That night Paul had an attack of homesickness; but, being very tired, he went to sleep before it became so bad as to be noticed by his friends.
On the following morning Paul went about his work quite as if he had been accustomed to that sort of thing for some time; and owing to the fact that the papers contained an account of a terrible railroad disaster, trade was remarkably good with him and Johnny, and correspondingly bad with Ben. Three times during the morning they sold out their entire stock, and Paul was so excited by the rush, as well as the amount of money they were making, that he quite forgot his troubles.
When dinner-time came, Paul and Johnny had cleared two dollars and ninety cents, with a fair prospect of making as much more in the afternoon, since additional particulars of the accident were being received hourly. Ben had only made thirty cents; but he and Johnny had always been in partnership, dividing equally the profits of both, and the same arrangement held good after Paul was taken into the concern.
It was decided that Ben should give up his business of boot-blackening that afternoon, and sell papers with the others, so he carried his box to a friend who had a fancy-goods stand in the door-way of an unoccupied store, where he left it until he should finish his day’s work. Each paper that Paul sold that day had the same advertisement offering a reward for any tidings of him, but since he never looked at what his wares contained, save to read the head-lines in large letters so as to get an idea what he should cry out, it did him as little good as if it had never been there.
Fortunately for the boys, as the demand for papers was so great and continued so long, Mrs. Green had set eight o’clock as the hour when they would have dinner. By this plan she would have plenty of time to cook it, and all hands would be through work and possessed of plenty of leisure for eating. Therefore they continued the trade in news until half-past seven, and then hurried for the last time to their hogshead, where they found Dickey Spry eating his supper of crackers and cheese.
The process of finding out exactly how much they had made was a long and difficult one for both Ben and Johnny. Each time they counted it over it was with a different result. When they were very warm, almost angry, and quite positive that the fault of the difference in reckoning was in the money itself, Paul took it upon himself to find out the amount of cash on hand.
Four dollars and eighty-three cents was the grand total of their earnings that day, and all hands were pleasantly surprised by the prosperity that had beamed upon them.
Of course they could not expect such a result except on days when the papers contained some important news; but business would be sure to be good on the following morning, because then all the details of the accident would have been received. After that perhaps Ben’s business would have an impetus given it by some friendly shower.
At the end of the week they would owe Mrs. Green seven dollars and a half for the board of the firm, and Ben’s proposition was unanimously adopted that they pay four dollars of that amount in advance, retaining the eighty-three cents as a working capital for their business the next day.
There was no attempt made to put on any better appearance than usual when they started for Mrs. Green’s that night, for now that they were members of her family. They would be obliged to go there just as they were when they finished their work, and they might as well show themselves as they would be on future occasions. Ben attempted to take quite an elaborate and affecting farewell of Master Spry, but that young gentleman refused utterly anything more than the ordinary expressions of parting.