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Now you know, I’ve always been considered a good, trader. But Grover!—why, it got so finally that I wouldn’t even tell him. Your papa said to me: “You’d be better off if you’d just tell him what you want and leave the rest to him. For,” your papa says, “damned if I don’t believe he’s a better trader than you are. He gets more for the money than anyone I ever saw.”

Well, I had to admit it, you know. I had to own up then. Grover, even as a child, was a far better trader than I was. . . . Why, yes, they told it on him all over town, you know. They said all of the market men, all of the farmers, knew him. They’d begin to laugh when they saw him coming—they’d say: “Look out! Here’s Grover! Here’s one trader you’re not going to fool!”

And they were right! That child! I’d say, “Grover, suppose you run uptown and see if they’ve got anything good to eat today”—and I’d just wink at him, you know, but he’d know what I meant. I wouldn’t let on that I wanted anything exactly, but I’d say, “Now it just occurs to me that some good fresh stuff may be coming in from the country, so suppose you take this dollar and just see what you can do with it.”

Well, sir, that was all that was needed. The minute you told that child that you depended on his judgment, he’d have gone to the ends of the earth for you—and, let me tell you something, he wouldn’t miss, either!

His eyes would get as black as coals—oh! the way that child would look at you, the intelligence and sense in his expression. He’d say: “Yes, ma’am! Now don’t you worry, mama. You leave it all to me—and I’ll do good!” said Grover.

And he’d be off like a streak of lightning and—oh Lord! As your father said to me, “I’ve been living in this town for almost thirty years,” he said—”I’ve seen it grow up from a crossroads village, and I thought I knew everything there was to know about it—but that child—” your papa says—”he knows places that I never heard of!”. . . Oh, he’d go right down there to that place below your papa’s shop where the draymen and the country people used to park their wagons—or he’d go down there to those old lots on Concord Street where the farmers used to keep their wagons. And, child that he was, he’d go right in among them, sir—Grover would!—go right in and barter with them like a grown man!

And he’d come home with things he’d bought that would make your eyes stick out. . . . Here he comes one time with another boy, dragging a great bushel basket full of ripe termaters between them.”Why, Grover!” I says.”How on earth are we ever going to use them? Why they’ll go bad on us before we’re half way through with them.” “Well, mama,” he says, “I know—” oh, just as solemn as a judge—”but they were the last the man had,” he says, “and he wanted to go home, and so I got them for ten cents,” he says.”They were so cheap,” said Grover, “I thought it was a shame to let ’em go, and I figgered that what we couldn’t eat—why,” says Grover, “you could put up!” Well, the way he said it—so earnest and so serious— had to laugh.”But I’ll vow!” I said “If you don’t beat all!” . . . But that was Grover!—the wayhe was in those days! As everyone said, boy that he was, he had the sense and judgement of a grown man. . . . Child, child, I’ve seen you all grow up, and all of you were bright enough. There were no half-wits in my family. But for all-round intelligence, judgment, and general ability, Grover surpassed the whole crowd. I’ve never seen his equal, and everyone who knew him as a child will say the same.