“No. Have you?”

“No.”

“We’ll get a dime or two,” said Sam.

“Editor Tinsman might have a job he wants done,” Ben suggested.

“Or Ed Snover, or Doc Greenshields,” added Sam. “Marb Brab might have something.”

“I got forty cents Ma gave me to get her earrings,” Ben confided.

“Have ye? We’ll get a dime or two, somehow.”

The two old men waited on Newberry’s Corner. Marb Brab came along.

“Good evening, boys.”

“Howdy, Mr. Brab.”

Marb Brab went on without offering them a job. Editor Tinsman said “Hello!” to them as he crossed the street to his office. Al Jersey came along. They stepped out in the middle of the sidewalk, scuffled a bit, and laughed loudly. But he had nothing for them.

“I’d better get Ma’s earrings, ’fore it’s too late.”

“Better wait a bit.”

“No, I’d better go.”

“If you work it right, mebbe Tibbits will take just thirty cents.”

“Catch Roy Tibbits a-doin’ anything like that!”

“Mebbe I’ll get something while you’re gone,” Sam concluded. Ben started up the street.

Charlie Wade, the photographer, passed Newberry’s Corner, and Lawyer Moreland, and Ed Snover.

“Got anything?” Ben asked, when he returned.

“Let’s go an’ look in the drug-store window,” Sam suggested.

“Mebbe Hepplethwaite’ll want us to turn the ice-cream freezer.”

They walked up and down in front of the plate-glass window. Hepplethwaite didn’t beckon to them. They heard the town clock strike ten—there was little chance of their earning anything.

Sam went through his pockets. “We ain’t got nothin’ we can borrow a dime or two on, have we?”

“Ma’s sick. She thinks a wonderful lot of them earrings. If it was next week, when Ma’d be better—”

“You might say you just forgot,” Sam interrupted. “Next Saturday night we’d sure make some money an’ get ’em back.”

“Ma’s sick. It’s one of her pretties.”

“Let’s go home, then,” Sam grumbled. “I’m tired of a-hangin’ around here.”