CHAPTER VII

FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

Two boys in Clinton did not go to Sunday School that day with minds much attuned to the occasion. Fred could scarcely restrain himself within the bounds of decent behavior as they walked from Merriweather Street, where both the Blakes and the Martins lived, to Trinity Square, where the spire of the church towered above the elms.

The thought that Bobby was going with him to Rockledge (Fred had jumped to that conclusion at once) put young Martin on the very pinnacle of delight.

"Of course, it would be great if your folks would take you to South America," admitted Fred, after some reflection. "For you could bring home a whole raft of marmosets, and green-and-gray parrots, and iguanas, and the like, for pets. And you'd see manatees, and tapirs, and jaguars and howling monkeys, and all the rest. But crickey! you wouldn't have the fun we'll have when we get to Rockledge School."

_Fun_ seemed to be all that Fred Martin looked forward to when he got to boarding school. Lessons, discipline, and work of any kind, never entered his mind.

That evening Mr. and Mrs. Blake, with Bobby, went up the street to the Martin house, and the parents of the two chums talked together a long time on the front porch, while the children were sent into the back yard--that yard that Buster Shea had cleaned so nicely the day before, being partly paid in rats!

When the Blakes started home, it had been concluded that Bobby was to attend school with Fred, and that if Mr. and Mrs. Blake did not return from their long journey in season, Bobby was to be under the care of the Martins during vacation.

"Another young one won't make any difference here, Mrs. Blake," said easy-going Mrs. Martin. "Really, half the time I forget how many we have, and have to go around after they are all abed, and count noses. Bobby will make us no trouble, I am sure. And he always has a good influence over Fred--we've remarked that many times."

This naturally made Mrs. Blake very proud. Yet she took time to talk very seriously to Bobby on several occasions during the next few days. She spoke so tenderly to him, and with such feeling, that the boy's heart swelled, and he could scarcely keep back the tears.

"We want to hear the best kind of reports from you, Bobby--not only school reports, but in the letters we may get from our friends here in Clinton. Your father and I have tried to teach you to be a manly, honorable boy. You are going where such virtues count for more than anything else.

"Be honest in everything; be kindly in your relations to the other boys; always remember that those weaker than yourself, either in body or in character, have a peculiar claim upon your forbearance. Father would not want you to be a mollycoddle but mother doesn't want you to be a bully.

"You will go to church and Sunday School up there at Rockledge just as you have here. Don't be afraid to show the other boys that you have been taught to pray. I shall have your father find out the hour when you all go to bed, and at that hour, while you are saying your prayers and thinking of your father and me so far away from you, I shall be praying for my boy, too!"

"Don't you cry, Mother," urged Bobby, squeezing back the tears himself. "I will do just as you tell me."

It was arranged that Mr. Blake should take the boys to school when the time came, but there was still a fortnight before the term opened at Rockledge. Bobby and Fred had more preparations to make than you would believe, and early on Monday morning Fred came over to the Blake house and the chums went down behind the garden to have a serious talk.

"Say! there's fifty boys in that school," Fred said. "There's another school right across Monatook Lake. They call it Belden School. There's all sorts of games between the two schools, you know, and we want to be in them, Bobby."

"What do you mean--games?" asked Bobby.

"Why, baseball, and football, and hockey on the ice in winter, and skating matches, and boating in the fall and spring--rowing, you know. Lots of games. And we want to be in them, don't we?"

"Sure," admitted his chum.

"It's going to cost money," said Fred, decidedly. "We'll have to get bats, and good horse-hide balls, and a catcher's mask and glove, and a pad, and all that. We want to get on one of the ball teams. You know I can catch, and you've got a dandy curve, Bobby, and a fade-away that beats anything I've ever seen."

"Yes. I'd like to play ball," admitted Bobby, rather timidly. "But will they let us--we being new boys?"

"We'll make them," said the scheming Fred. "If we show them we have the things I said--mitt, and bats, and all--they'll be glad to have us play, don't you see?"

"But we haven't them," suddenly said Bobby.

"No. But we must have them."

"Say! they'll cost a lot of money. You know I don't have but a dollar a month," said Bobby, "and I know Mother won't let me open my bank."

"Of course not. That's the way with mothers and fathers," said Fred, rather discontentedly. "They get us to start saving against the time we'll want money awfully bad for something. And then we have to buy shoes with it, or Christmas presents, or use it to pay for a busted window. _That's_ what cleaned out my bank the last time--when I threw a ball through Miklejohn's plate-glass window on the Square."

"Well," said Bobby, getting away from _that_ unpleasant subject, "I have most of my dollar left for this month, and Pa will give me another on the first day of September."

"I haven't but ten cents to my name," confessed Fred.

"Then how'll we get new bats, and the mask, and pad, and all?"

"That's what we want to find out," Fred said, grimly. "We'll have to think up some scheme for making money. I wish I'd cleaned our yard Saturday instead of hiring Buster Shea."

"_That_ didn't cost you much," chuckled Bobby. "Only a cent--and you couldn't have sold the five rats for anything."

"Aw--well--"

"Let's start a lemonade stand," suggested Bobby.

"No. It's been done to death in Clinton this vacation," Fred declared, emphatically. "Besides, the sugar and lemons and ice cost so much. And you're always bound to drink so much yourself that there's no profit when the lemonade's gone."

Bobby acknowledged the justice of this with a silent nod.

"Got to be something new, Bobby," urged Fred, with much belief in his chum's powers of invention. "_You_ think of something."

"Might have a show," said Bobby.

"Aw--now--Bobby! you know that's no good," declared Fred. "We'd have to let a lot of the other fellows into it. Can't run a circus--not even a one-ring one--without a lot of performers. And they'd want the money split up. We wouldn't make anything."

"A peep-show," said Bobby, still thoughtfully chewing a straw.

"Aw, shucks! that's worse. The kids will only pay pins, or rusty nails, to see _that_ kind of a show."

"No. That's not just what I mean," Bobby said, thoughtfully. "Let's have a show that will only need us two to run it, Fred. Then we won't have to divide the money with anybody else. And let's have a show that grown up folks will want to see."

"Great, Bobby! That's a swell idea--if we could do it."

"I believe we _can_ do it."

"Tell a fellow," urged Fred, excitedly. "Grown folks have money. We could charge them a nickel--maybe a dime--"

"No. A penny show," said Bobby, still chewing the straw. "Of course, it's got to be worth a penny--and then, it'll have to be sort of a joke, too--"

"Whatever are you trying to get at, Bobby Blake?" demanded his chum in wonder.

"Listen here. Now--don't you tell--"

He pulled Fred down beside him and whispered into his ear. The red-haired boy looked puzzled at first. Then he caught the meaning of his chum's plan, and his eyes grew big and he began to grin. Suddenly he flung his cap into the air and seized Bobby round the neck to hug him.

"Scubbity-_yow_!" he yelled. "That's the greatest thing I've ever heard, Bob! And we can have it right down 'side of my father's store."

Mr. Martin kept a grocery store on Hurley Street, in a one-story building on one side of which was an open lot belonging to the store property. There was a side-door to the store-building opening upon this lot, but not far back from the street.

For the next two or three days Bobby and Fred were very busy indeed at this place and, with some little help, they managed to erect a structure that was made partly of old fence-boards and partly of canvas.

The half-tent, half-shack was about ten feet wide. It had a sloping canvas roof. It ran back from the sidewalk far enough to mask the side-door into Mr. Martin's store.

Mr. Martin was not in the secret of the nature of the boys' proposed "show," but he was a good natured man and made no objection to his son and Bobby utilizing his side door.

"You see, we must have an 'entrance' and an 'exit'," Bobby explained. "Folks can pass out through the store after seeing our show."

"Sure," chuckled Fred. "As long as we don't call it 'egress,' nobody will be scared that it's some strange and savage animal. All right. 'Exit' it is," and he proceeded to paint the sign, per Bobby's instructions.

And that was not the only sign to be painted. Fred was rather handy with a brush, and when all the sign-painting was done, Bobby pronounced the work fine.

In front of the tent, Bobby had built a little platform with a box, waist high, before it. Bobby was to be the lecturer, or "ballyhoo," and was, likewise, to sell the tickets. The other boys were eaten up with curiosity about the show, but neither Bobby nor Fred would give them a chance to get a look inside the shelter after the roof was on.

There was a canvas wall in the front, with a very narrow entrance. Inside that was a canvas screen so that nobody peeking into the doorway could see much of what lay beyond. They had one kerosene lamp to light the interior.

They made several other arrangements for the opening of the show, and then there was nothing to do but wait for Saturday to arrive. On that day many people from out-of-town came into Clinton to market, and the Hurley Street stores were well patronized all day long. Bobby and Fred knew they would not lack a curious company outside the tent, whether they tolled many within or not.