After supper, when Aunt Patty was rattling the pans and dishes at the kitchen sink and John Green had gone out to the steps to smoke his pipe, Tom took his courage in hand and told his uncle about the arrangement to which he had agreed with Mr. Cummings. Uncle Israel heard him through in silence, frowning the while. “And so,” concluded Tom, “I thought maybe you’d be willing to make up the fifty cents to me, sir. Would you?” “No.” “You mean you don’t want I should pay the bill to them that way?” “You tell Cummings that that pump’s here and he can come and get it any time he wants to. I told him that ’most six years ago, I guess. It wan’t no good. It broke down the second time I hitched it up to the mill. I told him then I didn’t intend to pay good money for it. He said I was to bring it in and he’d take it up with the factory. I said: ‘You come and fetch it. I’ve lugged it one way. Now it’s your turn.’ If you hand him over fifty cents a week out of your wages, that’s your affair. It’s got nothing to do with me.” Tom considered awhile. Finally, “Where is that pump, Uncle?” he asked. “Under the barn. Or it was last time I seen it. Maybe it’s rusted to pieces by now. I don’t know, nor I don’t care.” “Well, sir, if I don’t do like he says, he won’t take me to work. And it seems to me it’s better to get two dollars than nothing. Course I might find a job somewhere else, but”--and Tom sighed--“I went to ’most fifty places, I guess. Is--is the pump worth anything at all, sir?” Mr. Bowles shrugged his shoulders. “Might be worth a few dollars for old iron.” “Then if I pay for it may I have it?” “What for?” “Just to see if I can sell it and make some money on it. I guess I’ve got to pay for it, sir, and if you don’t want it----” “It ain’t mine to give,” said his uncle. “If Cummings wants to sell it to you, all right. You can tell him from me, though, that there’s a little matter of six dollars due me for storing it all this time.” And Uncle Israel’s eyes twinkled and the corners of his mouth moved with the nearest thing to a smile that he was ever guilty of. “Then I’d have to pay that, too, before I could have it?” asked Tom. “You tell him that,” responded Uncle Israel. Then he took up a newspaper, settled his spectacles on the bridge of his big nose, and edged his chair to the light. The subject was closed. Tom recognised the fact and, stifling a sigh, found his Latin book and took himself off to study. Monday loomed up startlingly near. CHAPTER IV AT CUMMINGS AND WRIGHT’S