cordially as he had greeted himself but a few minutes
before. David was not glad that he was there, for the expression on
Dan's face told him that he had seen and heard more than he had any
business to know. David made haste to finish his trading after that,
and when he had purchased a dress and a pair of shoes for his mother,
and a pair of shoes and stockings for himself, he handed out his
ten-dollar bill in payment. Dan's eyes seemed ready to start from
their sockets at the sight of it.

"Never mind that, now," said the grocer, pushing it back. "Perhaps
you will need it some day and I can wait six months, if you are not
ready to settle up before."

Dan's eyes opened still wider, and when his brother, after thanking
the grocer for his kindness and confidence, gathered up his purchases
and left the store, he followed slowly after him, so wholly lost in
wonder that he never recollected that he had six dollars in his own
pocket, and that he had come there to spend the best part of five of
it. He walked along at a little distance behind his brother, looking
thoughtfully at the ground all the while, as if he were revolving
some perplexing question in his mind, and then quickened his pace to
overtake him.

"Le' me carry some of them things," said he, as he came up with
David.

"No, I thank you," replied the latter, who knew that Dan never would
have offered to help him, if he had not hoped to gain something by
it. "I can get along very well by myself. The load is not a heavy
one."

"You're an amazin' lucky feller, Davy," continued Dan. "What you been
a doin' to Silas, to make him speak so kind to us poor folks?"

"I haven't done anything to him. I don't know how to account for it,
any more than you do."

"What's the matter, now? Forgot something?" asked Dan, as his brother
suddenly stopped and looked toward the landing, as if he had half a
mind to turn around and go back there.

Yes, David had forgotten something, and it was very important too, he
thought. He knew that Dan was always on the lookout for a chance to
make a penny without work, and David was afraid that he might be
tempted to repeat the trick which he and his father had played upon
Don and Bert with so much success.

It would be a very easy matter for Dan to make up some plausible
story to tell the grocer, and perhaps on the strength of his
brother's almost unlimited credit, he might be able to obtain a few
little articles of which he stood in need