THE MOUSE BUSINESS.
While Maggie Maggimore took upon herself the blessed task of nursing
the barber, Leo charged himself with the duty of providing for the
wants of the family. Each had assumed all that one person could be
expected to achieve. It was no small thing for a girl of fifteen to
take the entire care of a helpless invalid; and it was no small thing
for a boy of fifteen to take upon himself the task of providing for the
expenses of the house, and the medical attendance of the sick man.
It would have been much easier for Leo to fail in his assumed task than
for Maggie to do so. Even a young man of so much importance as
Fitzherbert Wittleworth, upon whom the salvation of the great house of
Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. seemed to depend, toiled for the meagre
pittance of five dollars a week. Leo had some acquaintance with the
late clerk in the private office of the banker, and he had listened
with wonder to the astounding achievements of Fitz in the postal and
financial departments of the house. Of course Mr. Wittleworth would be
a partner in the concern as soon as he was twenty-one, if not before;
for, besides his own marvellous abilities, he had the additional
advantage of being a relative of the distinguished head of the concern.
Leo was abashed at his own insignificance when he stood in the presence
of the banker's clerk. If such an astonishing combination of talent as
Mr. Wittleworth possessed could be purchased for five dollars a week,
what could he, who was only a mere tinker, expect to obtain? Half that
sum would have been an extravagant valuation of his own services, under
ordinary circumstances. But beneath the burden which now rested upon
him, he felt an inspiration which had never before fired his soul; he
felt called upon to perform a miracle.
He was born with a mechanical genius, and he felt it working within
him. There was no end of wooden trip-hammers, saw-mills, and other
working machines he had invented and constructed. Under the pressure of
the present necessity he felt able to accomplish better things.
Something must be done which would produce fifteen, or at least ten,
dollars a week. It was no use to think it couldn't be done; it must be
done. It looked like a species of lunacy on his part to flatter himself
that it was possible to make even more than a journeyman mechanic's
wages.
Leo had in his busy brain half a dozen crude plans of simple machines.
Often, when he saw people at work, he tried to think how the labor
might be done by machinery. As he sat in the kitchen, where Maggie was
sewing or preparing the dinner, he was devising a way to perform the
task with wood and iron. Only a few days before the illness of the
barber, he had seen her slicing potatoes to fry, and the operation had
suggested a potato slicer, which would answer equally well for
cucumbers, onions, and apples.
Sitting on the bench, he was thinking of this apparatus, when fifteen
dollars a week became a necessity. But the machine required more iron
than wood work, and he had not the means to do the former, and no
capital to invest in other people's labor. Then he turned his attention
to a new kind of boot-jack he had in his mind--an improvement on one he
had seen, which could be folded up and put in a traveller's carpet-bag.
As this implement was all wood except the hinges and screws, it looked
more hopeful. He could make half a dozen of them in a day, and they
would sell for half a dollar apiece. He was thinking of an improvement
on the improvement, when the stampede of the mice deranged his ideas;
but they gave him a new one.
White mice were beautiful little creatures. Their fur was so very
white, their eyes so very pink, and their paws so very cunning, that
everybody liked to see them. Even the magnificent Mr. Checkynshaw had
deigned to regard them with some attention, and had condescended to say
that his daughter Elinora would be delighted to see them. Then the
houses, and the gymnastic apparatus which Leo attached to them,
rendered them tenfold more interesting. At a store in Court Street the
enterprising young man had seen them sold for half a dollar a pair;
indeed, he had paid this sum for the ancestral couple from which had
descended, in the brief space of a year and a half the numerous tribes
and families that peopled the miniature palaces on the basement walls.
At this rate his present stock was worth seventy-five dollars--the
coveted salary of five whole weeks! In another month, at least fifty
more little downy pink-eyes would emerge from their nests, adding
twenty-five dollars more to his capital stock in trade!
Leo had already decided to go into the mouse business.
He was counting his chickens before they were hatched, and building
magnificent castles in the air; but even the most brilliant success, as
well as the most decided failure, is generally preceded by a vast
amount of ground and lofty tumbling in the imagination. If the man in
Court Street could sell a pair of white mice for fifty cents, and a
beggarly tin box with a whirligig for a dollar, making the
establishment and its occupants cost a dollar and a half, why would not
one of his splendid palaces, with two or three pairs of mice in it,
bring three, or even five dollars? That was the point, and there was
the argument all lying in a nutshell.
Leo had faith. What would a rich man care for five dollars when he
wanted to please his children? He had watched his mice day after day,
and week after week, by the hour at a time, and had never failed to be
amused at their gambols. Everybody that came to the house was delighted
with them. If the man in Court Street could sell them, he could. There
was money in the speculation, Leo reasoned, and it should not fail for
the want of a fair trial.
He could make houses of various sizes, styles, and prices, and thus
suit all tastes. He could stock each one with as many mice as the
customer desired. He could make a pretty elaborate establishment in two
days--five-dollar size; and of the smaller and plainer kind--two-dollar
pattern--he could make two in a day.
The palace on the bench was nearly completed, and he went to work at
once and finished it. It had a glass front, so that the dainty little
occupants of the institution could not get out, and the foe of white
mice, the terrible cat, could not get in. This establishment had been
intended for Mr. Stropmore; but as that gentleman had not been informed
of his purpose to present it, Leo decided that it should be used to
initiate the experiment on whose success so much depended.
It was ten o'clock at night when the grand palace on the bench was
finished. Leo put some cotton wool into the sleeping apartments, and
then transferred three pairs of mice from the most densely populated
house to the new one. He watched them for a while, as they explored
their elegant hotel, going up stairs and down, snuffing in every
corner, standing upon their hind legs, and taking the most minute
observations of the surroundings.
Leo was entirely satisfied with the work of his hands, and with the
conduct of the mice who had been promoted to a residence in its elegant
and spacious quarters. If there was not five dollars in that
establishment, then the rich men of Boston were stingy and ungrateful.
If they could not appreciate that superb palace, and those supple
little beauties who held court within its ample walls, why, they were
not worthy to be citizens of the Athens of America!
Leo went up stairs. Andre still slept, and Maggie sat by the bedside,
patiently watching him in his slumbers. He crept softly into the front
room, and looked at the pale face of his father. His heart was lighter
than it had been before since the news of the calamity was told to him.
He was full of hope, and almost believed that he had solved the problem
of supplying all the wants of the family.
"You must sleep yourself, Maggie," said he, in a whisper.
"Hush!" said she, fearful that the sleeper might be disturbed, as she
led the way into the rear room.
"I will sit up half the night, Maggie."
"No, Leo; there is no need of that. I wake very easily, and I can sleep
enough in the rocking-chair. You seem to be quite cheerful now, Leo,"
added she, noticing the change which had come over him.
"I feel so, Maggie. You say we shall want fifteen dollars a week."
"No, you said so, Leo. I might take in sewing; but I don't think both
of us can make anything like that sum. I am very much worried. I don't
know what will become of us."
"Don't be worried any more. I'm going to make that money myself. You
needn't do anything but take care of father; and I'll help you do the
housework," added Leo, cheerfully.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going into the mouse business."
"Into what?"
"The mouse business," replied Leo, gravely.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Maggie, puzzled as much by his
gravity as by the unintelligible phrase he had used.
Leo explained what he meant, and argued the case with much skill and
enthusiasm.
Maggie would have laughed if she had not been solemnly impressed by the
condition of her father, and by the burden of responsibility that
rested upon her as his nurse. She went into the basement, and looked at
the house which Leo had just finished. It was certainly very pretty,
and the mice in it were very cunning.
"You don't think any one will give you five dollars for that house--do
you?" said she, as she joined him in the back room again.
"I mean to ask six for it, and if folks won't give it, they are mean.
That is all I've got to say about it," replied Leo.
"But they won't."
"Why, the mice alone are worth a dollar and a half; and there is two
days' work in the house, besides the stock and the glass. I certainly
expect to get six dollars for the concern, though I shall not complain
if I don't get but five. I can make from three to a dozen of them in a
week, and if I don't make at least fifteen dollars a week out of the
mouse business, I shall be disappointed--that's all."
"I am afraid you will be disappointed, Leo," replied Maggie, with a
sigh, as she thought what a sad thing it would be when the brilliant
air-castle tumbled to the ground.
"Perhaps I shall; if I do, I can't help it. But if this fails, I have
got another string to my bow."
"What's that?"
"I shall go into the boot-jack business next; and I hope to get up my
machine for slicing potatoes, and such things, soon."
"O, dear, Leo! You are full of strange ideas. I only hope that some of
them will work well," added Maggie.
"I'm going to be reasonable, sis. I'm not going to give up if a thing
fails once, twice, or nineteen times. I'm going to keep pulling. I've
got half a dozen things in my head; if five of them fail, I shall make
a big thing out of the sixth."
"I hope you will; you are so patient and persevering that you ought to
succeed in something."
"O, I shall; you may depend upon that! Make or break, I'm bound to
succeed in something."
"What do you mean by 'make or break,' Leo? It sounds just as though you
meant to make money if you sacrificed everything."
"I don't mean that."
"I would rather go to the almshouse than be dishonest. I can't think of
anything more horrid than being wicked."
"Nor I either. I don't mean to be dishonest, Maggie. I would rather be
a good man than a rich one, any day; but I think a man can be both. A
good man, with lots of money, is better than a good man without it; for
he can do good with it. When I say, 'make or break,' I don't mean
anything bad by it. I'll tell you what I mean, Maggie. It seems to me,
when I get hold of a good thing, I ought to keep pulling till I carry
my point, or pull away till something breaks. I don't mean to risk
everything on a turn of the wheel of fortune; nothing of that sort. I
mean to persevere and stick to anything so long as there's any chance
of success--till the strings break, and the whole thing tumbles down.
That's my idea."
The idea was satisfactory to Maggie, and she returned to her patient,
while Leo went up to bed; but not to sleep for hours, for the "mouse
business" excited his brain, and kept him awake.