drinkin’ an’ become a regular young outlaw; he was a bloodthirsty rowdy before he was fifteen; shot at one man fer some cause or other an’ barely escaped bein’ put up fer life—nothin’ but bein’ so young got ’im off. But one day—now I’m givin’ it to you jest as Nelson told me—one day he said he got to thinkin’ about the way he was a-goin’, and of his own accord he made up his mind to call a halt. He wanted to cut clean off from his old set, an’ so he went to Mayhew and told him he wanted to git work in the store. Old Mayhew would skin a flea fer its hide an’ tallow, an’ seein’ his money in the boy, he bound ’im to an agreement to work fer his bare board an’ clothes fer three years.” “Low enough wages, certainly!” exclaimed the planter. “Yes, but Nelson didn’t grumble, and Mayhew will tell you hisself that thar never was sech a worker sence the world was made. He was a general hand at ever’thing, and as bright as a new dollar and as quick as a steel trap. The Lord only knows when or how he did it, fer nobody ever seed a book in his hands in business hours, but he l’arned to read and write and figure. An’ that wasn’t all. Mayhew was sech an old skinflint, and so hard on folks who got in his debt, that nobody traded at his shebang except them that couldn’t go anywhars else; but lo and behold! Nelson made so many friends that they flocked around ’im from all directions an’ the business of the house was more than doubled at a jump. Mayhew knowed the cause of it, fer lots o’ customers throwed it up to ’im. The prosperity was almost too much fer the old skunk; in fact, he got mighty nigh scared at it and actually tried to dam the stream o’ profit. To keep up such a business big credit had to be extended, and it was a new venture fer the cautious old scamp. But Nelson had perfect faith in all his friends, and thar it stood—a beardless boy holdin’ forth that it was the old man’s chance fer a lifetime to git rich, and old Mayhew half believin’ it, crazy to act on Nelson’s judgment, an’ yet afraid it would be ruination. That was at the close of the boy’s three-year contract. He was then about twenty year old, and I was in the store and heard the talk between ’em. We was all a-settin’ at the big wood stove in the back end, me an’ the old man, an’ Nelson and Joe Peters, a clerk, who is still with the firm. I shall never forgit that night as long as I live. I gloried in the boy’s spunk to sech an extent I could ’a’ throwed up my hat an’ hollered. “‘I’ve been waitin’ to have a talk with you, Mr. Mayhew,’ Nelson said. ‘Our contract is out today, and you an’ me disagree so much about runnin’ the business that I hardly know what I ought to do an’ not stand in my own light. We’ve got to make a fresh contract anyway.’