"Well--"

The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, looked again at a package of letters she had been handling.

"Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Beg pardon."

"All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since I have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."

Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away.

"Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seem to know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."

He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed.

"James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned to the first line and began to read:--

"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school cla.s.s when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and be my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks.

One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promised to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he may come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"

Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, and springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up there!"

"Jimmy" was urged at an unusual rate over the road, and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears in astonishment as his master cried, "Faster, faster!"

"There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "just what I wanted has happened."

"What is that?" replied Mrs. Fletcher.

"Read this, mother, and you will see."

"For three months, Dave, and perhaps no longer, it means."

"Oh, well, it will be a stepping-stone to something, if I have to leave it. Just get started in Shipton and I can go it."

"But you haven't read about the pay, Dave."

"Well, mother, the fact is I like the place--I mean Shipton. I love to be near the salt water and where I can see the ships--"

"And the lighthouse--"

"Yes."

"And May Tolman," sang out a voice from the adjoining sitting-room, and Annie Fletcher appeared at the kitchen door, asking, "How is it, Dave?"

Dave felt it to be the wisest course to keep still and blush.

In a few days he was ready to start for Shipton. He called one evening to see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started for Shipton.

On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman, Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life was beginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before James Tolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packed with all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one opened the door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the most thorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coils of rope of every size ranged on either side of the pa.s.sage-way. There were capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were all kinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There were compa.s.ses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives, and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormy days, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in the river had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to him as if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits of sailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddled forward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried in ringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dusty beams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an old Shipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, entering the shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round Cape Horn or in the Bay of Biscay.

"I believe I am cut out for this business," said Dave.

His former Shipton acquaintances were glad to see him back. d.i.c.k Pray for six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He now came to bring his congratulations to Dave.

"Glad to see you, Dave," he said.

"Thanks, d.i.c.k. How is business?"

"Oh, booming! booming!"

All business that d.i.c.k's magnificent abilities came in contact with either had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. No tame word was fit to describe d.i.c.k's business ventures.

And the boy who came shyly, timidly after d.i.c.k was--Bart Trafton.

"You well, Bartie?" asked Dave.

"Oh, better!"

"Why?"

"Because you've got back," said the caller, with snapping eyes.

"That's encouraging. And granny, is she well?"

"Oh yes, when--"

He did not finish. If he had completed his sentence, he would have said "when father isn't at home."

The same day two other people were in the shop whom Dave had met previously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stood before the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closely m.u.f.fled about the face, for the day was one of cold blasts of storm.

"I want a good ship's lantern," said the customer.

"Yes, sir," replied Dave, ranging before the man an array of lantern goods.

"You have come to be clerk?" asked the man.

Dave looked up more carefully, and saw that the man wore spectacles.

"Yes, sir," replied Dave.

The man inquired the price of the lanterns, selected one, and went out.

"Halloo! he has given me twopence too much!" exclaimed Dave.

"That doesn't matter," said a man who was watching through a window in the door the storm driving without.

"Oh yes, it does," murmured Dave.--"Johnny!" he called aloud to a younger clerk in the counting-room, "just look after things a moment while I go out."

Johnny came out into the shop, and Dave seized his cap and ran after the customer. The latter was a fast walker, and was hurrying round a corner of the street when Dave overtook him.