“But,” said Jem, “I would work every day, and all day long.”
“Then,” said the lady, “I will give you work. Come here, to-morrow morning, and my gardener will set you to weed the shrubberies, and I will pay you sixpence a day. Remember, you must be at the gates by six o’clock.” Jem bowed, thanked her, and went away.
It was late in the evening, and Jem was impatient to get home to feed Lightfoot; yet he recollected that he had promised the man who had trusted him to sell the fossils, that he would bring him half of what he got for them; so he thought that he had better go to him directly; and away he went, running along by the waterside about a quarter of a mile, till he came to the man’s house. He was just come home from work, and was surprised when Jem showed him the half-crown, saying, “Look what I got for the stones; you are to have half, you know.”
“No,” said the man, when he had heard his story, “I shall not take half of that; it was given to you. I expected but a shilling at the most, and the half of that is but sixpence, and that I’ll take. Wife, give the lad two shillings, and take this half-crown.” So the wife opened an old glove, and took out two shillings; and the man, as she opened the glove, put in his fingers, and took out a little silver penny. “There, he shall have that into the bargain for his honesty—honesty is the best policy—there’s a lucky penny for you, that I’ve kept ever since I can remember.”
“Don’t you ever go to part with it, do ye hear!” cried the woman.
“Let him do what he will with it, wife,” said the man.
“But,” argued the wife, “another penny would do just as well to buy gingerbread; and that’s what it will go for.”
“No, that it shall not, I promise you,” said Jem; and so he ran away home, fed Lightfoot, stroked him, went to bed, jumped up at five o’clock in the morning, and went singing to work as gay as a lark.
Four days he worked “every day and all day long”; and every evening the lady, when she came out to walk in her gardens, looked at his work. At last she said to her gardener, “This little boy works very hard.”
“Never had so good a little boy about the grounds,” said the gardener; “he’s always at his work, let me come by when I will, and he has got twice as much done as another would do; yes, twice as much, ma’am; for look here—he began at this ’ere rose-bush, and now he’s got to where you stand, ma’am; and here is the day’s work that t’other boy, and he’s three years older too, did to-day—I say, measure Jem’s fairly, and it’s twice as much, I’m sure.”