“Then if you’ll tell me what his week’s wages are, I think I can figure out what I owe you,” and the stranger took out pencil and paper.
“Wa’al, he don’t exactly work by the week nuther.”
“That’s so, I’d forgotten. Farm hands generally work for so much a month and their board. What are his monthly wages?”
“Look a-here!” exclaimed Mr. Savage. “That’s my affair. What right ye got t’ come around here, askin’ me my business?”
“No right,” replied the stranger coolly, “only I wanted to make up for the time I kept this boy from his work.”
“Wa’al, I guess ef ye give me a quarter we’ll call it square.”
“I’m satisfied if you are,” replied the stranger, passing over the money. “Twenty-five cents for ten minutes, is at the rate of a dollar and a half an hour. In ten hours, which, I believe, is the farm day, he earns fifteen dollars. That’s very good wages for a boy like him.”
“Look a-here!” blustered Mr. Savage. “I don’t pay him no fifteen dollars a day, an’ ye know it. No farm-hand gits that much; I don’t myself. But if ye come around here, stickin’ yer nose in my business, ye got t’ pay fer it, that’s all. Now ye’d better git away from here fer I might charge ye rent,” and he grinned in a malicious manner.
“Thank you, I’m just about to leave,” said the man, as he walked out of the barn.
“Wa’al, ye’d better.”