rent to pay, Mrs. Baldwin got along fairly well on Tom’s money, and what she and her sister could earn. But the dressmaking business grew worse, instead of better, and the two women had to depend more and more on Tom. Then came a dark day when the firm that Tom worked for failed, and he and many others lost their places. From then on the little family of three had a hard struggle. Had it not been for the sewing the women did, and which just managed to keep them, the house would have had to be sold. Work was hard to get in Boston, that year, and it seemed with the approach of winter, that times were worse than ever. Tom tramped the streets day after day, looking for a situation, but in vain, although occasionally he managed to get odd jobs to do. Then came the unexpected, when he saw the sign in front of the book store, applied, and was taken. No wonder Tom felt happy as he rushed home with the good news. The boy was at Townsend’s Book Emporium early the next morning. There were several other clerks employed, and Tom was told by the proprietor, Elmer Townsend, that his duties would be to run on all sorts of errands, to sweep out the store, dust the books, and, in a rush, wait on customers.