“Yes, I want to talk with you about getting me a position.”
“A position?”
“Yes, I've been thinking a great deal lately, and, now that grandfather seems to be a little better, and I'm not needed to help take care of him, I want to do something to earn my living.”
“Earn your livin'? Why, child alive, you don't need to do that. You ain't a mite of trouble at the house; fact is, I don't know how we'd get along without you, and, as for money, why I cal'late your grandpa ain't so poor but what, if I let you have a little change once in a while, he'd be able to pay me back, when he got better.”
“But I don't want to use your money or his either. Captain Eri, you don't know what he has done for me ever since I was a little girl. He has clothed me and given me an education, and been so kind and good that, now that he is ill and helpless, I simply can't go on using his money. I can't, and I won't.”
The tears stood in the girl's eyes, as she spoke, and the Captain, noticing her emotion, thought it better to treat the matter seriously, for the present at any rate.
“All right,” he said. “'Independence shows a proper sperit and saves grocery bills,' as old man Scudder said when his wife run off with the tin-peddler. What kind of a place was you thinkin' of takin'?”
“I want to get the appointment to teach in the grammar school here. Miss Nixon is going to be married, and when she leaves I want her place—and I want you to help me get it.”
Captain Eri whistled. “I want to know!” he exclaimed. Then he said, “Look here, Elsie, I don't want you to think I'm tryin' to be cur'ous 'bout your affairs, or anything like that, but are you sure there ain't some reason more 'n you've told me of for your wantin' this place? I ain't no real relation of yours, you understand, but I would like to have you feel that you could come to me with your troubles jest the same as you would to your grandpa. Now, honest and true, ain't there somethin' back of this?”
It was only for a moment that Elsie hesitated, but that moment's hesitation and the manner in which she answered went far toward confirming the Captain's suspicions.