"I know how I can make considerable loose change," replied the country boy. "If it wasn't so near winter I could clear twenty-five dollars easy, and that'd pay some of the interest."

"How could you make twenty-five dollars?" asked Roger.

"I'll show you to-morrow. There goes the supper horn," and the two boys hurried into the house.

If Roger expected the bad news to have any immediate effect on life at his uncle's house, he was agreeably disappointed. He looked at the table closely to see if there had been any change made in the quality or quant.i.ty of the food, but the board seemed more bountifully spread than ever. There were meat and potatoes, a big plate of salt-rising bread, a large pat of sweet golden b.u.t.ter, cakes, cookies, preserves, cheese, and some dark brown buckwheat honey, enough for a dozen hungry boys. Then Roger felt his heart a little lighter when he saw there was no need to put the household on short rations. Adrian too, appeared relieved when he saw the well-spread table, and he gazed on it with a feeling of thankfulness that things were not as bad as they might have been.

Under other circ.u.mstances there might have been a more cheerful party gathered around the board, but then it is hard to be light-hearted when trouble is in the air and when there are worries to be met. However, Mr.

Kimball did his best to shake off the feeling of gloom, and he really succeeded so well that, before the meal was over, he had Roger laughing at his recital of some of the queer doings of the people of Cardiff.

After supper, which was not finished until rather later than usual, Mr.

Kimball busied himself with various papers and account books. Roger and Adrian feeling tired from their day's tramp went to bed, where, in spite of the memory of the trouble hanging over the house, they slept soundly.

In the morning Mr. Kimball went to Syracuse by the early stage, and as the hired man had to take a load of grapes to the city, the two boys were left with the farm to themselves. There were a few ch.o.r.es to do, which they made short work of, and then Adrian, taking a large bag from the barn, started off across the fields.

"Where to now?" asked Roger.

"I told you I'd show you how to make a little money, didn't I?" said Adrian. "This is one of the ways. I used to do it when I was a small chap, but lately I haven't had much chance, so now I'm going to start in again."

"What are you going to do?"

"Gather bones."

"Bones?"

"Yes, bones."

Roger thought his cousin was joking, but a look at the face of the country lad convinced the city boy there was a serious purpose back of the words.

"You see it's this way," explained Adrian. "Bones are good to make fertilizer of, and there's a factory over to Tully where they buy 'em.

They pay half a cent a pound, and farmers that have lots of bones around send 'em to the factory. But there's plenty of bones lying around loose in the fields, and at the back doors of houses. When I was about ten years old, me and Chot Ramsey used to make a half dollar, easy, gathering up the old bones and selling 'em when the collecting wagon came from Tully. That's what I'm going to do now. But I'm going to do it different. I know a number of women folks that'll save their meat bones for me if I ask 'em, and I'm going to. Besides collecting all I can lying around loose, you see I'll have a sort of private supply to collect from. But maybe you don't want to come along. It's not much fun, but it's not dirty, for the bones are all clean ones."

"Of course I'll come along and help," said Roger. "Didn't I say I would?"

It was rather a novel idea, this one of Adrian's, so Roger thought. But plenty of country boys know the value of bones, though they may never have taken the trouble to collect and sell them. Roger and Adrian started off over the fields. The country lad seemed to know just where to go, and, before proceeding far, he had come across several big beef bones, clean and white.

They were tossed into the bag which the boys carried between them, slung on a long pole. They visited several back-yards of houses, where Adrian knew the people, and, when he had collected all the bones in sight, he asked the women if they wouldn't save any more they might have, as he would be around again in a week. Most of them promised, for they liked the boy, who had often done favors for them.

"Just throw 'em in one place always, and I can gather 'em up every week," said Adrian, at house after house.

Good luck seemed to be with the boys, for they found more bones than ever Adrian had hoped for. The bag got so heavy they could hardly carry it, and so were forced to make a trip back to the house, to get rid of the load.

"We must have fifty pounds there," reckoned Adrian, proudly, as he piled the contents of the bag in a heap back of the barn, "and there's fifty more we can get to-day. Not bad for a start, eh, Roger? One hundred pounds of fertilizer. That's fifty cents."

"I call it fine," said Roger. "But of course we can't expect to do as well as this every day."

"No, we'll have to tramp farther for our next hundred pounds," agreed Adrian, as they started off on their second trip.

They went over the fields and roads. The bag was almost full a second time when Adrian, who had picked up a smooth, round stone to throw, stopped short as it fell in the midst of some corn stubble, with a resounding clang.

"That hit something," he declared, as he set off on a run, much to the surprise of Roger. "Hurrah! I thought so," shouted Adrian a second later, as he stooped over where he had seen the stone fall. He held up to view a battered old wash-boiler.

"What good is that?" asked Roger.

"Good? Why, can't you see it has a copper bottom. Copper brings fifteen cents a pound from the junk man, and there's three pounds here."

He caught up a heavy sharp rock and soon had cut and hammered the bottom off the boiler, the upper part of which was of tin. The copper he beat up into a compact ma.s.s and placed it in the bag with the bones. Then having a pretty good load, the boys started home. On the way Adrian came across a large bottle, which he picked up.

"I wish I knew where there were a lot of these," he remarked.

"Why?" asked Roger.

"'Cause George Bennett gives three cents apiece for large ones like this. We must keep our eyes peeled for 'em as we go along."

And they did, but they found no more that day.

"Let's see," said Adrian, as they were washing up for dinner. "A hundred pounds of bones is fifty cents, and we'll reckon forty cents for the copper. With three cents for the bottle, that makes ninety-three cents for the morning. My half is forty-six and a half cents; not bad for a starter, eh?"

"Well, I guess you're a little wrong in the figuring," said Roger.

"How so?"

"Why, it's all yours. I won't take half. I'm only helping you in this. I don't want any share."

"But you've got to take it."

"Well, I won't. It's all going into a general fund to help pay that mortgage," said Roger, stoutly. "Probably we'll not get an awful lot, but every little helps, and your father is going to have all my share."

"Well--well," began Adrian, somewhat affected by his cousin's offer, but what he would have said was never known, for the dinner horn blew just then, and the boys were so hungry they forgot everything else save their appet.i.tes.

In the afternoon they picked more grapes, and neither of them suggested stopping to rest or play. The fascination of business was on them, and they seemed to have taken the responsibility of wanting to do all they could.

"Might as well get a lot picked," suggested Adrian, as he and Roger snipped away at the big bunches, "then dad can hurry to the city with them while the price is high;" and they gathered the fruit as long as they could see.

When Mr. Kimball returned home from the city that night he seemed to feel a little easier than when he left. He told his wife, and the boys overheard him, that he had succeeded in getting a delay of the mortgage foreclosure until May first, and that would give him several months to try to get the money together. True, it seemed but a respite, for there was not much chance of his securing the cash, he said, since later news of the failure of the railroad shares only confirmed the first report, that they were gone beyond hope of ever getting anything from them. But for all that, Mr. Kimball was hopeful. There was not much chance of using the money he would get from the present crops, as that would be needed for ordinary household expenses. Nevertheless the farmer found a chance to laugh a little, and he was greatly pleased and touched when he learned what the boys had done.

"We must hurry 'n' git th' rest a' th' grapes picked to-morrow," he said. "Cold spell's a-comin', 'n' a frost'll nip 'em so they won't sell.

My! But I'm hungry, though, mother. Hungry's a b'ar. So we'll hev supper, 'n' talk arterwards."

The meal progressed more pleasantly than the one of the night before, and when it was over and the dishes and ch.o.r.es were done, they all took their chairs in the "settin' room," as Mrs. Kimball called it. There Clara played the organ, and the boys sang songs and hymns until it was time to go to bed. Roger was tired with the day's experience, and he was anxious, too, about his uncle. But this did not prevent him from sleeping, and he dropped off, feeling that busy and exciting as his life in the country had been, it had already done him good. But there were more lively times ahead of him.

CHAPTER XII

JACK FROST

Roger had been at his uncle's a week when he received a second letter from home. It told him all the folks were well and were hoping he was improving in health. He answered it as soon as he had read it, for beyond the short note he had sent off telling of his safe arrival, he had not yet written much to his mother. So in this second letter he related all of his experiences since coming to Cardiff, from the wrestling match to the adventure with the wild-cat and his partnership with his cousin in the old bone and copper business.