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CHAPTER XII
 IN WHICH BOBBY ASTONISHES SUNDRY PERSONS AND PAYS PART OF HIS NOTE  
"Now tell me, Bobby, how you have made out," said Mrs. Bright, as the little merchant seated himself at the supper table. "You cannot have done much, for you have only been gone five days."
 
"I have done pretty well, mother," replied Bobby, mysteriously; "pretty well, considering that I am only a boy."
 
"I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow night."
 
"I sold out, and had to come home."
 
"That may be, and still you may not have done much."
 
"I don't pretend that I have done much."
 
"How provoking you are! Why don't you tell me, Bobby, what you have done?"
 
"Wait a minute, mother, till I have done my supper, and then I will show you the footings in my ledger."
 
"Your ledger!"
 
"Yes, my ledger. I keep a ledger now."
 
"You are a great man, Mr. Robert Bright," laughed his mother. "I suppose the people took their hats off when they saw you coming."
 
"Not exactly, mother."
 
"Perhaps the governor came out to meet you when he heard you were on the road."
 
"Perhaps he did; I didn't see him, however. This apple pie tastes natural, mother. It is a great luxury to get home after one has been travelling."
 
"Very likely."
 
"No place like home, after all is done and said. Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?"
 
"I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts. My sake! Bobby, one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year."
 
"It seems like a year," said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate. "I miss home very much. I don't more than half like being among strangers so much."
 
"It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home."
 
"I must pay my debts, anyhow. Don't I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?"
 
"But I can pay that."
 
"It is my affair, you see."
 
"If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars."
 
"No, you don't; I calculate to pay my board now. I am old enough and big enough to do something."
 
"You have done something ever since you were old enough to work."
 
"Not much; I don't wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it. By the way, have you heard anything from him?"
 
"Not a thing."
 
"He has got enough of us, I reckon."
 
"You mustn't insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him."
 
"Never fear me."
 
"You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us."
 
"I should pray that the Old Nick might get him."
 
"No, Bobby; I hope you haven't forgot all your Sunday school lessons."
 
"I was wrong, mother," replied Bobby, a little moved. "I did not mean so. I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can't help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it."
 
"We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men."
 
"Such as Squire Lee, for instance," added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall. "The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't mind seeing a crown upon his head."
 
"He will receive his crown in due time," replied Mrs. Bright, piously.
 
"The squire?"
 
"The crown of rejoicing, I mean."
 
"Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him."
 
"Who?"
 
"Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas."
 
"I am dying to know about your journey."
 
"Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;" and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes.
 
"You needn't help now, Bobby."
 
"Yes, I will, mother."
 
Somehow our hero's visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them. A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don't know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood.
 
Bobby was none of this sort. We lament that he had a habit of talking big, that is, of talking about business affairs in a style a little beyond his years. But he was modest to a fault, paradoxical as it may seem. He was always blushing when anybody spoke a pretty thing about him. Probably the circumstances of his position elevated him above the sphere of the mere boy; he had spent but little time in play, and his attention had been directed at all times to the wants of his mother. He had thought a great deal about business, especially since the visit of the boy who sold books to the little black house.
 
Some boys are born merchants, and from their earliest youth have a genius for trade. They think of little else. They "play shop" before they wear jackets, and drive a barter trade in jackknives, whistles, tops, and fishing lines long before they get into their teens. They are shrewd even then, and obtain a taste for commerce before they are old enough to know the meaning of the word.
 
We saw a boy in school, not long since, give the value of eighteen cents for a little stunted quince; boys have a taste for raw quinces, strange as it may seem. Undoubtedly he had no talent for trade, and would make a very indifferent tin pedler. Our hero was shrewd. He always got the best end of the bargain; though, I am happy to say, his integrity was too unyielding to let him cheat his fellows.
 
We have made this digression so that my young readers may know why Bobby was so much given to big talk. The desire to do something worthy of a good son turned his attention to matters above his sphere; and thinking of great things, he had come to talk great things. It was not a bad fault, after all. Boys need not necessarily be frivolous. Play is a good thing, an excellent thing, in its place, and is as much a part of the boy's education as his grammar and arithmetic. It not only develops his muscles, but enlarges his mental capacity; it not only fills with excitement the idle hours of the long day, but it sharpens the judgment, and helps to fit the boy for the active duties of life.
 
It need not be supposed, because Bobby had to turn his attention to serious things, that he was not fond of fun; that he could not or did not play. At a game of round ball, he was a lucky fellow who secured him upon his side; for the same ............
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