“Low enough wages, certainly!” exclaimed the planter.
“Yes, but Nelson didn’t grumble, and Mayhew will tell you hisself that thar never was sech a worker sence the world was made. He was a general hand at ever’thing, and as bright as a new dollar and as quick as a steel trap. The Lord only knows when or how he did it, fer nobody ever seed a book in his hands in business hours, but he l’arned to read and write and figure. An’ that wasn’t all. Mayhew was sech an old skinflint, and so hard on folks who got in his debt, that nobody traded at his shebang except them that couldn’t go anywhars else; but lo and behold! Nelson made so many friends that they flocked around ’im from all directions an’ the business of the house was more than doubled at a jump. Mayhew knowed the cause of it, fer lots o’ customers throwed it up to ’im. The prosperity was almost too much fer the old skunk; in fact, he got mighty nigh scared at it and actually tried to dam the stream o’ profit. To keep up such a business big credit had to be extended, and it was a new venture fer the cautious old scamp. But Nelson had perfect faith in all his friends, and thar it stood—a beardless boy holdin’ forth that it was the old man’s chance fer a lifetime to git rich, and old Mayhew half believin’ it, crazy to act on Nelson’s judgment, an’ yet afraid it would be ruination. That was at the close of the boy’s three-year contract. He was then about twenty year old, and I was in the store and heard the talk between ’em. We was all a-settin’ at the big wood stove in the back end, me an’ the old man, an’ Nelson and Joe Peters, a clerk, who is still with the firm. I shall never forgit that night as long as I live. I gloried in the boy’s spunk to sech an extent I could ’a’ throwed up my hat an’ hollered.
“‘I’ve been waitin’ to have a talk with you, Mr. Mayhew,’ Nelson said. ‘Our contract is out today, and you an’ me disagree so much about runnin’ the business that I hardly know what I ought to do an’ not stand in my own light. We’ve got to make a fresh contract anyway.’
“‘I knowed that was comin’,’ old Mayhew said, with one o’ his big, hoggish grunts. ‘People for miles around have made it the’r particular business to fill you up with ideas about what you are wuth. I’ve thought some about lettin’ you go an’ see ef me an’ Joe cayn’t keep things a-movin’, but you know the trade round here, an’ I want to do the fair thing. What do you think yore time’s wuth?’” Pole laughed. “The old skunk was usin’ exactly the same words he’d ’a’ used ef he was startin’ in to buy a load o’ produce an’ wanted to kill expectation at the outset.
“‘I want fifty dollars a month, under certain conditions,’ the boy said, lookin’ the old skinflint straight in the eye.
“‘Fifty—huh! yo’re crazy, stark’ starin’ crazy—plumb off yore base!’ the old man said, his lip twisted up like it is when he’s mad. ‘I see myse’f payin’ a beardless boy a Broadway salary to work in a shack like this out here in the mountains.’
“‘Well, I’ll jest be obliged to quit you then,’ Nelson said as steady as a millpond on a hot day in August, ’an’ I’d sorter hate to do it. Moore & Trotter, at Darley, offer me that fer the fust six months, with an increase later.’
“‘Moore & Trotter!’ the old skunk grunted loud enough to be heard clean to the court-house. They was the only firm in this end o’ the state that controlled as much custom as Mayhew did, an’ it struck the old chap under the ribs. He got up from his chair an’ walked clean down to the front door. It was shet an’ locked, but thar was a lamp on the show-case nigh whar he stopped, an’ I could see his old face a-workin’ under the influence o’ good an’ evil. Purty soon he grunted, an’ come back, thumpin’ his old stick agin barrels an’ boxes along the way.
“‘How am I goin’ to know whether they offered you that much or not?’ he axed.
“‘Beca’se I said so,’ Nelson told ’im, an’ his dark eyes was flashin’ like lightnin’. He stood up an’ faced the old codger. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Mayhew,’ he let fly at ’im, ’ef you don’t know whether I’m tellin’ the truth or not you’d better let me go, fer a man that will lie will steal. I say they offered me fifty dollars. I’ve got the’r written proposition in my pocket, but I’ll be hanged ef I show it to you.’”