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 ferry-boat, and the walk turns to the wells, and numbers of people perpetually pass to drink the waters. He chose his place well, and waited nearly all the evening, offering his fossils with great assiduity to every passenger; but not one person bought any.
“Hallo!” 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?”
Jem 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 that 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.”
The lady lived but a very little way off, so that they were soon at her house. She was alone in her parlour, and was sorting a bundle of feathers of different colours; they lay on a sheet of pasteboard upon a window seat, and it happened that as the sailor was bustling round the table to show off his shells, he knocked down the sheet of pasteboard, and scattered all the feathers. The lady looked very sorry, which Jem observing, he took the opportunity, whilst she was busy looking over the sailor’s bag of shells, to gather together all the feathers, and sort them according to their different colours, as he had seen them sorted when he first came into the room.
“Where is the little boy you brought with you? I thought I saw him here just now.”
“And here I am, ma’am,” cried Jem, creeping from under the table, with some few remaining feathers which he had picked from the carpet; “I thought,” added he, pointing to the others, “I had better be doing something than standing idle, ma’am.” She smiled, and, pleased with his activity and simplicity, began to ask him several questions; such as who he was, where he lived, what employment he had, and how much a day he earned by gathering fossils.
“This is the first day I ever tried,” said Jem; “I never sold any yet, and if you don’t buy ’em now, ma’am, I’m afraid nobody else will; for I’ve asked everybody else.”
“Come, then,” said the lady, laughing, “if that is the case, I think I had better buy them all.” So, emptying all the fossils out of his basket, she put half a crown into it.
Jem’s eyes sparkled with joy. “Oh, thank you, ma’am,” said he, “I will be sure and bring you as many more, to-morrow.”
“Yes, but I don’t promise you,” said she, “to give you half a crown, to-morrow.”