CHAPTER XXI
JIMMY MAKES A PROPOSITION
“We were wondering, Jimmy,” said Tom, “if you knew of a fellow we could get to run the car for us this winter. You see, it’s getting pretty near time for school to open, and when I’m at school the only train I’ll be able to meet is the 6:05; except, of course, on Saturdays. And Willard’s going away to college pretty soon, you know. So we’ve either got to find someone to drive the car or give up the business.”
“It would be a shame to do that,” replied Jimmy Brennan reflectively. “I suppose you’re doing pretty well, aren’t you?”
Tom nodded. “We took in about a couple of hundred last month. And we’re doing better this month, so far. So, of course, neither Willard nor I want to give it up.”
“I should think not!” Jimmy tilted back against the window ledge in his chair and looked thoughtful. It was a Sunday afternoon and the boys had sought him at his lodgings on the lower end of Pine Street. From the one window in the room they looked down across a number of spur tracks toward the long, many-windowed buildings of the paper mills. The house held the mingled odors of the Sunday dinner and factory smoke. One never got very far from the smoke in Audelsville, anyway. Jimmy’s room was small and rather bare, but everything about it looked clean and neat, while Jimmy himself, dressed in his Sunday clothes and without the usual smudges across his face, was quite a different looking Jimmy from the one they were used to seeing. Tom viewed him somewhat anxiously in the pause, while Willard’s gaze roved among the many photographs that were tucked into the edge of the mirror above the chest of drawers. At last,
“I don’t suppose I know anyone just now,” said Jimmy hesitatingly. “I should think maybe you’d find someone by advertising in the Providence papers.”
Willard’s gaze came away from the photographs. “Don’t suppose you’d want to do it, Jimmy?” he asked.
Jimmy didn’t seem surprised. Probably he had suspected that the boys had him in mind from the first. He shook his head. “I’d like the work, I guess, but I don’t suppose you could pay me enough to make it worth my while, fellows. You see, I get three-eighty a day at the shop.”
Tom sighed. “We were afraid that would be it,” he said. “You see, the best we could pay would be——” he looked questioningly at Willard.
“Twenty a week,” supplied the latter. Tom stared. They had agreed the day before that they couldn’t afford to pay more than fifteen! Jimmy shot a look of surprise at Willard.