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Page 3
"Everything in apple-pie order so far as the books go," he observed. "I
expect it will be big hustle and bustle for an hour or two in the
morning, though."
Lem Wacker came slouching along. It was six o'clock, the quitting hour.
Lem was always on time on such occasions. The whistle from the shops had
ceased echoing, and, his dinner pail on his arm and filling his
inevitable pipe, he paused for a moment.
"Going to shut up shop?" he inquired with affected carelessness.
"I am going home, if that's what you mean," replied Bart--"as soon as my
father comes."
"Not feeling very well lately, eh?" continued Lem, his eyes roving in a
covetous way over the cozy office and the comfortable railroad armchair
Mr. Stirling used. "No wonder, he takes it too hard."
"Does he?" retorted Bart.
"You bet he does. Wish I had his job. I'd make people wait to suit my
ideas. How's the company to know or care if you break your neck to
accommodate people? Too honest, too."
"A man can't be too honest," asserted Bart.
"Can't he? Say, I'm an old railroader, I am, and I know the ropes. Why,
when I was running the express office at Corydon, we sampled everything
that came in. Crate of bananas--we had many a lunch, apples, cigars,
once in a while a live chicken, and always a couple of turkeys at
holiday time."
"And who paid for them?" inquired Bart bluntly.
"We didn't, and no questions asked."
"I am afraid your ideas will not make much impression on my father, if
that is what you are getting at," observed Bart, turning unceremoniously
from Wacker.
"Humph! you fellows ought to run a backwoods post office," disgustedly
grunted the latter, as he made off.
Bart had only to wait ten minutes when his father appeared. Except for a
slight limp and some pallor in his face, Mr. Stirling seemed in his
prime. He had kindly eyes and was always pleasant and smiling, even when
in pain.
"Well! well!" he cried briskly, with a gratified glance at his son after
looking over the register, "all the real hard work is done, the work
that always worries me, with my poor eyesight. Come up to the paymaster,
young man! There's an advance till salary day, and well you've earned
it."
Mr. Stirling took some money from his pocket. There was a silver dollar
and some loose change. Bart looked pleased, then quite grave, and he put
his hand resolutely behind him.
"I can't take it, father," he said. "You have a hard enough time, and I
ought to pay you for the experience I'm getting here instead of being
paid."
"Young man," spoke Mr. Stirling with affected sternness, but a
twinkling in his eye, "you take your half-pay, make tracks, enjoy
yourself, and don't worry about a trifle of a dollar or two. If you
happen to drop around this way about nine o'clock, I'll be glad of your
company home."
He slipped the money into Bart's pocket and playfully pushed him through
the doorway. Bart's heart was pretty full. He was alive with tenderness
and love for this loyal, patient parent who had not been over kindly
handled by the world in a money way.
Then a dozen loud explosions over on the hill, followed by boyish shouts
of enthusiasm, made Bart remember that he was a boy, with all a boy's
lively interest in the Fourth of July foremost in his thoughts, and he
bounded down the tracks like a whirlwind.
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