“I've got another idea, too,” Lanny said. “I think maybe I can get father to come to Derlingport. He's dead sore on Riverbank, I know, and mother will be anxious to be where I am. I may be able to make father think there is a better field for the Declarator there than here. I don't know. After I've been there awhile I'll try it. I wish he would leave this town, and let people forget about him.”
David heartily wished the same thing, and he was soon to wish it still more heartily. At the moment he liked Lanny better than he had ever liked the boy.
“I expect you'll excuse me, now,” Lanny said. “I expect you know I'm wanting to spend all the time with Alice I can, going in the morning and all that. And, oh, yes! I'm going to look around up there for a job for Old Pop—for Roger. I'm pretty sure to get on the Derlingport nine, and I want Old Pop to be behind the bat when I'm pitching. I think it would be a good thing for him to get up there, if I can land a job for him. There's no future in that coal office, Mr. Dean, to my mind. They are a live lot of men back of the Derlingport nine, and if I want Old Pop to catch for me, and won't listen to anything else, some of them will hustle up a job for him. Maybe there is a coal man connected with the nine someway. I don't know, but in a big place like Derlingport there's always room for anybody as clean and straight as Roger.”
David was touched. He saw, in imagination, a new Roger winning his own way, spurred on by the brisker business life of the bigger town, bettered by the temporary breaking of home ties, inoculated with Lanny's enthusiasm.
Roger spoke of the chance Lanny might get him, and spoke of it voluntarily and enthusiastically. It would be a great thing for him, he said. Grandfather Fragg was all right, of course, but there was nothing in the way of a future in his coal business. He said he hated to take money from him when he knew the business was running behind every day.
“Is it as bad as that, Roger!” David asked. “Every bit, father,” Roger replied. “I don't see how he's going to pull through the winter and keep the business going.”
“Isn't there anything you can do!”
“Do! It isn't a case of do, it's a case of money. He didn't have enough capital to start with, and he hasn't any left. Brown & Son have got all the business. I could get some of it away from them but grandfather can't supply the coal. He can't buy it; he hasn't the money to do a big business on, and a small coal business is a losing proposition. The profit is too small; you've got to do big business or you might as well quit.”
The talk left David with a new source of worry. 'Thusia's father was showing his infirmities more plainly each day; if he lost his coal business—and David knew the loss of the Fragg home was to be included in that loss—the old man would have but one place to turn to: David's home. It would mean another mouth to feed, perhaps another invalid to care for and support.