I don't blame him. If any one were to say I wasn't square, I'd fight,
too.

When you don't fight, it's because what is said is true, and you're
afraid it will be found out. And a coward. Good Lord!

Anyhow, after that I got five cents a day for my apple. John put six
cents in, raising Roper, he said, but I wouldn't keep but five.

"I can't," I said. "I hate my conscience, for even in business it pokes
itself in. But five cents is all I can take."

"Which shows you're new in business, or you'd take the other fellow's
skin if he had to have what you've got. And I'm bound to have that
apple. Bound to!" And he dug the toe of his shoe so deep in the dirt he
could have put his foot in. We were down at the fence, where I went to
tell him he mustn't leave but five cents any more.

The Apple business was much easier than the Entertainment business; but
I enjoyed both. Making money is exciting. I guess that's why men love
to make it.

I made in all $2.34. One dollar and fifty cents on entertaining, and
eighty-four cents on apples.

The entertaining was this way. Mrs. Dick Moon is twin to the lady who
lived in a shoe. Her house isn't far from the Asylum, and I like her
real much; but she isn't good on management. Everything on the place
just runs over everything else, and nothing is ever ready on time.

She has money--that is, her husband has, which Miss Katherine says isn't
always the same thing. And she has servants and a graphophone and a
pianola, but she doesn't really seem to have anything but children, and
they are everywhere.

They are the sprawly kind that lie on their stomachs and kick their
heels, and get under your feet and on your back. And their mouths always
have molasses or sugar in the corners, and their noses have colds, and
their hands are that sticky they leave a print on everything they touch.

But they aren't mean-bad, just bad because they don't know what to do,
and they beg me to stay and play with them when Miss Jones sends me
over with a message. Sometimes I do, and the day Martha gave Mary such a
rasping about making money, another thought came besides the apples, and
I went that afternoon to see Mrs. Moon.

"Mrs. Moon," I said, "the children have colds and can't go out. If Miss
Bray will let me, would you like me to come over and entertain them
during our play-hour? It's from half-past four to half-past five. I'll
come every day from now until Christmas, and I charge twenty-five cents
a w