Round the Block Part 10

CHAPTER III.

AN AUXILIARY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.

The boy Bog rapped, and entered. He was more neatly dressed than when Marcus saw him on the occasion of his first visit. His patched and threadbare coat was replaced by a neat roundabout jacket; his greasy, visorless cap, by a flat felt hat, of which the brim was symmetrically turned up; his tattered shoes by great cowhide boots. The boy was of that age when the human frame grows with vegetable-like rapidity; and he seemed to hare increased a little all around within three weeks.

The boy looked distressingly awkward in his new articles of attire. Had he stolen them, he could not have appeared more guilty in presence of the rightful owner.

"Why, Bog!" said Mr. Minford, reproachfully; "where have you been these three weeks? Not called to see us once!"

The boy's confusion increased at this unexpected salutation, and he hung down his head at the threshold of the door. Mr. Minford partly rea.s.sured his bashful visitor, by springing forward, shaking him heartily by the hand, and saying, with earnestness, "My good lad, I am always glad to see you." Pet was also by his side in an instant, and warmly shaking the other hand. "You look real nice, Bog," said she. Mr. Wilkeson also came forward, and said, "Don't you remember me, Bog?" and clasped him by the right hand when the inventor had relinquished It.

Bog bowed and sc.r.a.ped and blushed, and murmured "Thank you, very well,"

several times, confusedly, and at last settled down into a chair which was pushed under him by Pet. Having crossed his legs, he began to feel a little more at ease.

"You've been very busy of late, haven't you, Bog?" asked Pet, charitably antic.i.p.ating an excuse for the boy's long absence.

"You'd better believe it," replied Bog, not looking at her, but studying the pattern of his left boot. "The day after I called here last, Mr.

Fink he got a job to stick up bills for a new hair dye, all the way from here to Dunkirk, on the Erie Railroad. Well, he couldn't go, cos he had lots o' city posting, ye see; so he hires me to do it for ten dollars a week and expenses. The pay was good, he said, because the work was extry hard. The bills was to be posted on new whitewashed fences, new houses, and places generally where there was signs up telling people not to 'post no bills.'"

"That was a singular direction, Bog," said Mr. Minford.

"So I told Mr. Fink," replied the boy; "but he said as how them were the hair-dye man's orders. He said the idea was to make folks look at bills who wouldn't notice 'em if they was on a place all covered over with adv'tis.e.m.e.nts. They was to be posted up high and strong, so that the owner of the property couldn't tear 'em down easy. Mr. Fink thought the idea was a good one; but he owned it was a little risky."

"Perhaps that is why he didn't care to do it himself," suggested Marcus Wilkeson.

"Mebbe," said Bog; "but I didn't consider it no objection. I told him I was goin' to be a bill poster, and wanted to study every branch o' the business." At this point Bog hitched his chair nervously, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, as if he were conscious of trespa.s.sing on the patience of his auditors, and then went on: "Well, I hurried home, and saw that aunt didn't want for nothin', and then I started on my travels.

I should ha' called and seen you, Mr. Minford," he added, casting a side glance at the inventor, "but I hadn't time."

"No excuse necessary, my good Bog," returned Mr. Minford, kindly.

"Business before pleasure, you know. But I am anxious to hear how you got along with the job."

"Well, pooty hard," said Bog, emphatically, "though I made out to go all through the State, and stick up six thousand bills, every one on 'em on a new house, shop, or fence. Lemme see--I was chased seven times by big dogs that was set on me, shot at three times"

"Why, poor Bog!" interrupted Pet; "you wern't hurt, I hope?"

"No, Miss Minford; I wasn't hurt," answered Bog, looking her in the face for the first time since he entered the house, "though I got one through my old cap."

"I'm _so_ glad it was no worse, Bog."

These words of sympathy from the young girl fl.u.s.tered the poor boy for a minute. Then he rallied:

"Besides that, I was took up four times by the perlice, and was carried afore justices of the peace. When they asked what I had to say why I shouldn't be fined, I told 'em the whole truth about it, and they all laughed except one, and said it was really funny, and they hadn't no doubt the hair dye was a very good thing to take, but could tell better after they had tried some. I told 'em that the hair-dye man would send 'em a dozen bottles apiece. Mr. Fink had d'rected me to say this, if I was 'rested and brought afore a justice. The justices--that is, all of 'em but one--then said they didn't want to be hard on me; and as that was my first offence, they would let me go without any fine. And they did, after givin' me their names, and tellin' me to be sure to have the bottles sent on jest as soon as could be. Ye see, they were all as bald on the top o' their heads as punkins. But the fourth justice that I was took to, he wasn't bald, but had a crop o' hair like a picter; and when I offered to put down his name for a dozen bottles, he swore, and fined me five dollars for what he said was a insult to the dignity of justice, and five dollars for postin' up bills in places where it was agin the law. Mr. Fink had give me money from the hair-dye man to pay fines, as well as my board; so I didn't care. But--but I am talking too much."

Bog paused, because, on taking a stealthy observation around him, he suddenly become conscious that his three auditors were listening attentively to his story.

"Not at all, my dear Bog," said Mr. Minford. "I, for one, am curious to know how this ingenious plan of advertising, in defiance of the law, succeeded." Mr. Wilkeson expressed himself curious on the same point.

Bog, thus encouraged, continued:

"When I come home, after havin' stuck up six thousand bills in the princ.i.p.al towns and villages along the route, I went right to Mr. Fink.

He shook hands with me, and ses he, 'Bog, your fortun's made.' 'How's that?' said I. 'Why, ses he, 'you're the greatest bill poster I ever heerd of. Professor Macfuddle" (that was the hair-dye man) "ses the money has begun to pour in to him like sixty, and he is buyin' up all the hair dye in the market, and puttin' his labils on it to supply the demand. He has given me ten dollars to present to you, besides the thirty for your wages.' Mr. Fink then give me forty dollars, and ses he, 'That a'n't all; for I have so much business now, I want a pardner, and I'll take you, and give you one third of the earnin's.' I rather guess I snapped at the offer; and we is goin' into pardners.h.i.+p to-morrer."

"Success to you," said Marcus and the inventor together. They saw, in this ill.u.s.tration of his bill-posting talents, only an evidence of business shrewdness that deserved encouragement. The young girl, however, viewed it in the light of a violation of law, and therefore could not conscientiously approve of it. Bog noticed her silence, and guessed the cause.

"Thank you very much," said he; "but I forgot to say I a'n't goin' to do any more business on the Erie plan. It a'n't right. Come to think it over, I was sorry I done it; and so I told Mr. Fink; and he sed it wasn't exackly reg'lar either, and he shouldn't never ask me to do it agen."

"I am glad of that," said Pet, quietly.

Bog's eyes were instantly turned toward her with an expression of pride and grat.i.tude.

"Oh! of course, it is always best to obey the laws," observed Mr.

Minford.

"And I wouldn't for a moment be thought to advise anything else," added Marcus Wilkeson; "though I never could help admiring pluck and sharpness in business affairs."

"I am going to school again, Bog," said the young girl, hastening to change the subject of conversation.

Bog looked up, surprised and pleased.

"Mr. Wilkeson," said Mr. Minford, "has taken another small share in my invention, and pays me in advance for it. With that, Pet will finish her education." The inventor would have made this disclosure of his private affairs to no other human being but Bog; for this simple boy was the only person he had ever known (excepting Marcus Wilkeson) who had not openly ridiculed his mysterious labors.

"I am very glad to hear of it, sir," said Bog, awkwardly, but with an air of profound respect. "How--how is the _ma_sheen, sir?" Bog asked the question hurriedly, as if the machine were a sick person, whose health he had until then forgotten to inquire after.

"Getting on finely, Bog. Only two or three springs, a cog here, a ratchet here, a band at this point, and a lever up there (Mr. Minford touched portions of the machine rapidly), and then look out for a noise!"

"A noise!" repeated Bog, with juvenile earnestness.

"Not an explosion, my good fellow, but tremendous public excitement--plenty of fame, mixed with a good deal of abuse at first, and a _little_ money, I hope." The inventor's eyes flashed with the fire that Bog had often seen; and when he emphasized the word "little," Bog knew that he meant to express the boundlessness of the wealth that his labors would bring to him.

"I believe it," said Bog, with sincerity pictured in every lineament of his honest face. "I've always believed it."

"So you have, my dear Bog; and your faith has often cheered me," replied the inventor, patronizingly. "By the way, how's your aunt?"

"Oh, yes; how _is_ your aunt, Bog?" asked Pet. "I had quite forgotten her."

"She's pooty well, ony them rheumatics troubles her some. They're workin' their way from her left arm into her head, aunt says. Week afore last they was in her feet, and they've ben clear round her and goin'

back agen since then. Queer things, them rheumatics!"

"They are very painful, Bog, you know," said Pet.

"Yes; so aunt says." Bog did not add, as he might have truly done, "A thousand times a day."

"Give her my kind regards, Bog, and say I will call and see her,"

continued Pet.

"My respectful regards also," added Mr. Minford.

"Thank you," said the boy; "but I guess you better not call, Miss Minford. Aunt's a good woman, but kind o' cur'us, you know. Them rheumatics has made a great change in her." Bog here referred, but made no verbal allusion, to a certain friendly call which Pet had once made upon his aunt, on which occasion that elderly lady had entertained her visitor with a monologue two hours long, giving her a complete history of the malady, from its birth in the right great toe, three years previous, through all its eccentric phenomena, to that stage of the disease which made it, as the venerable sufferer observed with, some pride, the "very wust case the doctors ever heerd of."

Upon this fruitful theme, Bog's aunt could and would have discoursed for hours longer, but for the appearance of Bog, when she sought a new relief from her agonies by abusing that poor fellow, charging him with neglect and ingrat.i.tude, finding fault with the food which he brought home for her from market, and asking him when he was going to buy that soft armchair he had promised her so long. Bog laughed, and explained this outburst, by saying to Pet, "It's only aunt's rheumatics;" but the old lady rejected the explanation, and went on scolding and faultfinding with such increased fierceness, that Pet hastily put on her bonnet and shawl, and bade the rheumatic grumbler "good-by," saying (which was true) that her father would be anxious about her. Since then, the young girl had kept away from Bog's aunt.