be it known that You are Agreed To Give me all the fish you can Ketch here at your Home Every day except sundays for three Cents a pond Good wait and no cheeting.
“Now, Bob,” he exclaimed, when he had finished the document, “sign that, if you are an honest man.”
The fisher-boy, after considerable trouble, deciphered the bad writing and spelling; and, although he thought the contract might have been better worded, he made no remark, for fear of offending his customer, but took the pencil and signed his name so plainly that even Tom could read it without stopping to spell it over.
“Now,” said the young trader, as he carefully folded up his contract, “we’re all right. Father says that whenever one man goes into business with another, he ought to make him sign an agreement; then both know just what is required of them. That’s the way I intend to conduct my business. What time will you be back, Bob?”
The fisher-boy answered that he would return at five o’clock; and, after Tom had promised to be on hand, he put his memorandum-book into his pocket, thrust his pencil behind his ear, and started toward his father’s office. Mr. Newcombe, as usual, was very busy, but he managed to obtain a few moments in which to attend to Tom, who, delighted with the success that had attended him thus far, asked for two dollars, with which to carry on his day’s business. The money was counted out, and Tom was requested to write a receipt, in order, as his father said, that he might learn “how to do business properly.” Tom seated himself at his father’s desk, and tried hard to think how a receipt ought to be written. He twisted about in his chair, bit his pen, and, at the end of a quarter of an hour, handed his father a slip of paper, on which was written the following:
you Give me too dollars to by Fish.
your affectionate Son
thomas newcombe.
Mr. Newcombe put the receipt into his pocket, and then proceeded to give Tom advice in regard to the manner in which his business ought to be conducted. But the young trader shook his head in a very knowing manner, as if to say: “I understand all about that;” and presently he left the office, and walked about the wharf with his hands in his pockets, and his pencil behind his ear.
Tom was very well satisfied with himself that morning; he had an object to accomplish, something to live for. He was a man of business, and he took no little pride in the thought that he had earned, with his own hands, the two dollars he carried in his pocket. Besides that, he had forty-six dollars more, all his own money, which would be counted out to him whenever he saw fit to call for it. His immediate success he regarded as a thing beyond a doubt; and, giving full sway to his fancy, he began to wonder what he should do with his profits.
He had often seen a neat little trading sloop, named the Swallow, sailing in and out of the harbor, and, on the morning in question, she was moored at his father’s wharf. As Tom stood looking at her, admiring the graceful manner in which she rode the little swells that came rolling into the harbor, he resolved that the first money he made should be devoted to buying a sloop exactly like that. Then the object of his ambition would be realized, for he would be the master of his own vessel. Tom was elated with the idea, and to enable him to think the matter over to the best advantage, he went into a store close by, and invested twenty cents in candy. He then returned to the wharf, where he sat watching the sloop, until he saw his father leave his office at noon.