From Farm to Fortune; or, Nat Nason's Strange Experience. Alger Horatio Jr.

about the big fire in Chicago, boss. Take a paper?"

      "Yes, I'll take one," said Nat, and passed over the necessary change. Off darted the newsboy, to be lost in the crowd on the other side of the street. Nat gazed at the paper, to find that a tenement had burned out in Chicago, with the loss of one life.

      "That's not such a terrible thing—for a big city like Chicago," he mused, and then noticed that the newspaper was two days old.

      "That boy stuck me!" he muttered, and a cloud crossed his face. "I wonder where he is?"

      The boy could not be found, and in a moment Nat concluded it would be a waste of time to look for him.

      "He caught me for a greeny, true enough," he thought. "I've got to keep my eyes open after this."

      From one street Nat passed to another, gazing into the shop windows, and wondering what he had best do next. He had at first calculated to go to New York without delay, but now thought it would do no harm to remain in Cleveland a day or two.

      "Perhaps I'll never get here again," he reasoned. "And I might as well see all there is to see."

      Noon found him on one of the main streets. He was now hungry again, and coming to a modest-looking restaurant, he entered and sat down at a side table.

      "What will you have?" asked the waiter, coming up to him.

      "Give me a regular dinner," said Nat, seeing the sign on the wall:

      Regular Dinner, 11 to 2. 30 cents.

      The waiter walked off, and presently returned with some bread and butter.

      "Pea or tomato soup?" he asked.

      "What's that?" questioned the boy.

      "Pea or tomato soup?"

      "I don't want any soup—I want a regular dinner."

      At this the waiter smiled, for he saw that Nat was green.

      "We serve soup first—if the customer wants it."

      "And what do you serve after that?"

      "One kind of meat, vegetables, coffee or milk, and pie or pudding."

      "Oh! Well bring me the meat and other stuff. I never cared for soup anyway."

      "Roast beef or lamb?"

      "Roast beef."

      The waiter went off, and presently Nat was supplied with all he cared to eat. The food was good, and he took his time, finishing off with a piece of lemon meringue pie, a dainty of which he was exceedingly fond, but which Mrs. Felton had seldom dared to make.

      "Thirty cents, but I guess it was worth it," he thought, as he left the restaurant.

      Nat had never seen Lake Erie, and toward the middle of the afternoon he walked down in the direction of the water. The shipping interested him greatly, and it was dark before he realized that the day was gone without anything definite being accomplished.

      "Gracious, how time flies when one is in the city!" he thought. "To-morrow, I must make up my mind what to do next. If I don't, I'll have my money spent, and no job, either."

      As it grew darker the boy felt the necessity of looking for accommodations for the night. Seeing a sign on a house, Furnished Rooms by the Day, Week, or Month, he ascended the stoop, and rang the bell. A young Irish girl answered his summons.

      "Can I get a bed for to-night?" asked Nat.

      "I guess yez can—I'll call Mrs. O'Hara," said the girl.

      The landlady soon showed herself, and said she could let Nat have a hall room for fifty cents. To the boy's notion this seemed rather high.

      "I can't take less," said Mrs. O'Hara, firmly.

      "Very well; I'll take the room for to-night," answered Nat. "Can I put my bundle up there now?"

      "To be sure."

      Fortunately for Nat, the room proved clean and well-kept, and the bed was better than the one he had used at the farm. Tired out, the boy slept soundly until seven o'clock, when he lost no time in dressing and going below.

      "Will you want the room again to-night, Mr. Nason?" asked the landlady.

      "I don't think so," answered Nat. It made him feel a foot taller to be addressed as Mr. Nason. "If I want it, I'll let you know by supper time."

      "Very well."

      With his bundle under his arm, Nat left the house, and walked down the street toward one of the main thoroughfares of Cleveland. Then he stopped at a restaurant for breakfast.

      "Now, I've got to make up my mind what to do," he told himself. "Maybe I had better go back to the depot and see about a train and the fare to New York."

      After making several false turns, the boy found his way to the depot, and there hunted up the ticket office, and procured a time-table. He was just looking into the time-table when he felt a heavy hand placed on his shoulder.

      "So I've found you, have I?" came harshly from Abner Balberry. "You young rascal, what do you mean by runnin' away?"

      CHAPTER VI

      NAT ON LAKE ERIE

      Nat was so completely astonished by the unexpected appearance of his uncle and guardian, that for the moment he did not know what to say or do.

      "Thought you was goin' to run away, didn't you?" continued Abner Balberry, with a gleam of triumph in his small eyes.

      "Let go of me," answered Nat, trying to pull away.

      "I ain't a-goin' to, Nat Nason. You're a-goin' back with me, an' on the next train."

      "I'm not going back, Uncle Abner."

      "What!"

      "I said I'm not going back, so there," repeated Nat, desperately. "You don't treat me half decently, and I'm going to strike out for myself."

      "Jest to hear the boy! You are a-goin' back. Nice doin's, I must say! What did you mean by trying to burn down the barn?"

      "Burn down the barn?"

      "That's wot I said."

      "I never burned down any barn. Is the barn burned down?"

      "No; because I put out the fire."

      "When was this?"

      "You know well enough."

      "I don't know a word about it, Uncle Abner."

      "You set the barn afire."

      "Never!"

      "You did! An' you've got to go back."

      "Uncle Abner, I never set fire to a thing," gasped Nat. "I left because you worked me to death, and because you wouldn't let me have my supper. After this, I'm going to earn my own living in my own way."

      "You're goin' back," snarled the farmer.

      For answer, Nat gave a sudden jerk and pulled himself from his uncle's grasp. Then he started to run from the depot at his best speed.

      "Hi! stop!" yelled the farmer. "Stop thet boy. I'm his guardian, and he is runnin' away from me."

      The cry was taken up on all sides, and soon a crowd of a dozen men and boys were in pursuit of Nat, who by this time had reached the street.

      Nat had always been fleet of foot, and now a new fear lent strength to his flying feet. He was accused of setting fire to the barn! Perhaps his uncle would have him arrested and sent to prison.

      "He shan't do it," he muttered. "I must get away, somehow."

      Down one street after another went poor Nat, with the crowd behind him growing steadily larger. Some thought they were after a thief, and some a murderer, and soon two policemen joined in the chase.

      Coming to an alley way, Nat darted through it to a side street, and then around a corner to a thoroughfare leading down to the docks. This threw the crowd off the trail for a moment, and gave him a brief breathing spell.

      Reaching the docks fronting the lake, the boy came to a