"I can't," I said. "I hate my conscience, for even in business it pokes itself in. But five cents is all I can take."
"Which shows you're new in business, or you'd take the other fellow's skin if he had to have what you've got. And I'm bound to have that apple. Bound to!" And he dug the toe of his shoe so deep in the dirt he could have put his foot in. We were down at the fence, where I went to tell him he mustn't leave but five cents any more.
The Apple business was much easier than the Entertainment business; but I enjoyed both. Making money is exciting. I guess that's why men love to make it.
I made in all $2.34. One dollar and fifty cents on entertaining, and eighty-four cents on apples.
The entertaining was this way. Mrs. Dick Moon is twin to the lady who lived in a shoe. Her house isn't far from the Asylum, and I like her real much; but she isn't good on management. Everything on the place just runs over everything else, and nothing is ever ready on time.
She has money—that is, her husband has, which Miss Katherine says isn't always the same thing. And she has servants and a graphophone and a pianola, but she doesn't really seem to have anything but children, and they are everywhere.
They are the sprawly kind that lie on their stomachs and kick their heels, and get under your feet and on your back. And their mouths always have molasses or sugar in the corners, and their noses have colds, and their hands are that sticky they leave a print on everything they touch.
But they aren't mean-bad, just bad because they don't know what to do, and they beg me to stay and play with them when Miss Jones sends me over with a message. Sometimes I do, and the day Martha gave Mary such a rasping about making money, another thought came besides the apples, and I went that afternoon to see Mrs. Moon.
"Mrs. Moon," I said, "the children have colds and can't go out. If Miss Bray will let me, would you like me to come over and entertain them during our play-hour? It's from half-past four to half-past five. I'll come every day from now until Christmas, and I charge twenty-five cents a week for it."
I knew my face was rambler red. I hated to mention money, but I hated worse not to have any to buy Miss Katherine a present with. If she thought twenty-five cents a week too high she could say so. But she didn't.