“What are you going to do to him, papa?” asked Margie, seeing that Lucia wanted to know but did not seem able to ask.
“I want another clerk,” was the reply, “and I believe Hayn is just my man. I can teach him quickly all he needs to know, and I want some one who I am sure hasn’t speculation on the brain, nor any other bad habits. That young Hayn commands respect—from me, at any rate: I used to find down in the country that he, like his father, knew better than I what was going on in the world. I believe he’ll make a first-rate business-man: I’m willing to try him, at any rate.”
Margie stole a glance at Lucia: that young lady was looking at a chicken croquette as intently as if properly to manage such a morsel with a fork required alert watchfulness.
“The idea of a farmer’s boy in a New York merchant’s counting-room!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay.
“You seem to forget, my dear, that nearly all the successful merchants in New York were once country boys, and that all the new men who are making their mark are from everywhere but New York itself.”
“If young Hayn is as sensible as you think him, he will probably be wise enough to decline your offer and go back to his father’s farm. You yourself used to say that you would rather be in their business than your own.”
“Bright woman!” replied Tramlay, with a smile and a nod; “but I wouldn’t have thought so at his age, and I don’t believe Hayn will. I can afford to pay him as much as that farm earns in a year,—say fifteen hundred dollars; and I don’t believe he’ll decline that amount of money; ’twill enable him to take care of himself in good bachelor style and save something besides. I’m sure, too, he’d like to remain in the city: country youths always do, after they have a taste of it.”
Again Margie glanced at Lucia, but the chicken croquette continued troublesome, and no responsive glance came back.
“He had far better be at home,” persisted Mrs. Tramlay, “where the Lord put him in the first place.”
“Well,” said Tramlay, finishing a cup of coffee, “if the Lord had meant every one to remain where he was born, I don’t believe he would have given each person a pair of feet. And what a sin it must be to make railroad-iron, which tempts and aids hundreds of thousands of people to move about!”