“We!” says I. “We didn’t have anything to do with it. It was you—and you get all the credit that’s comin’.”
Mark shrugged his shoulders so the fat at the back of his neck tried to crowd his ears. He was willing enough to be praised and liked to have folks think he was a wonder—but he wasn’t mean about it. He never tried to hog the glory and was willing the rest of us should get all we could. But it did tickle him to know we appreciated him—and he deserved to be tickled.
We passed Jehoshaphat P. on our way home and grinned at him cheerful-like. I thought for a minute he was going to stop and say something, but he strangled it back and went on as fast as his thin legs would carry him. Tallow started to yell something after him, but Mark made him shut up.
“That’s all right for kids,” says he, “but we’re business men—for a while, anyhow. Let’s act like b-b-business men.”
Wasn’t that Mark all over! Whatever he did or whatever he pretended to do—he was that thing. If we played cowboy he was a cowboy, and acted and thought like a cowboy. I calculate if we were to make believe we were aeroplanes he’d spread his arms and fly.
We passed my house and I turned in.
“To-morrow’s Saturday,” says I, “and a long day. Get a good sleep to-night.”
“Yes,” says Mark. “We g-got to stir things up t-to-morrow. Folks ’ll be expectin’ somethin’ of us. Mustn’t d-disappoint anybody. Good night.”
I said good night and went in the house. There was a letter there from mother. She said dad was getting along pretty well, but it would be a month before he could leave the hospital. She said she told him what we boys were doing and he was proud of us, and she was proud of us, too.
“I don’t know what we’d ever do without our boy and his friends,” she said. “Especially Mark Tidd. You thank the boys for us, son, and tell Mark Tidd the thing he is doing and the way he has come to help us is something a very sick man and a troubled woman are grateful for to the bottoms of their hearts. His mother must be proud of him.”