“Yes, sir, I would. I would take it away from any body. I need some clothes, don’t I?”
“You would have to go down to Manchester if you got any money, and that is a long ways from here.”
“I don’t care; I would find it if I was there. Are you going to get him any tobacco?”
“Me? What have I got to buy him tobacco with? You talk as if I had lots of money hidden away somewhere.”
“‘Cause if I see you slipping away any where and I can’t find you, I will tell pap of it when he comes home. You know what you will get if I do that?”
“Well, you keep your eyes on me and see if I slip away any where except down to the potato patch,” said Nat, indignantly. “That is where I am going now.”
The two boys separated and went off in different directions, Nat wending his way to the potato patch and the other going toward the miserable hovel they called a barn to finish his task of shelling corn.
“What a mean fellow that Nat Wood is,” said Caleb Keeler, as he turned and gave his departing companion a farewell look. “That boy has got as much as four or five dollars hidden away about this place somewhere, and I tell you I am going to find it some day. Then won’t I have some clothes to wear? I’ve got a pair of nice shoes which pap made him give me, but I will have more if I find that money. Dog-gone him, he has no business to keep things hidden away from us.”
These two boys, Caleb Keeler and Nat Wood, cherished the most undying hatred to one another, and as far as Nat was concerned, there was reason for it. It was all on account of his lost shoes, and they had been taken away from him a year ago. The weather was getting cold, every morning the grass and leaves were wet and it was as much as a bare-footed boy wanted to do to run around in them, and Nat had prepared for it by going down to the store one evening and purchasing a pair of brogans and two pairs of stockings. He fully expected to get into trouble on account of them, and sure enough he did. The next morning he came out with them on, and his appearance was enough to create astonishment on Caleb’s part who stood and looked at him with mouth and eyes wide open.
“Well, if you haven’t got a pair of shoes I never want to see daylight again,” said Caleb, as soon as he had recovered from his amazement. “Where did you get them?”