r:

"I was a boy not long ago, unthinking, idle, wild and young,
I laughed, and danced and talked and sung."

The antics Palmer cut while delivering this couplet were truly amusing.
Palmer was an actor. Placing his hand on Alfred's shoulder, gazing into
his face, he continued:

"Just at the age twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech and speech is truth."

Then quoting Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress: "I have given him my
faith and sworn my allegiance to him. How then can I go back from this
and not be hanged as a traitor?" Palmer pointed his long, bony finger at
Alfred and awaited a reply. It came:

"I was indeed engaged in your dominions but your services were hard and
your wages such as a man could not live on. For the wages of sin is
death."

Palmer, a little discomforted, led the boy to one side, saying: "Now see
here, young fellow, I'm as old as your father; I don't look it, but I
am. Now you want to quit, eh? You wouldn't be at home four days before
you would wish yourself back here. You are not rich, your father is not
rich. You have to make a living. I'll give you an opportunity to make
money. You are learning this business, you have good ideas. You remain
with me, I'll make a man of you; I'll put you in a way to make more
money than you've ever seen."

Alfred intimated that he could not see himself making a great deal of
money at twenty dollars a month.

"Why, don't you count your board, as anything?"

"Well, I'm not satisfied. I'm worth more than twenty dollars a month to
you," stubbornly contended Alfred.

"But you and your father are both bound up to me in a written agreement.
Do you want to break it? Would that be right?"

"Well, you broke your written contract with the members of Rock Hill
Church. You said Gideon made the contract without consulting you.
Grandpap made this contract without consulting me."

Palmer laughed long and loud: "Egad, that's good! This kid finds me
skinning a couple of old duffers and forthwith he sets about to skin me.
The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few; ask and it
shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be
opened to you." Pointing at Alfred, he continued: "But remember, the
love of money is the root of all evil. Say, what are you going to do
with all this money?"

"Buy a farm, some day," answered Alfred.

"How great a matter a little fire kindleth," quoted Palmer as he
pleadingly asked: