“Fish!”
“Yes; he says he has turned fisherman until something better offers. I’m sure that Riverdale people will buy all the fish he can catch, for they’re good fish—we shall have some for dinner—and his prices are reasonable.”
“Oh, dear; I’m so sorry,” wailed Phoebe, really distressed. “The idea of that poor boy—a cripple—being obliged to carry fish around to the houses; and when he has the making of a fine lawyer in him, too!”
“Toby’s foot doesn’t bother him much,” observed Judith, dabbing at her palette. “He limps, to be sure, and needs the crutch; but his foot doesn’t hurt him, however much he uses it. Yet I think I admire his manly courage the more because the boy is capable of better things than fishing. I asked him, this morning, why he didn’t apply to Lawyer Kellogg for a position; but he said the judge never liked Kellogg and so Toby considered it disloyal to his friend’s memory to have any connection with the man. The chances are that he escaped a snub, for Mr. Kellogg detests everyone who loved Judge Ferguson.”
Phoebe nodded, absently.
“Mr. Kellogg will have the law business of Riverdale all to himself, now,” she said.
“I doubt it,” replied Judith. “Toby tells me a young man named Holbrook, a perfect stranger to Riverdale, has come here to practice law, and that he has rented Mr. Ferguson’s old offices.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Phoebe, surprised. “Then perhaps Mr. Holbrook will take Toby for his clerk. That would be fine!”
“I thought of that, too, and mentioned it to Toby,” answered Cousin Judith; “but Mr. Holbrook said he didn’t need a clerk and refused Toby’s application.”
“Then he doesn’t know how bright and intelligent Toby is. Why should he, being a stranger? If some one would go to him and tell him how valuable the boy would be to him, after his experience with Mr. Ferguson, I’m sure the new lawyer would find a place for him.”