“Good!” exclaimed Duncan.
“Well, it knocked the old man clean off his feet,” Pole went on. “He sat down in his chair again, all of a tremble an’ white about the mouth. Stingy people git scared to death at the very idea o’ payin’ out money, anyway, an’ stingy don’t fit that old cuss. Ef Noah Webster had known him he’d ’a’ made another word fer that meanin’. I don’t know but he’d simply ’a’ spelled out the old man’s name an’ ’a’ been done with it.”
“What answer did Mayhew give the young man, Baker?” asked the planter in a tone which indicated no little interest.
“Why, he jest set still for awhile,” said Pole, “an’ me an’ Joe Peters was a-wonderin’ what he’d say. He never did do anything sudden. Ef he ever gits thar he’ll feel his way through heaven’s gate. I seed ’im keep a woman standin’ in the store once from breakfast to dinner-time while he was lookin’ fer a paper o’ needles she’d called fer. Every now an’ then he’d quit huntin’ fer the needles an’ go an’ wait on some other customer, an’ then come back to ’er. She was a timid sort o’ thing, an’ didn’t seem to think she had the right to leave, bein’ as she had started the search. Whenever she’d go towards the door to see ef her hoss was standin’, he’d call ’er back an’ ax ’er about ’er crap an’ tell ’er not to be in a hurry—that Rome wasn’t built in a day, an’ the like. You know the old cuss has some education. Finally he found the needles an’ tuck another half an hour to select a scrap o’ paper little enough to wrap ’em up in. But you axed me what Mayhew said to ’im. You bet the boy was too good a trader to push a matter like that to a head. He’d throwed down the bars, an’ he jest waited fer the old man to go through of his own accord. Finally Mayhew axed, as indifferent as he could under all his excitement, ‘When do you intend to answer the letter you say you got from Moore & Trotter?’
“‘I’ve already answered it,’ Nelson said. ‘I told ’em I appreciated the’r offer an’ would run over an’ see ’em day after tomorrow.’”
“Good, very well said, Baker!” laughed Captain Duncan. “No wonder the young man’s become rich. You can’t keep talent like that down. But what did old Mayhew say?”
“It was like pullin’ eye-teeth,” answered Pole, “but he finally come across. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I reckon you kin make yorese’f as useful to me as you kin to them, an’ ef you are bent on ridin’ me to death, after I picked you up an’ give you a start an’ l’arnt you how to do business, I reckon I’ll have to put up with it.’
“‘I don’t feel like I owe you anything,’ said Nelson as plucky as a banker demandin’ good security on a loan. ‘I’ve worked for you like a slave for three years for my bare livin’ an’ my experience, an’ from now on I am goin’ to work for Number One. I said that I’d stay for fifty dollars a month on certain conditions.’
“‘Conditions?’ the old man growled. ‘What conditions do you mean?’
“‘Why, it’s jest this,’ said Nelson. ‘I’ve had my feelin’s, an’ the feelin’s o’ my friends, hurt time after time by you turnin’ folks off without credit when I knowed they would meet the’r obligations. Now, ef I stay with you it is with the distinct understandin’ that I have the authority to give or refuse credit whenever I see fit.’