“On second thoughts I will. It will keep me warm.”
The boys were soon through supper, and, adjourning to the wood-shed, set to work energetically on the wood-pile.
“Will you saw or split, Harry?” asked Tom.
“I might break the saw if I attempted to use it. I will try the ax.”
“What would Rupert Simpson say if he should see you helping me?” said Tom, in a moment’s pause. “He would think you were lowering yourself.”
“And he might be welcome to his opinion,” said Harry, independently.
“Yes, but he seeks my company, not I his.”
“Mother tells me that he and I were like two brothers when we were quite young. But he wasn’t rich then.”
“At any rate, it has cured him of his liking for my company. Doesn’t he ever speak to you about your being intimate with me?”
“Yes, often. He thinks I like you better than I do him, and he is right there.”
“I can guess what he says to you, Harry?”
Tom changed his voice, adopting Rupert’s rather affected tone.
“I shouldn’t think,” he began, “that you would associate with that Tom Thatcher. He pegs shoes in father’s shop, and isn’t fit for gentlemen like us to notice. My father doesn’t like me to keep such low company.”
“You must have been listening some time when Rupert was speaking to me,” he said.
“I thought so. Yet father and Mr. Simpson worked side by side at the shoe bench. They went to California together. Both secured a great deal of money, but my poor father didn’t live to come home.”
“And his money? What became of that?” inquired Harry.
“No one knows. He was probably robbed of it.”
“Yes. My poor father’s fate is often in my mind. I cannot bring him back to life, but I hope some day to learn something more of his last days, and, if possible, of the manner in which he died.”
“Couldn’t Mr. Simpson tell you something about it?”
“He called on mother after his return, but gave her no definite information. I am sometimes tempted to call on him and inquire on my own account.”
“I will, then. I won’t speak to mother about it, because it always makes her sad to speak about father’s death.”
“There’s the last stick, Harry,” said Tom, a few moments later. “Now I sha’n’t have to keep you waiting any longer. I have only to put on my coat, and get my skates.”
“Better wear your overcoat, Tom. It is quite cold.”