Did she
hear from your Uncle John's folks since they moved out to Kansas?
I have heard that there were boys who, under the dire necessity of
going to the circus, got together enough rags, old iron, and bottles
to make up the price, sold 'em, collected the money, and went. I
don't believe it. I don't believe it. We all had, hidden under
the back porch, our treasure-heap of rusty grates, cracked fire-pots,
broken griddles and lid-lifters, tub-hoops and pokers, but I do not
believe that any human boy ever collected fifty cents' worth. I
want you to understand that fifty cents is a whole lot of money,
particularly when it is laid out in scrap-iron. Only the tin-wagon
takes rags, and they pay in tinware, and that's no good to a boy
that wants to go to the circus. And as for bottles - well, sir,
you wash out a whole, whole lot of bottles, a whole big lot of 'em,
a wash-basket full, and tote 'em down to Mr. Case's drug- and
book-store, as much as ever you and your brother can wag, and see
what he gives you. It's simply scandalous. You have no idea of how
mean and stingy a man can be until you try to sell him old bottles.
And the cold-hearted way in which he will throw back ink-bottles
that you worked so hard to clean, and the ones that have reading
blown into the glass - Oh, it's enough to set you against business
transactions all your life long.
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