"I'm going to try it. Deacon Jones says I can have the right to run both things for ten dollars, and Uncle Nathan is going to lend me money enough to get the stock."
"What scheme have you got in your head now, Teddy Hargreaves?" and Mrs. Fernald looked over her spectacles at the son of her widowed sister, who was literally breathless in his excitement.
"I'm going to run a cane an' knife board at the Peach Bottom fair, and try to make money enough to pay the debt mother owes on the place."
"You're crazy – mad as a March hare! The idea of a child like you setting yourself up to earn three or four hundred dollars, when your father worked all his life and couldn't get so much together."
Mrs. Fernald really appeared to be angry, and she really believed there was good cause why she should lose her temper. The thought that little Teddy – a "whiflet" she called him – should set up his opinion in such matters against his elders, and attempt to earn in one season an amount which Seth Hargreaves had never been able to repay during his thirty-six years of life, was so preposterous that the good lady looked upon the boy's assertion as positive proof that he was not only ready but willing to "fly in the face of Providence."
"I shall try it all the same," Teddy replied in a most provokingly matter-of-fact tone, "an' I'm going down to see Uncle Nathan this very minute."
"Very well, and I consider it my bounden duty to advise your mother to keep you in the house until the fair is ended," Aunt Sarah said, as she took from its peg the well-worn gingham sun-bonnet.
Teddy had no desire to prolong the conversation, which had been begun simply because his aunt insisted on knowing where he had been, but hurried away from the gate on which he had been swinging while Mrs. Fernald questioned him, as if fearful lest she might try to detain him until the matter could be settled according to her own ideas of propriety.
"I can have the right to run what I want to, every day the fair lasts, for ten dollars, an' now, if you lend me fifteen, I'll be all right," the boy cried as he burst into Nathan Hargreaves' store, just as the old gentleman was adding a trifle more sand to the sugar, in order to compensate for what might possibly have been spilled by the careless clerk.
"Oh, it's fixed, eh? And you're really goin' to turn fakir?" Uncle Nathan asked, wrinkling his face into the semblance of a laugh, but remaining silent, as if fearing to waste even such a cheap thing as mirth.
"What's a fakir?"
"A man, or a boy, for that matter, who goes out to sell things as you count on doin', if I'm fool enough to let you throw away fifteen good dollars of mine."
"But you promised to lend me the money."
"An' I'm going to do it; but that don't make me any less a fool jest because I'm holdin' to my word. Tell me what you count on doin', an' then we'll come down to the business end of the scheme."
"I'll pay the ten dollars I've got to Deacon Jones for the right to run the games, an' with what you lend me I'm goin' to Waterville an' buy a whole lot of knives an' canes. There's a storekeeper over there who promises to sell that kind of goods for less than they cost him."
"An' he's lyin' when he says it. People don't do business for the fun of it; but that's neither here nor there so far as our trade is concerned. I'm goin' to give you the fifteen dollars now – it's a power of money for a boy of your size, Teddy – , an' if you make anything, as I allow you will, I'm to have eighteen dollars back; don't forget that part of the trade."
"I'll stand to what I agreed, Uncle Nathan, and you shall be paid the very day the fair closes."
"Here it is," and with a sigh which was almost a groan Uncle Nathan took from a fat calfskin wallet three five-dollar bills, adding, as he handed them to Teddy: "Be careful of it, my boy, for I'm puttin' almost too much confidence in a child of your size, an' nobody knows how distressed I'd be if anything happened to prevent your paying it back."
Teddy placed the money carefully in the inside pocket of his vest, and, after promising for at least the hundredth time that it should be repaid by the close of the following week, hurried home confident in the belief that he was on an extremely short road to wealth.
Mrs. Hargreaves was by no means as sanguine as her son concerning the success of the scheme, and actually appeared frightened when Teddy showed her the money he had received from his Uncle Nathan, who was reputed to be the "closest-fisted" merchant to be found within a day's ride of Peach Bottom Run.
"If you should lose it, Teddy, and be unable to pay him back at the exact time you promised, it would be the undoing of us, for we could never expect to get another dollar. I know he is not generous, but have always believed that if we should be in yet more straitened circumstances he would give us some assistance. He has neither charity nor mercy for any one who does not pay a little more than his just debts – "
"But I shall give back every cent of this, mother, so don't look as if you were in such distress. I want to go to Waterville to buy my stock in the morning, an' am counting on walking. It's only seven miles, an' I'll save fifty cents by traveling on shanks' mare."
