THE WOULD-BE ACTOR
THE remainder of the day proved uneventful. Frank collected for all of
the books sold, and took two orders. He also left his card with a
druggist who was very much interested in the set of famous novels, and
who promised to write to the young book agent later on the subject.
Business proved to be far from encouraging in Camperville, and after one
day spent in the village, the young book agent took again to the farms
lying for a distance of five miles on all sides. Here in the first day
he sold four books, and once more his spirits arose.
“It’s a sort of see-saw game—first up and then down,” he thought. “But
as long as I can make ten dollars or more a week at it I’ll stick to
it.”
On Wednesday afternoon our hero had a rather amusing experience. As he
was passing a brook he discovered a boy who was fishing and talking
loudly to himself.
“I’d not do it for all the gold in the world! Stand back, I tell you,
stand back!” came from the youth, who was seated on a rock.
“Hullo! that fellow must be crazy,” murmured Frank.
“Stand back, I say!” went on the youth, “or with my trusty blade I will
slay you!”
“Crazy as a loon,” thought Frank, when of a sudden the boy looked up at
him and turned red in the face.
“What yer want?” asked the boy, surlily.
“Nothing,” answered our hero. He knew that crazy folks were ofttimes
dangerous.
“Was you listening to my talk?”
“I was.”
“Thought it funny, didn’t you?”
“Well, rather,” and now Frank began to smile, for he saw that the youth
was not crazy at all.
“That’s in a book I’m studyin’,” went on the lad. “It’s a play.”
“Then you are studying to be an actor?”
“That’s it.”
“What is the play?”
“It’s a three-act melodrama called ‘The Lost Pot of Diamonds; or, Adrift
on the Streets of London.’ I’m studying the part of Jack Merridale, the
hero. It’s a corker.”
“What are you going to do when you know the part?”
“Oh, I’m going to study up a whole lot of parts from different plays,
and then I’m going to New York to be an actor.”
“How much do you know of the play?”
“About half. It’s putty hard to learn, but I’ll have it in another
week.”
“Better give up acting and take to minding the cows,” said Frank, and
started to ride off.
“Ah, you go on!” growled the boy, and made as if to throw a stone after
the young book agent. But Frank was too quick for him and was soon out
of sight.
“He’s worse off for notions than Bobby Frost was,” thought Frank, as he
wheeled along. “One wanted to make a fortune in Wall Street, and the
other wants to become a famous actor. What notions some boys do get!”
Frank worked on a country road that was rather winding, and the next
morning found him not over half a mile from where he had met the boy. A
good-sized farmhouse was in sight and he rode up to this to see if the
folks there would purchase any of his wares.
He was just talking to the lady of the place when a small boy came
rushing up, his face full of terror.
“Mother, Jack’s crazy!” he screamed.
“Crazy?” queried the lady.
“Yes, crazy. He’s out in the barn, throwing around the pitchfork and
screaming like thunder!”
Alarmed by this statement, the lady of the house ran out to the barn,
with Frank at her heels, and the little lad following.
“Villain, beware of my wrath!” came from the barn, which declaration was
accompanied by a violent thrust of the pitchfork into a neighboring pile
of hay.
“Oh!” whispered the mother. “Yes, he is certainly crazy!”
“I shall kill you, base rascal that you are!” went on the boy in the
barn, and again he thrust out wildly with the pitchfork.
“Oh, Jack! that I should see you crazy!” went on the lady.
“He isn’t crazy,” put in Frank. “He is stage-struck; that’s all.”
“The pot of gold is mine!” went on the stage-struck Jack. “It is mine, I
tell you, all mine! And Lady Leonora shall be my bride!” And throwing
down the pitchfork, he stooped and caught up a bushel basket filled with
blocks of wood and hugged it to his breast.
“Jack, what _is_ the matter!” cried his mother, and caught him from
behind.
“Wha—what’s up?” stammered the would-be actor, and he dropped the bushel
basket like a hot potato. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’, ma!”
“What do you mean by carrying on so?” she asked, severely.
“Ain’t carryin’ on. I’m speakin’ a piece.”
“A what?”
“A piece.”
“It didn’t sound much like a piece to me. What reader did you get it
from?”
“Didn’t git it from no reader.”
“Then you made it up.”
“Didn’t nuther. I bought the book from Tom Johnson for ten cents. It’s a
great theater piece.”
“Let me see the book.”
It was lying on a feed box, and before the luckless Jack could get it,
his mother snatched it up and began to peruse it.
“What worthless trash!” she cried, and tore it into a dozen pieces.
“Oh, ma! Don’t tear it up.”
“Don’t you talk to me,” said the lady, severely. “I don’t want any more
such goings-on around here. You march yourself to the corn patch, and be
quick about it. If I hear of any more theater pieces, I’ll send you to
bed without your supper.”
“It didn’t do no hurt to learn the piece,” whined Jack, with a dark look
at Frank.
“Yes, it did. If you want to learn anything, you learn your history and
geography and spelling,” answered the lady of the house.
Jack procured a hoe and walked off to a distant cornfield. But when his
mother and his little brother were not looking he shook his fist at
Frank.
The young book agent had been amused by the scene. Now, however, he grew
serious.
“That boy thinks I am responsible for this,” he thought. “And he will
get square if he can.”
“Such tomfoolery I never saw in my life,” said the lady to Frank.
“Stage-struck indeed! I’ll have to watch him.”
She was so out of patience that she scarcely paid attention to what the
young book agent had to say.
“No, I don’t want any books,” she said. “We have more now than we can
read.”
“Have you any to sell?” asked Frank.
“Do you buy old books?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ll sell you these,” she went on, and after a few minutes’ search
brought out half a dozen cheap cloth-covered novels.
“I don’t buy that kind of books,” said Frank.
“I’ll let you have the lot for a dollar.”
“They would not be worth twenty-five cents to me, madam.”
“Oh, you book agents want to make all you can,” she sniffed, and shut
the door in his face.
“What a family to deal with,” thought Frank, as he rode away. “I
declare, I’m almost glad I didn’t sell her a book.”
Close at hand was a small side road where were located two other
farmhouses. To these places, our hero next made his way. One place was
closed up, but at the other he met a young couple who treated him
cordially.
“I’d like to have both of those books,” said the young husband,
referring to the health and the cattle and poultry works. “But to tell
the truth I can’t afford them. Just now, six dollars is a heap of money
to me.”
“I can deliver the books whenever you say,” returned Frank. “Perhaps
you’ll be able to take them next week.”
“No; I don’t want to give an order for them unless I am sure I can pay.
‘Pay as you go’ is my motto.”
“And a good motto it is,” said Frank. Then he continued: “Perhaps you
have some old books you’d like to exchange for these new ones.”
“I’ve got a box full of old books that were left to my wife by her Uncle
Alexander. Millie, do you want to make a trade?”
“I might,” answered the wife.
“Let me see the books,” said the young book agent.
He spent a few minutes in looking the volumes over. They were not of
great value, to his manner of thinking, yet he thought they might bring
him six dollars or more.
“If you wish it, I’ll give you the two new books for those old ones,” he
said. “I am not particular about it, but I’d like to do a little to-day
before stopping work.”
“Don’t you think the books are worth more?” asked the young wife.
“Honestly, I do not.”
“Then take them and give us the new books.”
“It’s hard luck, Millie,” said the young husband. “You didn’t get much
out of your Uncle Alexander after all.”
“No, Samuel,” and the young wife heaved a deep sigh.
“You see, it was this way,” explained Samuel Windham. “My wife nursed
her uncle for over two years. He promised to leave her a thousand
dollars or more when he died. But when he did die he didn’t leave
anything but some old furniture and these books and just enough to pay
for his funeral.”
“That was hard luck,” said Frank.
“I didn’t nurse him for the money,” said Mrs. Windham. “I nursed him
because I thought it was my duty.”
“All the same you should have had something,” answered her husband.
“Did he leave anything to anybody else?”
“No, he left what he had to me. But we thought it might be more than it
was.”
“It was certainly hard.” Frank paused after a moment. “I’ll leave the
two new books now and make a package of the old ones and take them to
the Camperville hotel with me.”
“Are you stopping there?”
“I’m going to stop.”
The old books were done up in some newspapers and Frank put a strap
around them. Then he passed over the two new volumes, and bid the young
couple good-by. Soon he was wheeling up the side road into the main road
once more.
He had passed less than half a mile when he came to a bend. Here the
highway was narrow, and on either side were masses of trees and bushes.
“Here he comes now!” he heard a voice shout, and a moment later he found
himself confronted by three farmer boys, all armed with clubs. They
compelled him to halt and then surrounded him.
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