“The matter rests entirely with you,” was the reply. “But how long do you suppose it will be before you will wish yourself at home again?”
“O, not for a long time! Of course I shall visit you as often as I can; but, if I once get into the country, I shall always be a farmer.”
“We’ll see,” said the merchant. “But, Tom, if you are trying to find some business in which you will have no work to do, and where there will be nothing to trouble you, you may as well give it up first as last, because you’ll never find it. You will discover a great many things in a farmer’s life that you will not like.”
“O, I know all about that,” said Tom, shaking his head in a very knowing manner. “I know just what I’ll have to do. I’ll have to drive horses, and milk cows, and do all that kind of hard work, but I don’t care. I’ll see Mr. Hayes the very next time he comes to town.”
Mr. Hayes was the man whose fine horses had attracted Tom’s attention during the previous winter, and whom he had asked if he “didn’t want to hire a boy.” The farmer had done considerable business with Mr. Newcombe; and Tom, having often conversed with him, had finally learned to look upon him as one of the finest men in the world. His face always wore a good-natured smile, and, when he met Tom, he always gave his hand a gripe and a shake which he felt for half an hour afterward. Besides, he always inquired very particularly into Tom’s affairs, and never forgot to ask—
“When be you goin’ out home with me? You’re jest the chap I want; an’, if you’ll go, I’ll make a first-class farmer of you in no time. You look like a smart little feller, an’ I know my boys would be mighty glad to see you.”
Of course this won Tom’s heart; and when he received his father’s permission to carry his new idea into execution, he did not feel as if he were leaving home to go among entire strangers, but as if he were about to take up his abode with those with whom he had long been acquainted.
“Very well, then,” said Mr. Newcombe; “it’s settled, I suppose, that you are to be a farmer. You had better pack your valise, for I expect Mr. Hayes down in the morning.”
Tom would have been much better pleased had his father informed him that the farmer was already at the door and waiting for him, so impatient was he to be off. He could not postpone the packing of his valise until morning, so he posted off to his room, pulled one of the drawers out of his bureau, and tumbled its contents upon the floor. If Tom wanted to find a handkerchief or a collar, this was generally the way he went about it. From among the numerous articles in the drawer, he selected three fine shirts, a box of collars, half a dozen handkerchiefs, a bottle of cologne, several towels, a piece of soap, and a brush and comb. These he crowded into his valise, without the least regard for order, and then went into a closet, that opened off his bed-room, after a pair of boots. But Tom had already been there once before that day, looking for his fish-basket, in which he wished to carry his provisions for the trading voyage, and, as a consequence, the closet presented a scene of the greatest confusion. Pants and coats had been taken down from their pegs and thrown upon the floor, so that it was almost an impossibility to distinguish one garment from another, and, with these, were mixed up fish-poles, ball-bats, books, and the wreck of his little fire-engine, which, in his hurry, he had literally smashed to pieces.
“O, now, just look at this,” drawled Tom, as he commenced pulling over the articles, and throwing them out into his bed-room. “How can a fellow find a pair of boots in a muss like this, I’d like to know? Here’s one of them—now where’s the other? I do wish folks would let my things alone.”