Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/216

142 “You ’ll find it harder than you think, and you can’t fail even once without forfeiting all wages. But what about this east-and-west nonsense? He could n’t have meant that seriously. And, Neil, three dollars a week is a good deal for just sweeping out the barn each morning. Are n't you afraid he’s merely giving you the money because you ’re a small boy and not because you will earn it?”

“No, mother; it ’s what he said. And he said I was to do my work just as I was told, and not to ask any questions.”

"Did you tell him why you wanted to earn money?”

“Yes, afterwards; I told him you said I might have a pony like Earl Foster’s if I ’d earn him, And he said it did n’t make any difference what I wanted the money for, if I would do exactly as the contract says.”

Mrs. Morris looked at her small son doubtfully, though she still smiled.

“Well,” she said at last, “I suppose it’s all right. But you must do your work well, Neil.”

“Of course; it would n’t be square if I did n’t, because I promised.”

It seemed an easy enough matter to Neil. How could it ever be hard to get up a little earlier than usual each morning and go and sweep a neighbor’s barn? And as for the queer instructions he had received about the manner of sweeping, it would be no harder to sweep in one direction than in another, while he could easily keep count by getting a little calendar on which to mark each day “E” or “W,” according to its turn. It was simple enough, surely, Of course he would do the work well, and his wages would amount to more than sixty dollars, And then, oh, that pony! It wouldn't be long to wait,—just through the winter, when he did n't want the pony so much anyhow,—and next summer he would be able to ride—everywhere! He could just see the very pony he wanted: an iron-gray little fellow with a black mane and tail—just such a pony as he had seen, and priced, at the county fair that fall, And he could just imagine how it would feel to have that sturdy little fellow under him and to go galloping off over the country roads with the breeze in his face and the gravel flying behind, and the jolly good fun of covering long distances, of running races, and of learning the hundred possible tricks of riding. Neil was delighted with the prospect. To him the pony seemed as good as his, for he meant to make light work of his daily task, and failure was as far from his thoughts as though it were quite impossible.

But the difference between daylight and darkness has made all the difference between hope and discouragement for many a man older and wiser and more experienced than Neil; and those first wintry mornings when he climbed out of his warm bed at the six-o’clock whir-r-r of his alarm-clock put quite a different face upon the matter. In the first place, it was dark at six o'clock; and then, it was cold, and lonely too, for even Mary the maid, the earliest person in the house, did not come down until half-past six; and the fires were low. Then, too, there was no breakfast to be had at that hour, and Nei] found it much colder to be out before breakfast than after.

But if his enthusiasm cooled somewhat when the real nature of his undertaking began to be known to him and its hardships fully understood, he made no complaint.

“I guess it is n't going to be a picnic,” he remarked to himself, once or twice; but to his mother he said nothing at all about it except that he was getting on all right. His father, who had never asked any questions since Mrs. Morris had told him of Neil’s contract, now treated the boy’s new promptness at breakfast—the only noticeable evidence of his early morning work—as a matter of course and in a way which suggested recognition of the work as a business affair, and one of importance, too. This helped Neil, for he felt that the work was very much a matter of business and very important indeed.

When the severely cold weather came, however, it began to be a veritable hardship to climb out of bed when the freezing air seemed to nip at nose and toes even inside the house, and when the two blocks’ walk to Dr, Ferris’s was a struggle against a stinging wind which made his very forehead ache under his cap, or a tramp through the uncleared snow, which sometimes overtopped his boots. Then, too, the barn itself was a gloomy, cold, cheerless