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It will only take you about four days to build the wall, and at one-fifty per day, that will be six dollars, twice your week's wages right there, and almost enough to pay what you owe me." "I am afraid it can't be done, Snavely; the company might not like it; you see, I would be competing with them, that's their line." "They wouldn't handle so small a job. You know that, Cadge."
She had seen him depart thus before, and remembered how much easier it was that month to feed four mouths instead of five. Besides, the exercise on the rock pile would do him good, poor man. A night-watchman's position was so confining. Mr. Snavely had driven up to the curb, and the Widow Pipkin ran out all of a flutter. They sympathetically related to Mrs.
Job Snavely dealt in groceries and vegetables. The details regarding the work were furnished with cheerful alacrity, the tradesman going so far as to accompany his protegé to the home of their patron, Mrs. Pipkin, a withered little lady who lived with her cats on the bank of the creek. The work to be performed demanded more brawn than brain and no vast amount of either.
Cadge, he was willing to allow him to take his own time and agreed to pay six dollars when the wall should be completed. Mr. Cadge waxed indignant and very voluble, while Mr. Snavely was a mild man of few words; but the simple laborer was no match for a man who made his living by small chaffering.
"Really, I don't know whether I ought to pay you," replied Widow Pipkin when she finally answered his last, desperate ring. "Mr. Snavely made the bargain, and I should like to have him see the work before settling with you." She jingled some silver in her plump chain purse as she spoke. Aha, the widow had deceived him!
Snavely, on the contrary, after looking over the ground declared that four days' steady work would build a wall running the entire length of the widow's lot. Furthermore, that a dollar and a quarter a day was fair wages for such employment, while laborers would scramble for the job at a dollar and a half. As a concession to Mr.
Cadge the events of the morning which had led to her husband's arrest. "And there was only an hour's work to be done on the job," said Mr. Snavely judicially. "I would gladly pay six dollars cash to have it just as it was this morning," added the tremulous Widow Pipkin, "and I'd make it ten if it were done as Mr. Snavely says."
"I'll 'ave the six dollars for my work, or I'll 'ave the lor on you," he concluded. The amiable but tactless Snavely saw a happy solution of the problem. "Never mind, Mrs. Pipkin," he said, "there shall be no lawsuit. You pay me the six dollars, and I will write Cadge a receipt for the seven dollars he owes me. I lose a dollar that way, to be sure, but then it is just the same as finding six."
Cadge, shortly, "I likes people wot knows when to 'old their tongues." "Very true, very true!" amiably replied Mr. Snavely, "but for all that, there is nothing sweeter than the artless babble of babes; I declare it almost brought the tears to my eyes when I heard them prattling, 'Everybody works but father, it is so very, very appro " Mr.
"No, no, Snavely, it wouldn't do," he said. "I can see that it would interfere with my present h'occupation, and I can't afford to risk losing this 'ere job. Supposin' my family was to be turned out of doors!" "Nonsense!
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