“But the city’s a big place, and it’s getting bigger and bigger,—I heard a man say so to-day.”
“I know all that, Beth; and the reason is, there are more people coming all the time. Every one who comes lessens my chances to get on. Forty years ago there weren’t many folks here, but there were a heap of chances.”
“I had a feeling when I came up here to-day that you weren’t going to take that place in Stratton’s store.”
“What made you think so?”
“O, I just guessed so from the way you talked. You always talk that way when you’re blue.” She buried one of her hands in the shining sand on which it rested.
“Think,”—he pointed to the huge chimney at the foot of the hill,—“think of the gold the fire of that chimney has melted! And then expect me to be an errand boy at three dollars a week, with a chance of a raise to four in six months! I tell you, Beth, I can’t do it. I’m not that kind. I’d get so wild thinking of it all. If it were something more to do, or something where I could get ahead quicker, I wouldn’t be so dead set against it.”
“Syd would like the place, I think, if you’re positive you’ll not take it.”
“Well, he’s welcome to it. Perhaps he’s the plodding kind,—though I never thought he was; but I’ve got two hundred dollars, and it’s got to help me to something better.”
“I thought you said it was three hundred?”