“That knocked the old man off his perch agin. He wilted an’ sat thar as limp as a dish-rag. Joe Peters worships the ground Nelson walks on, an’ as ’feard as he was o’ the old man, he busted out in a big chuckle, an’ rubbed his hands together. Besides he knowed the boy was talkin’ fer the interest o’ the business. He’d seed no end o’ good customers sent off fer no reason in the world than that Mayhew was scared o’ his shadow.
“‘I’ll never consent to that!’ Mayhew said, mighty nigh clean whipped out.
“‘Well, Moore & Trotter will,’ Nelson said. ‘That’s one o’ the things laid down in the’r proposition.’ An’ the boy went to the desk an’ drawed out a sheet o’ paper an’ dipped his pen in the ink. The old man set quivering awhile, an’ then got up an’ went an’ stood behind the boy. ‘Put down yore pen,’ said he, with a sigh from away down inside of ’im. ‘It would ruin me fer you to go to Darley—half the trade would follow you. Go ahead; I’ll keep you an’ run the risk.’”
The planter had been listening attentively, and he now said admiringly: “Even at that early age the boy was showing what developed later. It wasn’t long after that before he became the old man’s partner, I believe.”
“The next year,” answered Pole. “He saved every dollar of his wages, and made some good investments that turned out money. It wasn’t a big slice of the business at fust, but he now owns a half, an’, countin’ his outside interests, he’s wuth a great deal more than old Mayhew. He’s rich already, Captain.”
“So I’ve heard the women say,” smiled the planter. “Women always keep track of well-to-do unmarried men.”
“It hain’t spiled Nelson one bit, though,” added Baker. “He’s the same unselfish friend to me as he ever was, and I hain’t hardly got a roof to cover me an’ mine. But, as solid as he always was, he had a serious back-set about three years ago, and all his well-wishers thought it was goin’ to do him up.”
“You mean when he took to drinking,” said Captain Duncan interrogatively.
“Yes, that’s what I mean. He’d formed the habit when he was a boy, and, along with his prosperity an’ late work hours, it begun to fasten its claws on ’im like it has on some other folks I know, Captain. He had a lot o’ night work to do, an’ Thigpen’s bar was right j’inin’ the store. Nelson used to slide in at the back door whenever the notion struck ’im, and he made the trail hot, I tell you. Old Mayhew kept a sharp eye on ’im, an’ ever’ now and then he’d git powerful blue over the way things was a-goin’. Finally the old cuss got desperate an’ called a halt. He had a straight talk with Nelson, an’ told ’im they would have to divide the’r interests, that he wasn’t a drinkin’ man hisse’f, an’ he didn’t want to be yoked to one that was soaked half the time. It fetched the boy to his senses. He come over to my house that night an’ called me out to the fence.
“‘I want to make a deal with you, Pole,’ said he.