Tommy rubbed out the sign, “T. Bangs & Co.”
Nat had been very proud of the “Co.,” and had hunted eggs
industriously, kept his accounts all straight, and had added a good
sum to his income from the sale of his share of stock in trade.
“O Tom! must you?” he said, feeling that his good name was gone
for ever in the business world if this was done.
“I must,” returned Tommy, firmly. “Emil says that when one man
‘bezzles (believe that’s the word it means to take money and cut
away with it) the property of a firm, the other one sues him, or
pitches into him somehow, and won’t have any thing more to do
with him. Now you have ‘bezzled my property; I shan’t sue you,
and I shan’t pitch into you, but I must dissolve the partnership,
because I can’t trust you, and I don’t wish to fail.”
“I can’t make you believe me, and you won’t take my money,
though I’d be thankful to give all my dollars if you’d only say you
don’t think I took your money. Do let me hunt for you, I won’t ask
any wages, but do it for nothing. I know all the places, and I like
it,” pleaded Nat.
But Tommy shook his head, and his jolly round face looked
suspicious and hard as he said, shortly, “Can’t do it; wish you didn’t
know the places. Mind you don’t go hunting on the sly, and
speculate in my eggs.”
Poor Nat was so hurt that he could not get over it. He felt that he
had lost not only his partner and patron, but that he was bankrupt
in honor, and an outlaw from the business community. No one
trusted his word, written or spoken, in spite of his efforts to
redeem the past falsehood; the sign was down, the firm broken up,
and he a ruined man. The barn, which was the boys’ Wall Street,
knew him no more. Cockletop and her sisters cackled for him in
vain, and really seemed to take his misfortune to heart, for eggs
were fewer, and some of the biddies retired in disgust to new nests,
which Tommy could not find.
“They trust me,” said Nat, when he heard of it; and though the boys
shouted at the idea, Nat found comfort in it, for when one is down
in the world, the confidence of even a speckled hen is most
consoling.
Tommy took no new partner, however, for distrust had entered in,
and poisoned the peace of his once confiding soul. Ned offered to
join him, but he declined, saying, with a sense of justice that did
him honor,
“It might turn out that Nat didn’t take my money, and then we
could be partners again. I don’t think it will happen, but I will give
him a chance, and keep the place open a little longer.”
Billy was the only person whom Bangs felt he could trust in his
shop, and Billy was trained to hunt eggs, and hand them over
unbroken, being quite satisfied with an apple or a sugar-plum for
wages. The morning after Dan’s gloomy Sunday, Billy said to his
employer, as he displayed the results of a long hunt,
“Only two.”
“It gets worse and worse; I never saw such provoking old hens,”
growled Tommy, thinking of the days when he often had six to
rejoice over. “Well, put ’em in my hat and give me a new bit of
chalk; I must mark ’em up, any way.”
Billy mounted a peck-measure, and looked into the top of the
machine, where Tommy kept his writing materials.
“There’s lots of money in here,” said Billy.
“No, there isn’t. Catch me leaving my cash round again,” returned
Tommy.
“I see ’em one, four, eight, two dollars,” persisted Billy, who had
not yet mastered the figures correctly.
“What a jack you are!” and Tommy hopped up to get the chalk for
himself, but nearly tumbled down again, for there actually were
four bright quarters in a row, with a bit of paper on them directed
to “Tom Bangs,” that there might be no mistake.
“Thunder turtles!” cried Tommy, and seizing them he dashed into