Chapter 2
A Dollar and a Dime
A cold, penetrating rain fell on Chicago this April, 1883 morning. The air hung heavy from a mix of smoldering coal smoke and stockyard stench, making each breath hard to bear. A black, horse-drawn cab worked its way through the dark, wet city streets. A shaggy, wet, stray dog watched as the cab rounded the corner, pulling up to the door of the LaSalle Street Christian Boys Orphanage. The rain-soaked driver set the brake, climbed down, and opened the passenger’s door bearing the words CHICAGO RIVER FUEL AND DRAY painted in gold letters. A tall man stepped from the cab, pulled his coat collar up, his hat down, and walked quickly to the door of the orphanage.
The clack, clack, clack of the brass knocker echoed off the wet, soot-darkened buildings across the street. The door opened and the man quickly disappeared inside. A boy with sandy-colored hair greeted the visitor who now dripped puddles onto the foyer floor.
“Good morning, sir. Can I tell Mr. Halder who is calling?”
“Yes. Tell your headmaster Mr. DeWilde is here, young man. Go!”
The boy hurried off. Ignatius R. DeWilde removed his hat and coat. Draping the coat over one arm, he looked around the small foyer, noting the cracked window nearly hidden by faded, green drapes, the peeling wallpaper, the worn spots in the carpet runner that trailed down the hall. The building’s mustiness added to the unpleasantness of today's Chicago air.
The headmaster burst in. “Mr. DeWilde, how nice to see you. What brings you to our home today? Can I bring you coffee? Tea?”
“No coffee. No tea. Your office, Ernie. I am here on business and time is short.”
DeWilde stepped past Ernest Halder, the orphanage headmaster. Halder was short, stout, with bushy, black eyebrows. He wore a wrinkled suit and black tie. His large red nose revealed his excessive taste for cheap wine.
“I need another clean-out boy,” DeWilde said. “Today. Right now.”
Halder walked to the back of his desk and dropped into his oak chair. He folded his arms across his large belly and stared in silence.
“Well?” said DeWilde.
“What of the Endelman boy?” shot Halder. “What happened to him? Did he run off? I told you he’d run off, you know. He was a strong worker but I told you he’d run off, Mister DeWilde. I told …”
“He didn’t run off, Halder,” DeWilde interrupted. “Who do you have for me?”
“See here, Mr. DeWilde. I cannot have two of my boys residing with you. I need to keep my beds filled to get paid by Cook County. They will not pay for empty beds. You know that. One boy is all I can cover up for. You will just …”
“He is dead, Halder,” snapped DeWilde. “There was an accident at the plant yesterday. He died late last night. My men tried, but could not save him. You will get the coroner’s report today. Find me a boy, Halder. I will make it worth your while.”
“Dead? He is dead?” The headmaster put his hands to his head. “Mr. DeWilde, you cannot expect me to deliver another poor child to you. First the Swenson boy, now Johnny Endelman. I cannot do it, Mr. DeWilde. I won’t.”
“You will, Halder, and I will tell you why. I support you. You bill Cook County for coal to heat this firetrap building of yours, despite my providing that coal to you at no charge. Last winter that put almost one hundred dollars into your pocket. One hundred dollars. Now find me a boy. I am in a hurry.”
“Mr. DeWilde, I simply cannot. Both the church and the county inspect the books of this orphanage twice each year. What do I tell them?”
“I do care neither what you say nor to whom it is said! Here, this should answer their questions.” He pulled a roll of bills from his vest pocket, peeling off three twenties. “Here is twenty for the church and twenty for the county inspector.” He threw the bills on the large oak desk. “And this is, shall we say, for the orphans?” He reached across the desk and stuffed the third twenty into Halder’s shirt pocket. “Now, Mr. Headmaster, find—me—my—boy!”
“But how will I know the next boy will not also die in your coal yard? Certainly you can’t expect me …”
“Do not presume to tell me what I can or cannot expect. Get my boy or return my sixty dollars and find someone else to keep you and your brats warm.”
Halder reluctantly pulled a large, thin book from a drawer. He hesitated, looking at DeWilde.
“Tell me you will keep this one safe. I cannot have this on my conscience.”
“Find me the right boy, one who is tall, agile, strong, and smart. Give me a boy with a good head on his shoulders this time—a boy who is smart enough to follow directions. If you do, there will be no problem. Tall, agile, strong, and smart, Halder.”
The headmaster paged through the book. Dipping his pen into the inkwell, he began a list on a scrap of paper. “Tommy!” he shouted. The boy with the sandy-colored hair appeared in the doorway. “Here, take this list. Bring these boys here at once. Hurry!”
Minutes later, three boys entered the room, each appearing to fit DeWilde’s description.
“Boys,” said Halder, “this is Mr. DeWilde. He is looking for a good, strong, hard worker. We are going to help him out.”
DeWilde studied them. “The lad I choose will have his own room, good food, a dollar a week to spend as he wishes.”
The boys replied at once. “Please, I’ll go!” “Me! Take me!” “Me, too!”
DeWilde studied them again. Clearly, these boys were strong. Their thin frames would enable them to do the specific job he had for them. But were they agile? Smart?
“Turn toward the wall, boys. I have a contest for you,” he said. They obeyed. DeWilde pulled a silver dollar from his pocket. “You will hear a dollar drop. When you do, the boy who gets it first gets to pocket it.”
DeWilde flipped the coin. The dollar rang out as it hit the oak floor. The boys turned and dove, sprawling across the floor as the coin rolled under the desk. Arms and legs flew in all directions. The space between desk and floor was only a few inches, but the boys’ bodies were soon underneath. The desk bounced and shook as though in an earthquake. In an instant, the boys scrambled out, huffing and disheveled. One boy held the silver coin high above his head, grinning. Another boy jumped toward him, reaching for the dollar, but the blonde victor snatched his hand away and his rival fell to the floor.
“You have it, my boy,” said DeWilde. “The coin is yours. You are strong and quick. But as Mr. Halder knows, I am looking for a worker who is also smart. So I have another test. This time I will throw many coins on the floor. The winner will be the boy who shows me not the most coins, but the greatest sum. Face the wall again.”
As the coins hit the floor, the boys scrambled. But the blonde boy stopped short. He stood up with a single dime in his hand. Stepping back, he watched the other two fight for the coins to the final penny.
“You, Son,” demanded DeWilde of the last boy. “Show me your coins.”
“Two quarters, a dime and, um, two pennies, sir,” the boy replied.
“And what is the sum total?”
“Um … Fifty, no sixty, two. Sixty-two cents, sir.”
“And you, boy? Count up your fortune.”
“I got plenty, sir. Look, I have all these.” He pointed at the five nickels and ten pennies. “See?”
“And what, pray tell, is the sum of your coins, Son?”
The boy stared mutely at the coins.
DeWilde turned to the blonde boy. “You, why did you not go for the most coins?”
“Well, sir, when I hit the floor and grabbed this ten-cent piece, I saw less than a dollar in coins left. With Billy and Zach fighting for them, well, I knew my silver dollar and this here dime would win. You did say, sir, the winner this time was the boy who shows up with not the most coins but the greatest sum. That’s what you said, sir. I got myself a dollar and a dime—a buck ten, sir. No point in getting all busted up if I already won.”
“What is your name?”
“Tor, sir.”
Halder flipped through his record book.
“This, Mr. DeWilde, is Tor Loken. He’s been here nigh onto two years now. Just turned sixteen years. Came from New York with his mother. They were on their way here to meet his pa who came ahead to find work in Wisconsin, so they told me. There was a train wreck near Cleveland. His mother was killed. They sent the boy on to Chicago to join with his father, but his pa never showed up at the station. Two days later the county brought the boy here, all his belongings gone. Stolen, I suspect. Later on we got word his pa was killed in a logging accident up in the Wisconsin pinery. Lake Superior country. Nary a word since.”
“Well, Tor Loken, looks as though you are my new clean-out boy. You will do just fine. Yes sir, just fine.” DeWilde looked the boy over again. “You others both did well. Keep your coins. You earned them. Spend it or save it as you like. And Halder, don’t you take it from them. It is theirs to save or squander as they please. Tor, gather your goods. You are coming with me.”
The three boys left the room. Tor returned carrying a coat and hat, all he owned other than the stub of a pencil in one pocket, a silver dollar and a dime in the other.
A moment later, Ignatius DeWilde and Tor Loken stepped quickly through the drizzle toward the cab. From across the street, the shaggy, rain-soaked, stray dog looked on as the heavy door to the LaSalle Street Christian Boys Orphanage closed, echoing down the dreary, wet, Chicago street.