There was little change in his condition until after midnight, when he gradually grew weaker and weaker, and finally died just before daylight.
Although Dick had met him so strangely only a couple of days before, his death affected the boy greatly for the time being.
He felt as though he had lost a good friend that he had known for many years.
A simple funeral from Farmer Haywood’s to the nearby churchyard wound up the life history of Hiram Bond, and the day following Dick Armstrong drove his suddenly acquired property into the streets of Albany.
He had an idea that by visiting the various hotels in the city he might dispose of his apples to good advantage and with more profit than if he did business with a commission merchant.
His plan was successful, largely because the stewards of the places he visited happened to be running out of the fruit and because his apples were uncommonly fine and quite scarce in the market.
As a consequence he obtained an average of about $2.60 a bushel for them, and when he put his team up at the place where Hiram Bond had been accustomed to keep it he was in possession of bills and silver to the amount of $120, which included the money he had brought away from his former home at Cobham’s Corner.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH DICK TAKES A PARTNER, AND THE FIRM WINDS UP THE APPLE SPECULATION.
Late that afternoon Dick Armstrong, feeling all the importance of a small capitalist, started out to locate the canal-boat Minnehaha.