John Fitzgerald Read Free Page A

Parley pushed his coonskin cap to the back
of his head. "I sure ain't going to pay to rent
a bike when I'm sitting in school," he said.
        He and the other kids looked at me as if
I'd just tried to rob their piggy banks, and walked out of the barn.
        "Tell you what I'll do," Sammy
said. "Seeing as how I would only get to use the bike for a couple of
hours on school days, I'll give you a penny a day. I know the other kids would
pay you a penny too, but there will be days when nobody will rent the bike.
I'll pay you cash right now for the next fifty school days."
        I knew Sammy was right, and
five-cents-a-week profit was better than taking a chance of not renting the
bike on some school days.
        "Why do you want the bike all for
yourself for ten weeks?" I asked.
        "Mr. Nicholson at the drugstore wants
a delivery boy with a bike to work after school and on Saturdays," Sammy
said. "You will be helping me get the job, John, and you know my folks are
poor and we can use the money."
        "The drugstore is closed on
Sundays," I said. "Why did you want Sundays too?"
        "A fellow is entitled to a little fun
after working all week, ain't he?" Sammy asked.
        I sure as heck didn't want to be known as a
fellow who stopped a boy from getting a job and helping out his folks.
    "It's a
deal," I said.
        Sammy put his hand in another pocket and
took out exactly fifty cents in change as if he had known what was going to
happen.
        The next day after school I had to deliver
the weekly edition of Papa's newspaper to local subscribers at their homes and
the ones with yellow mail stickers on them to the post office. Papa saw I was
using my wagon instead of Tom's bike. I told him about the deal that I had made
with Sammy Leeds. Papa pushed his green eyeshade up on his forehead.
        "I'm glad you helped Sammy get a
job," he said, "but you had no right renting out something you do not
own. And I hope you realize Sammy will just about wear out the tires in ten
weeks on these gravel streets."
    "That is
Tom's tough luck," I said.
        "No, J.D., that is your tough
luck," Papa said. "You will buy new tires for your brother's
bicycle."
        "But they will cost about three
dollars," I protested, "and I am only making fifty cents on the whole
deal."
        "I am sure you have enough money in
your bank to buy the new tires when the time comes," Papa said.
        If I thought that was bad, the worst was
yet to come. Sammy let all the kids know that Mr. Nicholson was paying him two
dollars a week and in ten weeks he would have more than enough money saved to
buy a bike of his own. He also told all the kids he would be at Smith's vacant
lot on Sundays and they could rent the bike for a penny an hour.
        I learned later that Sammy had made seven
cents renting the bike for one-hour rides that first Sunday. I knew he would go
on making money every Sunday. And, oh, how I wished my little brain had thought
of the idea first. Boy, oh, boy, what a catastrophe my career as a
wheeler-dealer had turned out to be. If Papa was right about a fellow profiting
spiritually from failure, I'd soon become the holiest kid in the world at the
rate I was going.
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    A Born Loser
     
        MAMMA AND AUNT BERTHA had towels tied
around their heads when Papa and I entered the kitchen for breakfast the next
morning. It was their way of notifying us that fall housecleaning was to begin
that day. During the next six days I discovered that Abraham Lincoln left out
something when he freed the slaves—he forgot to include kids in the
Emancipation Proclamation. I was so plumb tuckered out at night I could hardly
do my homework. We finished all the housecleaning on Saturday. That was one
Saturday night when Mamma didn't have to remind me it was time for my bath.
    "I am going
to take my bath and go to bed," I said as we all sat in the parlor after
supper was over.
        Mamma looked at the clock on