‘How’s the pile, Grizzly?’ asked Lucius irrelevantly.
‘It’s growing, sonny; it’s growing. It ain’t the wuth of a gold mine yet; but it’s coming along. War ye wanting a trifle, maybe?’
‘Who, me?’ answered Lucius loftily. ‘I should say not. I’ve got plenty.’ He rattled the money in his pocket as he spoke. ‘But I say, Grizzly, when do you think it will be big enough to let you go to college?’
Ephraim’s eyes glistened. ‘Maybe two years,’ he replied; ‘that is, ef trade keeps steady. It seems a long time, don’t it? But it’s a little while when ye reckon I’ve worked and waited five years for’t already.’
Lucius looked at him admiringly. ‘You’ll do big things yet, if only you get the chance, Grizzly,’ he said. ‘And if you weren’t so mighty proud, you could have had the chance long ago. Father would give me the money for you, if you’d let me ask him. I know he would.’
‘No, Luce,’ returned Ephraim, laying a hairy paw affectionately on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I know ye’d do it and willin’, jest ez I’d give you the best I had; but I med up my mind long ago thet ef I couldn’t work it out myself I wouldn’t be wuth no one’s workin’ it out for me, and thet’s the fact. It’ll come in time, I know thet. And besides I’m used to waitin’.’ He sighed, though, as he said it.
‘It does seem a shame,’ burst out Lucius, ‘that a great empty-headed noodle like me should have more money than he knows what to do with, while a clever, enterprising fellow like you, with a brain full of notions, should be kept back because you haven’t got any. I’——
‘Oh, shet yer head, Luce,’ interrupted Ephraim good-humouredly. ‘Ef I war all ye make me out ter be, I’d hev been thar long ago, dollars or no dollars. Maybe it’s best as it is,’ he concluded; ‘for ef I war ready ter go now, I reckon this old war would come in the way of it.’
‘Pooh! the war,’ ejaculated Lucius contemptuously. ‘I tell you there’s going to be no war. Father says there’ll be a battle likely—just one, and that will settle the Yankees and their bounce for good and all.’
‘Maybe,’ nodded Ephraim. ‘We’re going ter see.’