“Where did you get them?” was the next question.
“Maw sent me fur ’em.”
“Oh, I thought so. Now I can go to work,” Charley muttered, in a theatrical “aside.”
“What do you want of me, and what are you a-saying to yourself?” demanded Tim, becoming questioner in his turn.
“I’ll give you a whistle for one of them, Tim,” Charley said, so eagerly that the boys in hiding wondered. Why should such a boy as Charley wish to purchase a single raisin? Was this a mystery? It seemed so mysterious that they pricked up their ears, and impatiently waited for further developments.
Tim’s thoughts are unknown. He replied indifferently, “Well, if your whistle’s a good one, I guess I don’t mind; but I’ve give these here boys so many raisins that Maw’ll think that there new store-keeper cheats worse’n the old ones. Let’s see yer whistle, anyway.”
Charles turned his back to Tim, and searched his pockets for the whistle, a scrap of paper, and a forlorn lead pencil that had once done duty as the bullet of a popgun. Having found these articles, he scrawled a few words on the scrap of paper.
“Can’t you find the whistle?” Tim inquired unsuspectingly.
“I’m coming,” was the answer.
Then the gaping ambushed five saw him slip the battered pencil into his pocket, take the paper in one hand and the whistle in the other, and step briskly up to Tim.