_SHARPS AND BETWEENS._
Let us go back. We left Willie awhile ago puzzling over that
twenty-four dollars. After many hours of thought and talk with Sammy
about how they should manage it, two gentlemen gave them nine dollars,
and so there was but fifteen more to be raised. But that fifteen seemed
harder to get than the fifty they had already gotten. At last Willie
thought of something. They would try the sewing-machine man. Mr. Sharps
would throw off fifteen dollars.
But they did not know Mr. Sharps. Though he made more than fifteen
dollars on the machine, he hated to throw anything off. He was always
glad to put on. Sammy described him by saying that “Mr. Sharps was not
for-giving but he was for-getting.”
They talked; they told the story; they begged. Mr. Sharps really could
not afford to throw off a cent. He was poor. Taxes were high. He gave
a great deal. (I do not know what he called a great deal. He had
been to church three times in a year, and twice he had put a penny in
the plate. I suppose Mr. Sharps thought that a great deal. And so it
was, for him, poor fellow.) And then the butcher had raised the price
of meat; and he had to pay twenty-three dollars for a bonnet for his
daughter. Really, he was too poor. So the boys went away down-hearted.
But Sammy went straight to an uncle of his, who was one of the editors
of the _Thornton Daily Bugle_. After a private talk with him he started
back to Mr. Sharps. Willie followed Sammy this time. What Sammy had in
his head Willie could not make out.
“I’ll fix him!” That was the only word Sammy uttered on the way back.
“Now, Mr. Sharps,” he began, “my uncle’s name is Josiah Penn. Maybe
you know him. He’s one of the editors of the _Thornton Daily Bugle_.
I’ve been talking with him. If you let me have a Feeler and Stilson
sewing-machine for fifty dollars, I will have a good notice put in the
_Daily Bugle_.”
Mr. Sharps whistles a minute. He thought he could not do it. No, he was
too poor.
“Well, then, Willie,” said Sammy, “we’ll go across the street and try
the agent of the Hillrocks and Nibbs machine. I think Mr. Betweens will
take my offer.”
“O!” said Mr. Sharps, “you don’t want that machine. It’s only a single
thread, and it will ravel, and--well--you don’t want that.”
“Indeed, my mother says there isn’t a pin to choose between them,” said
Sammy; “and I can give Mr. Betweens just as good a notice as I could
give you.”
“Very well, take the machine for fifty dollars. I do it just out of
pity for the widow, you know. I never could stand by and see suffering
and not relieve it. You won’t forget about that notice in the _Daily
Bugle_, though, will you?”
No, Sammy wouldn’t forget.
It was now the day before Christmas, and the boys thought they had
better get the machine down there.
So they found Billy Horton, who belonged to their class, and who drove
an express wagon, and told him about it. He undertook to take it down.
But first, he drove around the town and picked up all the boys of the
class, that they might share in the pleasure.
Meantime, a gentleman who had heard of Willie’s efforts, gave him a
five dollar bill for widow Martin. This Willie invested in provisions,
which he instructed the grocer to send to the widow.
He and Sammy hurried down to widow Martin’s, and got there, as I told
you in the last chapter, just as she was about to sign away all right,
title, and interest in two of the children whom God had given her; to
sign them away at the command of the hard Mr. Lampeer, who was very
much irritated that he should be interrupted just at the moment when he
was about to carry the point; for he loved to carry a point better than
to eat his breakfast.