“Two fellers giv me a cent just now, and they earned it a-shinin’ boots, and I’m goin’ to ’sist you and grow rich, granny.”
Granny stopped punching her clothes, came out of the steam, and sat down to laugh at the new man of business.
Chub’s round face glowed with honest determination, and his roly-poly figure straighted as well as it could.
“Yes, ma’am! I’m a-goin fur a bootblack, and I’m goin’ to buy an orange as soon as I earn a cent.”
“Where you goin’ ter git yer box and brushes, hey, Chub?” asked Granny, renewing her attack upon the wash-boiler and its contents.
The boy’s countenance fell, and visions of oranges faded slowly and reluctantly from his eyes. Suddenly, however, he remembered his friend Sim Hardy, who frequently gave him the uneaten end of a banana, and now and then part of a stick of licorice, for which favors Chub had yielded in return a large share of his warm little heart.
“Sim’ll get me a box, ’thout it’s costin’ anythin’. Maybe he’ll hook one fur a little chap like me.”
Granny rested from her labors and turned a stern face upon the boy.
“Thomas Brown, never dare you lift a finger of yourn to touch what’s been stole. Remember who’s watchin’ ye all the time, and don’t go fur to sile the family name of Brown. If yer do, I’ll trounce yer well for it, there, now!”
