The two boys drew closer together and for fifteen minutes there was some whispering done between them. At the end of that time it was all over and the boys departed satisfied—at least one of them was.
“I am afraid I made a mistake in coming here at all,” was what Nat said to himself. “I ought to have gone on and done the best I could by myself. Peleg is up to something and he will bear watching. Do you suppose he means to run down and tell Jonas about my running away?”
This thought created consternation in Nat’s mind and he faced about and looked at the barn in which he had left Peleg. But if the truth must be told, Peleg had no intention of going near Jonas. He was too sharp to throw away the easy means he had of making a fortune by doing that. When Nat went away he leaned against the hay-mow, or rather the place where it would have been if there had been any hay there, and broke into a silent but hearty fit of merriment.
“Peleg, the thing you have often wanted has come to you at last,” he whispered, walking to the door and peeping slyly out to see if Nat had really gone. “Your fortune has come to you at last. Now what be I going to do; for I must get away from here as soon as it comes dark. In the first place I will go in and tell pap about it.”
Peleg hurried to the house without taking pains to shut the barn door, and broke into the living room where his father and mother were sitting engaged in smoking. This was the way in which they always passed their time when they could find nothing better to do, and that happened very frequently.
“Have you got that corn all shucked?” inquired his father.
“Naw; and what’s more, I ain’t a-going to shuck no more to-night,” replied Peleg.
“What’s to do now?”
“Well I will tell you,” said Peleg, drawing a chair without any back close in front of the fire. “I have got a chance to make a fortune; but if I tell you what it is you must go halvers with me, or I shan’t tell you a thing.”
Mr. Graves and his wife were both amazed. They took their pipes from their mouths, straightened up and looked hard at Peleg to see if he were in earnest.