CHAPTER IX.
A CONTRACT.
A three days’ rain which set in the morning after Johnny’s first appearance as a schoolmaster, put a stop to gardening, and Jim decided for himself that he was not entitled to any more lessons until he had done some more work.
This had not been Tiny’s and Johnny’s idea of the contract at all; they expected Jim to help them whenever they needed help, and intended to keep on regularly with their teaching, unless some very special engagement should prevent them. But, as they remembered when they came to talk it over, they had not made this plain to Jim, and they decided to draw up a contract, and have it ready for his signature, or rather his “mark,” if, as Johnny said rather mournfully, “it should ever clear up again.” They lamented very much not having planted anything before the rain.
“It would be soaking and swelling all the time,” mourned Johnny, “and come bouncing up the minute the sun comes out!”
They tried shooting some radish seed at the beds with Johnny’s pea-shooter, from an upstairs window, and had the pleasure of seeing a flock of hungry sparrows make a breakfast of the seed almost before it had touched the ground. Johnny was indignant, but Tiny said tranquilly,—
“I’m glad I saw that. It was in last Sunday’s lesson, you know, Johnny,—about the fowls of the air devouring it up. When things don’t come up in my head, now, I shall know it was because I didn’t plant them deep enough.”
It was after it had rained for two days and part of another, that they drew up the contract, and thus it ran,—
“We are going to teach James Brady all we know, that he wants to learn, and he is to come every evening, unless we ask him not to, which we shall not do except for something very particular, like a birthday party, or having folks here to tea. And he is going to help us work in our gardens, when we want help, but he is to come all the same in the evening, whether he has helped that day or not.