“That Hiram's an unlucky cuss,” said Mr. Strout to his hearers one evening at the grocery. “But think of me. This is our busy season and with everything piled onto me I'm just about tuckered out. What help will he be stumbling around on crutches?”
“Can't he have a wooden leg?” asked Abner Stiles.
“Yes, of course he can. An' if you lost your head and got a wooden one in its place you'd be just as well off as you are now.”
This remark caused a laugh at Abner which he took good-naturedly. When Mr. Strout was out of sorts he always vented his spleen on somebody.
“Well,” said Benoni Hill, “I'm awful sorry for Hiram with a wife and children to support. Of course his pay will go right on, bein' as he's a partner.”
“I don't know about that,” said Strout. “That's for the trustees to decide, and I've got to decide whether I'll do two men's work for one man's pay.”
“He would for you,” Abner blurted out.
“If you think so much of him, why don't you come in and do his work for him?” said Strout.
“When you were going to buy this store, and Mr. Sawyer got ahead of yer, yer promised me a job here as pay for some special nosin' round I'd done fer yer—but when yer got in the saddle you forgot the feller who'd boosted yer up. When a man breaks his word to me onct he don't do it a second time. That's why,” and Abner went out and slammed the door after him.
Mr. Strout was angry, and when in that state of mind he was often lacking in prudence in speech.