“Why? What difference does it make?”
“Well, for most of the things we are taking as freight the prices are apt to be much higher in the fall than later, after the steamboats load up the market. That’s what Mr. Shaw says, and he knows. So we must get the boat loaded just as quickly as we can, and go out as soon as there is water enough to get her over the falls.”
“But we can’t do that,” said Ed, “because most of the produce we are to take hasn’t been brought to town yet. The hay is here, of course, but apples have hardly begun to come in—”
“That’s just what I’m coming to,” interrupted Phil. “I’ve been studying all that. We could get enough freight for two cargoes by waiting for it, but the best figuring I can do shows only about three-quarters of a load now actually in town. I propose that we go to work to-morrow and get the other quarter. That’s what I called you together for.”
“Where are we to get it?”
“Along the river, below town—in the neighborhood of Craig’s Landing.”
“But how?” asked Ed.
“By hustling. I’ve made out a list of everybody that produces anything for ten miles down the river and five miles back into the hills,—Mr. Larcom, Captain John Wright, Johnny Lampson, Mr. Albritton, Gersham McCallum and his brother Neil, Algy Wright, Mr. Minnit, Dr. Caine, Mr. Violet—and so on. Craig’s Landing is the nearest there is to all of them, and they can all get their produce there quickly. I propose that every boy in the crew take his foot in his hand early to-morrow morning, and that we visit every farmer in the list and persuade him to send his stuff to the landing at once. I’ve already seen Captain Wright,—saw him in town to-day,—and he promises me thirty barrels of apples and seventy bushels of onions with some other things. I’ll go myself to Johnny Lampson. He has at least a hundred barrels of apples, and I’ll get them. They aren’t picked yet, but I’ll offer him our services to pick them immediately for low wages, and so—”
“I say, boys!” broke in Irv Strong, “I move three cheers for ‘obstinate pertinacity.’ It’s the thing that ‘goes’ in this sort of business.”