“Jest about as friendly as two men can be,” said Pole, “when one's rising in the world an' t'other is eternally at a stand-still or goin' down like a round rock on the side of a mountain. Or maybe I ought to say, when one of 'em has had the pluck to educate hisse'f, an' t'other hardly knows B from a bull's foot. I don't know, captain, why Nelson Floyd's friendly to me. I like him beca'se he is a man from his toe-nails to the end o' the longest hair on his head.”
“I've heard a lot of good things about him,” remarked the planter, “and I understand, too, that he has his faults.”
“They're part of his manhood,” said Pole, philosophically. “Show me a feller without faults, and I'll show you one that's too weak to have 'em. Nelson's got some o' the dust o' the broad road on his coat, an' yet I'd take his place in the general stampede when old Gabe blows his trumpet at the millennium a sight quicker than I'd stand in the shoes o' some o' these jack-leg preachers. I tell you, Captain Duncan, ef the Lord's goin' to make favorites o' some o' the long-faced hypocrits I know, that is robbin' widows an' orphans in the week an' prayin' an' shoutin' on Sunday to pull the wool over folks' eyes, me an' Him won't gee in the hereafter. You know some'n about that boy's start in life, don't you, captain?”
“Not much, I must own,” answered the planter.
“Thar it is,” said Pole, with a condemning sneer; “ef the pore boy had belonged to one o' the big families in yore ring out in Murray—the high an' mighty, that owned niggers, you'd 'a' heard all about him. Captain, nobody on earth knows how that feller has suffered. All his life he's wanted to make some'n of hisse'f, an' has absolutely, to my certain knowledge, had more to contend with than any man alive. He don't even know the exact date of his birth, an' ain't plumb-sure that his name really is Floyd. You see, jest at the close of the war a woman—so sick she could hardly walk—come through the Union lines in East-Tennessee with a baby in her arms. Accordin' to report, she claimed that her name was Floyd, an' called the baby 'Nelson.' She put up at a mountain cabin for the night, a shack whar some pore razor-back whites lived by name o' Perdue. Old man Perdue was a lyin', treacherous scamp, a bushwhacker and a mountain outlaw, an' his wife was a good mate to him. Nelson's mammy, as I say, was tuck in, but thar wasn't no doctor nigh, an' very little to eat, an' the next mornin' she was ravin' out of her head, and late that day she died. I'm tellin' you now all that Nelson Floyd ever was able to find out, as it come down to him from one person's recollection to another's. Well, the woman was buried somers, nobody knows whar, an' old Mrs. Perdue kept the baby more beca'se she was afeard to put it out o' the way than fer any pity fer it. She had a whole litter of brats of her own goin' about winter an' summer in the'r shirt-tails, an' so she left Nelson to scratch fer hisself. Then the authorities made it hot fer Perdue on some charges agin 'im, and he left the child with another mountain family by name o' Scott and moved clean out of the country. The Scotts couldn't remember much more than hearsay about how Nelson got thar, an' they didn't care, though they tried to raise the boy along with three of their own. He had a tough time of it, for he was a plucky little devil, and had a fight with somebody mighty nigh every day. And as he growed up he naturally fell into bad company, or it fell into him like everything else did, an' he tuck to drinkin' an' finally become a regular young outlaw; he was a bloodthirsty rowdy before he was fifteen; shot at one man fer some cause or other an' barely escaped bein' put up fer life—nothin' but bein' so young got 'im off. But one day—now I'm givin' it to you jest as Nelson told me—one day he said he got to thinkin' about the way he was a-goin', and all of his own accord he made up his mind to call a halt. He wanted to cut clean off from his old set, an' so he went to Mayhew, at Springtown, and told him he wanted to git work in the store. Old Mayhew would skin a flea fer its hide an' tallow, an', seein' his money in the boy, he bound 'im to an agreement to work fer his bare board an' clothes fer three years.”
“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. Old 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 begun to flock around 'im from all directions, an' the business of the house was more than doubled. 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 sech 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 of a lifetime to git rich, and 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 there but was then workin' on trial. I shall never forget that night as long as I live. I gloried in Nelson'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,' the boy said. 'Our contract is out today, and you and 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'd been 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.