That was the beginning of the friendship. Sidney, who had begun being nice to Tom to please his mother, continued being nice to him because he liked him. There was an earnest, downright quality to Tom that the older boy was attracted by. Then when Sidney found that, in spite of an inclination toward unusual seriousness in one of his age, Tom had a perfectly good, if somewhat repressed, sense of humour, Sidney took to him in earnest. The boys were quite unalike in many ways. Sidney was small-boned, lithe, graceful, and dark. Tom was heavier, less finely built, and light. Sidney was impulsive, Tom deliberate. Both were capable of deep enthusiasms, but Tom’s were of slower birth and, perhaps, of longer duration. It is not unusual for boys to form friendships for those quite opposed to them both physically and mentally. In such a partnership what one lacks the other supplies. This explains to some extent the friendship that sprang up between Sidney Morris and Tom Pollock. For a week Tom believed that when Sidney was once more off the invalid list and free to seek the companionship of his old acquaintances he would see very little of him. The reverse, however, proved to be the case.

The friendship, instead of ceasing, grew. Sidney sought Tom at the hardware store in the late afternoons, stamping in sweatered and coated with his skating boots hung from a hockey stick over his shoulder and his face flushed by the afternoon’s practice. Then he would perch himself on the edge of a counter upstairs or on a box in the packing room below and tell enthusiastically of the practice. Mr. Cummings viewed him amusedly, Mr. Wright with deep scowls. He made friends at once with Joe Gillig, and I’m not at all certain that duties weren’t neglected sometimes when the three boys got together at the back of the store. At least once a week, often twice, Sidney haled Tom home to dinner with him. At first Tom went with misgivings, but when he realised that both Mr. and Mrs. Morris were glad to have him, or anyone else that Sidney wanted, he got over his shyness and enjoyed those evenings immeasurably. After dinner they went up to Sidney’s room and talked and talked on all the thousand and one subjects dear to a boy’s heart. I think Sidney did most of the talking, however, which was to be expected since he had much more to talk about. Tom’s existence was rather hum-drum and few experiences or adventures fell to his lot those days.

In school the boys saw little of each other since they were in different classes, but notes passed between them constantly, frightfully important notes making engagements for meetings after school or at lunch hour or containing news that couldn’t possibly wait to be told verbally. Of course Sidney did not give up his other friends, but instead of spreading his friendship over a half-dozen boys as he had done before, he gave most of it to Tom. They became inseparable. As may be expected, a good deal of fun, some good-natured and some malicious, was poked at the pair. Disgruntled ones called Tom a “hayseed” and a “Rube.” This annoyed Sidney more than it did Tom, however.

“I don’t mind,” he would say calmly. “I guess that’s what I am, anyway.”

“I’d like one of them to say that to me,” said Sidney warmly. “I’d punch him!”

Tom did not get the promised instruction in hockey that winter, for the reason that he never could find an opportunity to go with Sidney to the pond. Neither did he have a chance to see the hockey team in action. But he heard all about it from Sidney, who had gained a much-coveted position on it, and mourned with his chum over defeats and triumphed with him over victories; and the two were very evenly apportioned that year.

Meanwhile, Christmas came and went, and the New Year was rung in. The holiday season made a deal of hard work for Tom, for the store kept open every evening until Christmas and more than once he was forced to delay his departure for Derry until Sunday morning. Christmas Day was spent at home. He had purchased small gifts for everyone, including Star, who got a new collar, and he received presents from all. Uncle Israel gave him a five-dollar gold-piece, a deed of generosity as surprising as it was welcome to Tom. Sidney had thrust a small parcel into Tom’s hand the day before, and when Tom opened it Christmas morning he found a pretty gold stick-pin set with a topaz that, although he didn’t realise it, was exactly the colour of some of the big freckles that adorned his nose! In the afternoon he took his skates down to the creek and joined the merry throng of boys and girls. It was the first time he had tried the skates and they proved wonderful, besides being objects of envy to the other fellows. Jim Billings, whose father Tom had worked for last summer, remarked sneeringly after an examination of the new skates, that “Tom Pollock was gettin’ mighty stuck-up since he’d gone to the city!”

The next evening Tom accompanied Sidney home and stayed to dinner and saw the big Christmas Tree that was strung with tiny electric lights of white and red and blue. And Sidney showed him all his presents, and there was a whole big lot of them, too, Tom thought. One of them was the toboggan that Sidney had expressed a wish for and another was a little easel calendar in red paper that looked something like leather if you didn’t get too close to it. Sidney told Tom, with an arm over his shoulders, that it was “just bully” and that he liked it better than almost anything he’d got. The calendar was Tom’s modest gift.

After New Year’s life settled down again into the old manner. Tom studied hard at school and worked hard at the store, but he enjoyed both. Having a friend like Sidney had done away with loneliness and he no longer spent solitary evenings in his room. Once in a while Sidney came down to Locust Street, but usually Tom went to Sidney’s house. His comings and goings there were now matters of no comment. Mr. and Mrs. Morris always greeted him warmly and made him feel at home and free to come and go as he liked. Sometimes another fellow would drop in, sometimes two or three, and they had very merry times up in Sidney’s room. But Tom liked best the evenings when Sidney and he were alone. Several of the boys he had met through Sidney he liked very much, but he was apt to feel rather shy and constrained when they were around. Very often Mrs. Morris joined them for a few minutes, much to the pleasure of Tom, who still secretly adored her. Once, a month or so after their first meeting, he asked Sidney what he supposed his mother meant by her frequent allusions to his hair.

“She’s always telling me not to trouble about it,” said Tom, mystified. “I suppose she’s just sort of making fun about it because it’s red.”

“I don’t call it red,” answered Sidney. “It’s a dandy colour. You never know what Mumsie has in her head when she says things like that. She’s always having little jokes to herself. She’s funny.”

“She’s terribly nice,” said Tom. “And—and she’s the prettiest lady in Amesville, too, Sid.”

“You bet she is!”

One February morning, when Tom had trudged through a raging blizzard to the high school only to learn when he reached it that the “no school” whistle had blown a half-hour before, he decided to keep on to Sidney’s house. It was a good mile out there from the school and the wind and snow were cutting up high jinks, but Tom scorned the trolley cars, not altogether from motives of economy, and walked, fighting every step of the way. When he reached the Morrises the maid told him that Master Sidney had just gone downtown. Tom was turning away when Mrs. Morris appeared and insisted on his coming in.

“Sid won’t be more than a half-hour,” she said. “He went in to get something for his wireless set.” (A wireless receiving set had been amongst his Christmas presents and both he and Tom were greatly interested in it.) “Come in and get warm, Tom.” Then, seeing his condition, “Why, Tom Pollock!” she exclaimed. “I believe you walked!”

“Yes’m, I did,” answered Tom apologetically.

“Of all things on a day like this!” Mrs. Morris shook her head hopelessly. “Well, boys have no sense, anyway. Now take that coat right off and—— And no overshoes, either! Tom Pollock, you ought to be spanked and put to bed!”

“Yes’m,” agreed Tom sheepishly.

Five minutes later, divested of his wet clothes and chastely attired in a voluminous bath-robe of Mr. Morris’s, he was toasting in front of a big fire in the library and drinking beef tea that Mrs. Morris made by dropping a mysterious dark-brown tablet into a cup of hot water. It was very nice, and its effect, or perhaps the combined effects of the hard tussle with the blizzard and the warmth of the fire, was to make Tom feel delightfully drowsy and comfortable. When, presently, he had finished the beef tea and Mrs. Morris had returned from bearing away the empty cup, an unwonted boldness came to him.

“I wish,” he said as Mrs. Morris sank into a chair at the other side of the hearth, “I wish you’d tell me, please, what’s the matter with my hair.”

She looked at it concernedly. Tom, however, saw the laughter in her eyes. “Is it bothering you again, Tom?” she asked. “I’m so sorry!”

“It—it don’t bother me at all,” he responded desperately. “Only you’re all the time telling me not to let it! Is it just because it’s red?”

Then Mrs. Morris laughed deliciously. “No, Tom, it isn’t,” she said. “I suppose I’ve been horribly mean to tease you about it, haven’t I?”

“I didn’t mind,” Tom assured her earnestly. “Only—I wondered what it was. I asked Sid and he said he guessed it was just one of your jokes.”

“Of course it was; a rather silly one, too, Tom. Do you remember stopping one day in front of Sewall’s jewelry store and looking in a mirror?”

“No’m, I don’t think so.” Tom shook his head.

“It was away last summer—or early in the fall, Tom. You looked in the mirror and frowned and then you took off your hat and smoothed your hair. And then you nodded at yourself quite satisfied and looked up and caught me smiling at you. Don’t you remember now?”

“Yes’m.” Tom laughed shamefacedly.

“You scowled at me terrifically,” went on Mrs. Morris. “It amused me because I thought I knew just how you felt at being caught primping. And then when I saw you in Cummings and Wright’s that time I recognised you at once and thought I’d have a little fun with you. So I asked about your hair. That’s all there is to it. As to your hair being red, why, it isn’t; not really red, you know. It’s a perfectly wonderful shade and I wish I had it, Tom!”

Tom thought her own soft brown hair infinitely more lovely and becoming, but he didn’t say so. He only grinned.

“Are you terribly angry with me?” she went on smilingly.

“No’m.” Tom shook his head again. “I—I guess I sort of liked it!”

Then Sidney burst in, laden with packages, and dragged Tom upstairs to witness the installation of a new detector.

At the store Tom had been making strides. As yet there had been no mention of a raise in wages; he was still receiving his two dollars a week and being credited with fifty cents against the price of the pump; but he had progressed wonderfully. To be sure, he still swept and washed windows and ran an occasional errand, but he was at last a real clerk when those duties did not engage his attention. It had begun when Tom had acted on Sidney’s suggestion and explained to Mr. Cummings that it might be a good plan to keep hockey sticks as well as skates. Mr. Cummings had fallen in with the idea at once and had ordered the sticks. Unfortunately they had proved, on arrival, to be rather inferior and purchasers had objected to them.

“Well,” said Mr. Cummings when Tom reported the matter, “you find out what make of stick the boys want and let me know. This is your undertaking, Tom.”

So Tom found out where the best hockey sticks were made and a new consignment was ordered. Gradually pucks and all the paraphernalia of hockey were added and, in some way, the sale of those things became Tom’s especial task. Boys who came for skates or sticks or leg-guards or pucks sought him out and didn’t want to be waited on by anyone else. Mr. Cummings laughingly referred to “Tom’s Department.” But “Tom’s Department” made such a good showing by the middle of the winter that Mr. Cummings was both surprised and gratified. After that Tom had only to list an article wanted and Mr. Cummings sent in the order at once. There was no question as to the advisability of carrying it.

The last of February, Joe Gillig caught a heavy cold and took to bed with congestion of the lungs, and Tom suddenly found himself elevated temporarily to the position of clerk. Mr. Cummings was at first inclined to look for someone to take Joe’s place while he was out, but Mr. Wright objected. “Let Tom do his work for him,” he said. “I guess he can sell nails as well as Joe.” Mr. Cummings agreed doubtfully, and for three weeks Tom was exempt from window washing, sweeping, and errands. At first he was a trifle alarmed at the new responsibility, but he got on perfectly well, and Mr. Cummings was forced to agree with his partner that Tom could “sell nails as well as Joe.” At the end of the fortnight he even went further than that and acknowledged that Tom promised to become in time a much better salesman than Joe. For Tom took a great deal of pains to please customers; and those who looked askance at him at first on account of his youthfulness and showed a preference for being waited on by one of the partners soon changed their minds. Tom was somehow able to take a personal interest in the wants of even the humblest patron and forked out two pounds of ten-penny nails with as much care and attention as he would have displayed in filling a hundred-dollar order. If a customer wanted an article not in stock and which Tom believed he could obtain from another store, he did not, as Joe would have done, carelessly inform the purchaser that they were out of it. Tom said: “We haven’t that in just now, sir, but I’ll see that you have it this afternoon, if that will do. Where shall I send it?” Then at dinner time Tom scurried around to one or another of the rival stores, found the article, paid for it, and sent it out on the afternoon delivery. The first time he did this he presented his bill to Miss Miller and was reimbursed. Not long afterward Mr. Wright came across the item and made inquiries. Tom was called in to explain. “But what’s the use of doing a thing like that?” inquired Mr. Wright irritably. “You paid eighty-five cents for the thing and sold it at eighty-five cents. Where does the profit to us come in, young man?”

“There isn’t any profit, sir,” Tom answered. “But the customer gets what he wants, sir. It doesn’t cost us anything and maybe we keep the man’s trade. If we tell him we’re out of a certain thing, he might go to Bullard’s or Stevens and Green’s for it and keep on going there.”

Mr. Wright said “Humph!” and rattled a pen-holder. Mr. Cummings, however, nodded. “You’re right, Tom,” he said. “That’s well reasoned. You evidently think it pays to please your customers, eh?”

“Yes, sir; don’t you?” asked Tom innocently.

“I do.” Mr. Cummings smiled. “But lots of employÉs don’t, son. You keep on with that notion. It’s a good one. And whenever you can find something at another store that we haven’t got you get it. Have them make out a bill for it and get your money from Miss Miller. That right, Horace?”

“I guess so,” answered Mr. Wright. “Seems to me, though, we’d ought to have the thing and not be buying from other hardware stores.”

“Bless us, we can’t keep everything folks ask for! Nobody can. But, as Tom here says, there’s no need to let folks know it!”

It was a day or two later that Tom was again summoned to the office in a slack period. Mr. Cummings was there alone.

“Sit down a minute, Tom,” he said. “I want to talk about that department of yours. It’s done pretty well this winter. Did you know it?”

“I thought maybe it had,” answered Tom modestly. “I know we sold a good deal, sir.”

“We certainly did. And the profits in those goods are high, too. Now, look here, why don’t we go into the thing in earnest? I’ve talked to Mr. Wright about it and he’s agreeable. Why not put in a regular sporting goods department, eh? Aren’t there lots of things boys use in summer as well as winter?”

“Oh, yes, sir! You see, they’ll begin playing baseball pretty soon; and golf, too, although I don’t know if there’s much of that played around here.”

“Of course there is! There are three clubs within ten miles of town. What else?”

“I guess that’s all, sir, in summer, isn’t it?”

“You ought to know better than I, son. Well, could we sell bats and balls and golf things, do you think?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Tom eagerly. “I’m sure the high school fellows would get their things here if they knew we kept them.”

“We’ll advertise then. We’ll announce in the papers that we’ve added a sporting goods department, eh?”

“Yes, sir, and I think it would pay to put a small advertisement in the Brown-and-Blue.”

“That’s the school paper?”

“Yes, sir, the monthly. Fellows would be sure to see it and, besides, they like to trade with firms who—who patronise the paper.”

“All right, we’ll do that, too. Now I’m going to put this up to you, Tom. You take right hold. Get in touch with the dealers, get their catalogues, find out their trade prices and make up a list of what we want to start out with. I wouldn’t go in very heavy as to quantity just at first. We’ll find out how we stand, I guess, before we plunge very deep. But get a good assortment of stuff.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Now, another thing. After the first of next month you do nothing but sell, Tom. We’ll get someone to look after the windows and sweep up. Of course you’ll help Joe in the packing room, just as now, but you’ll be a salesman instead of a—well, general utility man!”

“I—I’d like that, sir,” said Tom.

“Of course you would. You’ll have the sporting goods under your management, son, and we’ll see if we can’t make them pay. Of course we expect to make you a small raise, Tom. I haven’t talked that over with Mr. Wright yet, but I’ll let you know in a few days. We can’t increase your wages much just yet, but if you make good we’ll be fair with you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cummings. I—I’ll do my best.”

“That’s right. Do your best, Tom, and you’ll get on. It’s the boy who does his best all the time that won’t stay down, son. Just as it’s the fellow who tries to get along by giving his employers as little as possible who never moves up. Remember that. Now you get busy and get your orders in. You can have two sections of shelves on the left of the door down there for your goods, and the cases in front. If you have to have more space, I guess we can find it. There’s a lot of that builders’ hardware that would be better placed back here, I guess. Well, that’s all. Let me hear what you learn and keep me posted as to how things are going. But don’t bother me with questions, son. This is your affair. Make it go.”