He winked significantly at Mr. Schmitt. “Come back here, I want to speak to you,” said he.
They retired to the rear of the store, where Mr. Schmitt leaned his arm affectionately over the big wheel of the coffee-grinder and listened, all attention.
Tom overheard the words, “fresh air,” “Boys’ Home,” “something to do,” “appeal to honor,” “sense of responsibility,” and more or less about woods and country and about a “boy to-day being a man to-morrow,” and about “working with him,” and other odds and ends which he did not understand.
“Veil, it’s a goot ting, I’ll say dot mooch,” said Mr. Schmitt, as they returned to the front of the store. “Dere is too mooch cities—dey don’t got no chance.”
“Tom,” said Mr. Ellsworth, “I’ve been telling Mr. Schmitt about that signal work. (He was wondering what the light was.) And I’ve told him about your wanting to earn a little money before camping time. He’s going to start you in on three dollars and a half a week, school-days after three and all day Saturdays and Saturday nights. He asked me if you could deliver goods and I told him there wasn’t a boy in town who could “deliver the goods” like you. Remember the pack you’ve got to carry for the whole troop. If you fall down, you’ll queer the troop-Roy Blakeley and all of us.
“Mr. Schmitt’s a busy man and he has no time to think of what you were doing a few days ago, so don’t you think about that either. You can’t follow a trail looking backward—you have to keep your squinters ahead. Isn’t that so, Mr. Schmitt?”
“You can’d look forwards vile you are going packwards,” said Mr. Schmitt. “You come aroundt at dree o’clock, to-morrow.”
“Now, Tom,” said Mr. Ellsworth, as they left the store, “my idea is for you to stay at Mrs. O’Connor’s, and give her your money every week. Roy says he’d like to have you go up several nights a week and stay at Camp Solitaire, so I think maybe three dollars a week to Mrs. O’Connor will be all right. Then she’ll save the other fifty cents for you and by the time we start for Salmon River you’ll have enough, or pretty near enough, for a uniform.
“For instance, you might go up to Camp Solitaire every other night and eat plum-duff and eggs with Roy. He says they’ve got chickens enough up there to keep the camp going. He uses so many eggs, one way or another, I should think he’d ashamed to look a hen in the face. And remember about the colors coming down at sunset. Uncle Sam’s a regular old maid about such things, you know. And don’t forget page—what was it?”
“Tree—three hundred and seventy-five,” said Tom.