President Elder told all this to the assembled directors. A storm broke at once. Naturally, Attorney Stockwell approved what the president had done. He did it for two reasons: he was anxious to get Bud a profitable job, and he saw at once that Judge Pennington was opposed to the action taken by Mr. Elder. In the lively discussion, the other director, Mr. Waldron, sided with Mr. Elder because Attorney Stockwell had once opposed him in a lawsuit.
Judge Pennington argued that Mr. T. Glenn Dare would undoubtedly sue the association.
“Let him,” exclaimed President Elder. “We can beat him. He didn’t report, and I’m convinced he was on a spree somewhere. Look at the advantage. If we pay him what he demands, it will be six days at fifty dollars a day. That’s three hundred dollars. We can save that.”
“This young Wilson won’t work for nothing, will he?” asked Mr. Waldron.
President Elder felt compelled at this point to relate his experience with Bud. He told of offering to pay their amateur operator; how the boy had refused the money, and how Attorney Stockwell had finally accepted the sum to hold in trust.
Judge Pennington laughed outright.
“An’ that’s what we’re up against, is it?” he asked, with a chuckling sneer. “Wouldn’t take ten dollars an’ wants fifty dollars? And yet you’re takin’ the risk o’ a lawsuit just to give him a job.”
“But,” insisted the president, “you forget. He’ll do in a pinch what he won’t do for wages. He won’t work for ten dollars a day, but he’ll work for nothing.”
“Ef he’ll do that,” promptly suggested Director Waldron, “I vote we give him the job.”
“That ain’t treatin’ the boy right,” chimed in Attorney Stockwell. “Be fair with him. He’ll listen to reason. It’s worth more’n ten dollars to risk your life that way. If you’ll call it twenty-five dollars I’ll undertake to see that he does the work.”
“My Lafe would do it for nothin’ as a matter o’ pride, if he wasn’t sick,” urged Judge Pennington.
“But he is sick,” broke in Mr. Elder. “We’ve fired our expert, an’ we’ve got to get some one or cut out the performance. I agree with Director Stockwell. If we call it twenty-five dollars—and that’ll only be for three more days—I’m convinced Bud will help us out.”
But Judge Pennington and Director Waldron were stubborn. The matter was argued for nearly an hour, and finally a compromise was reached. President Elder was authorized to pay to Bud not over twenty dollars a day to attempt another ascent. Then the meeting adjourned. At its conclusion, Attorney Stockwell hurried off home to find Bud and tell him of his good fortune.
Strangely enough, the lawyer had hardly disappeared when the other three directors met again on the bank steps.
“That’s all we could do afore Stockwell,” said Judge Pennington at once. “Ef we’d said any more, Attorney Stockwell would have put a bug in the boy’s ear an’ they’d have worked together. What you want to do, Mr. Elder, is to get the boy alone. I ain’t no love for him, but I will say he gave us a good show, and I reckon he can do it agin. Ef he won’t work for twenty dollars, give him what’s necessary.”
“I understand,” replied President Elder, “Stockwell is a good deal on the make. If he thought we’d stand for any more, he’d see that the boy holds out for the highest figure.”
“Better give him fifty dollars,” slowly conceded Director Waldron, “ruther than put off the show. An’ we’ll make money at that. But it’s ridic’lous for a boy o’ his age.”
“Get him at any figure in reason,” urged Judge Pennington. “I want the fair to go off with a boom. An’ if it’s up to the kid to make it go—all right. But it’ll swell him up awful.”
Before Attorney Stockwell reached his home, Mrs. Stockwell had discovered Bud’s presence, although she had not disturbed him. When her husband reached the house and learned that his adopted son was safe in bed, he was greatly relieved. He went at once to Bud’s room. It was after eleven o’clock. Arousing the sleeping boy, he prepared to close the deal between Bud and the fair association.
Bud’s first response was to pull the covers over his head and snore lustily.
“Wake up, Bud, I want to talk to you.”
“I have been here all the time,” sleepily responded the boy. “I ain’t done nothin’. Is it morning?”
Attorney Stockwell shook him again until the lad was fully awake. Then he asked him, somewhat brusquely, what he meant “by riding such a high horse” with Mr. Elder and refusing to take the ten dollars.
“Because I said I’d work for nothing,” said Bud, crawling from under his sheet and sitting on the bedside.
“But they are willing to pay you, and pay you well. Men don’t work for nothing. I work all day for ten dollars,” added the lawyer.
“That’s it,” said Bud. “I don’t want to work all my life for ten dollars a day. I want nothing or what I’m worth.”
“Rubbish,” snorted the lawyer. “You talk pretty swell for a boy who ain’t never yet made enough to keep him.”
“I reckon I owe you a good deal of money,” exclaimed Bud, still blinking his sleepy eyes and then looking at his foster father sharply.
“We ain’t talkin’ about that,” answered the lawyer evasively.
“I know ‘we’ ain’t,” said Bud. “But I am. You never talk about it when I want to. Why did you take me in? Did my father leave me any property?”
“The courts’ll take care o’ that at the right time,” replied Attorney Stockwell pompously.
“All right,” replied Bud, sleepily. “When they do, you just take out all I’ve cost you and quit throwin’ it up to me ever’ day.”
The lawyer rose and walked about a moment in an embarrassed way.
“That’s all right, Bud. We won’t quarrel about that. I ain’t puttin’ you out o’ house an’ home. I didn’t wake you up to talk o’ that. I got ten dollars here President Elder gave me to give to you.”
“Keep it yourself,” yawned Bud, “and I won’t owe you so much.”
“We’ve fired that Mr. Dare,” exclaimed the lawyer, playing his trump card, “and we held a meeting to-night to get another operator. We elected you.”
“Me?” exclaimed Bud, at last fully awake. “Elected me?”
“Yes,” went on the lawyer. “He got gay with us—wanted pay for six days, and we discharged him.”
“And the fair people want me to sail the aeroplane again?” continued Bud jubilantly.
“That’s what was voted.”
Bud sat up on the edge of the bed, his eyes snapping and his face wreathed in smiles.
“I guess Mr. Elder must have changed his mind,” Bud commented. “He told me I ‘ought to be ashamed of myself.’”
“He has. We’re all agreed. And we’ve agreed, too, that you’re to have twenty-five dollars a day for your work.”
The boy straightened up as if he had been struck. From smiles, his face became set, and finally rebellious. He picked at the bed clothes a moment, and then said:
“I’m sorry they did that. I’d have done it for nothing to help out. But when it comes to a price, I’m worth just as much as Mr. Dare. If they want to pay me, it’s fifty dollars a day.”
“You won’t do for twenty-five dollars a day what you’ll do for nothing?”
“That’s it. I said I wouldn’t. That’s all there is to it.”
“You refuse,” said the lawyer, growing red in the face.
“You’ve said it.”
Attorney Stockwell fumbled at his collar as if he were choking. Then he sputtered:
“You can think this over till morning. If you don’t get some sense into your head by that time, you’d better find some other place to live.”
“Meaning I’m kicked out,” replied Bud instantly and springing to his feet.
“You can sleep over it,” added the lawyer. “Don’t need to act hastily. But it’s no use us trying to get along together if you’re too proud to help out when I get you a good job.”
“I don’t need to sleep over it,” answered Bud promptly. “My sleepin’ is done for to-night. If that’s the verdict, we’ll call it quits.”
The lawyer was palpably embarrassed. He was afraid to put Bud out for reasons best known to himself, but he felt like it.
“I’ll see you later,” he snapped suddenly, and left the room.
Bud’s sleeping wasn’t as nearly finished as he thought. With youthful agility, he turned in again, and did not awaken until daylight. The Stockwells breakfasted early, but Bud’s chores were done when his foster father appeared. Somewhat to Bud’s surprise, the affair of the night before was not recalled, and the boy was about to escape from the breakfast table when he was surprised to see President Elder’s well known rig dash up to the house.
“You won’t listen to me,” explained the lawyer, in no very good humor, “so Mr. Elder has come to reason with you.”
“I’ll do it for fifty dollars or nothing,” stoutly insisted Bud.
When Mr. Elder appeared on the porch—and it was apparent that he was not overflowing with good humor—he wasted very little time. After greeting the lawyer and his wife, he said:
“Bud, we worked together pretty well yesterday. Come with me. I want to see you.”
“Go along,” exclaimed Attorney Stockwell, in a tone of authority. But this was not needed. Bud needed no urging. With a smile, he led the way to the buggy.
The fair official started toward the center of the town. Before he could open negotiations, Bud exclaimed:
“Mr. Elder, I reckon I know what you want. You’ve fallen out with the guy that threw us down and you want me to do the aeroplane stunt again.”
President Elder smiled.
“You know what I said yesterday,” went on Bud. “I don’t like to break my word. But don’t you think you people are makin’ me purty cheap?”
“Perhaps not as cheap as you think!”
“Mr. Stockwell told me I’m to get twenty-five dollars.”
“And you think that ain’t enough?”
“Fifty dollars,” said Bud with a smile, “or nothing.”
The thrifty official grasped at this straw.
“Are you willing to do it for nothing?”
“Yes. But I’ll do it as a favor, and I want a favor in return.”
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Elder suspiciously.
“Well,” went on Bud, with some embarrassment, “you’re a big man in this town, Mr. Elder. You can get about anything you want. I reckon Judge Pennington would do you a favor if you asked.”
“Are you in trouble with Judge Pennington?”
“I’m not. But two of my friends are. See that, Mr. Elder,” continued Bud, showing the ring Madame Zecatacas had given him. His companion gazed at it intently.
“That’s a charm,” explained Bud. “It was given to me by an old gypsy who hadn’t any other way to show me she was my friend. It’s a good luck piece. I don’t know as it helped me any, but the old woman who gave it to me wanted it to.”
“I don’t see,” began Mr. Elder.
“This old woman and her son-in-law made Lafe Pennington mad. It wasn’t their fault. It was his. Yesterday, Judge Pennington had ’em arrested for assaultin’ Lafe, which they hadn’t. They yanked ’em off’n the fair-grounds and locked ’em up. They’re goin’ to have a trial to-day. They ain’t done nothin’, but they are my friends, in a kind of a way. If you’ll persuade Judge Pennington to let ’em go, I’ll work the airship all week for nothin’.”
President Elder laughed. Then he slapped the boy on the back.
“Bud,” he said laughing heartily, “you are certainly a strange boy. That’s a go. I’ll promise.”
“Let ’em out right away,” continued Bud, “so they can get in a full day tellin’ fortunes.”
“Right away,” laughed the fair president.
“Then I guess I’ll take the first hack out to the grounds and get busy.”
“I suppose you won’t mind my paying your expenses,” suggested the president, when they reached the square.
“Got to have hack fare and dinner money,” said Bud, with a smile. And accepting a five dollar bill, Bud was off to the fair-grounds and airship shed again.