At this moment Mr. Stimpcett came forward and said to grandma that three gentlemen had come, one after another, and had each asked to have a private talk with her. There was a large fleshy man in the front room, a chubby little man in the kitchen, and a sleek, long-faced man in the spare chamber.
Grandma talked with these, one at a time. They were all medicine sellers. Each one wished to buy the recipe for making the Sudden Remedy, and would pay a good price for it. For they knew that thousands and thousands of barrels of this Remedy could be sold all over the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Central America, and enormous sums of money made by the sale.
The summer boarder, Mr. St. Clair, said that the man who would pay the most money for it ought to have the recipe. Grandma brought from her trunk the small, leathery, beady bag which contained the recipe, and Mr. St. Clair stood in the vehicle, held up the bag, and said: "Bid! gentlemen, bid! How much do I have for it?"
The bidding was interrupted by a Jumper. It was a circus Jumper, but not the Chief Jumper. While the people were all looking at Mr. St. Clair, a monkey sprang from the meal bag underneath the vehicle and jumped upon grandma's shoulder, nearly knocking her over. It was the same one she had cured. On account of his lameness, he had been loosely tied, and from a feeling of thankfulness, no doubt, for being cured, he had run away and followed grandma.
The Stimpcett children—Moses, Obadiah, Deborah, and little Cordelia—shouted and capered so that the selling of the recipe could hardly go on; but at last it was sold, leathery, beady bag and all, to the sleek, long-faced man, for nine hundred dollars, of which grandma gave five hundred to Mr. Stimpcett, according to the promise she made before going to mill.
THE TWO-CENT SIDE-SHOW.
The circus people were written to, but as they did not send for Jacko, he was kept for the children, to play with. Mrs. Stimpcett dressed him in a pretty suit of clothes, with a cap and feather on his head. He showed much affection for grandma, followed her about daytimes both in-doors and out, and would sleep nowhere at night but at the foot of her bed, where a bandbox was at last placed for him. The children loved him dearly; but poor Jacko did so much mischief in trying to knit, and to cook, and to weed the garden, that it was finally declared that something must be done about that monkey; and grandma gave him to Lorenzo, with money enough to buy a grand harmonica.
Lorenzo came for the monkey toward the close of a calm summer's day, and fed him with frosted cake, which caused him to feel pleased with Lorenzo. There was a string fastened to his collar; Lorenzo took the string in one hand, and some frosted cake in the other, and led Jacko away. The children—Moses, and Obadiah, and Deborah, and little Cordelia—following on for quite a distance, all weeping.
Lorenzo went about for some time with a circus company. Evenings he staid inside the big tent to see the doings, and daytimes he had a two-cent side-show in a small tent of his own, where the monkey played wonderful tricks, and marched to the music of the grand harmonica.