"I don't know—because I can't find anybody to play with me to-day; will you come and play?"
"No, I can't; I'm busy."
"Busy," cried Lawrence, stretching himself, "you are always busy—I would not be you for the world, to have so much to do, always."
"And I," said Jem, laughing, "would not be you for the world, to have nothing to do."
So they parted, for the workman just then called Jem to follow him. He took him home to his own house, and showed him a parcel of fossils, which he had gathered he said on purpose to sell, but had never had time yet to sort them. He set about it, however, now, and having picked out those which he judged to be the best, he put them into a small basket, and gave them to Jem to sell, upon condition that he should bring him half of what he got. Jem, pleased to be employed, was ready to agree to what the man proposed, provided his mother had no objection to it. When he went home to dinner, he told his mother his scheme, and she smiled and said he might do as he pleased, for she was not afraid of his being from home.
"You are not an idle boy," said she, "so there is little danger of your getting into any mischief."
Accordingly, Jem, that evening, took his stand, with his little basket, upon the bank of the river, just at the place where people land from a ferryboat, and where the walk turns to the wells, where numbers of people perpetually pass to drink the waters. He chose his place well, and waited almost all the evening, offering his fossils with great assiduity to every passenger; but not one person bought any.
"Holla!" cried some sailors, who had just rowed a boat to land. "Bear a hand here, will you, my little fellow! And carry these parcels for us into yonder house."
Jean ran down immediately for the parcels, and did what he was asked to do so quickly, and with so much good will, that the master of the boat took notice of him, and when he was going away stopped to ask him what he had got in his little basket. And when he saw that they were fossils, he immediately told Jem to follow him, for he was going to carry some shells he had brought from abroad to a lady in the neighbourhood, who was making a grotto.
"She will very likely buy your stones into the bargain. Come along, my lad; we can but try."