Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/184

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
166
THE BOSS OF LITTLE ARCADY

abundant, and outwardly it had escaped the blight of the scroll saw.

But the civilization of Little Arcady would be alien to the newcomers, and I was apprehensive that it would also be difficult.

Further, I suspected that J. R. C. Tuckerman, with all his genius for hard work, lacked the administrative gifts of a true financier. He said a hundred thousand pullets when he should have said twenty-five, and he seemed to consider his banked hoard of gold money to be inexhaustible when it was in fact merely a sum slightly greater than he was wont to juggle with in his darkened mind.

I was not surprised, therefore, when I found him rather dejectedly sunk in figures one afternoon about a week after Miss Caroline's "home-fixin's" had begun to arrive.

These were all about him at the front door, in the hall, and extending far into the rooms, a truly depressing chaos of packing boxes, swathed tables, chairs, bureaus, and barrels of china. Nor was this all; for even as I loitered up to the door the dray of Sam Murdock halted in front with another huge load.

Clem raised his head from a sheet of sprawled figures and regarded this fresh trouble with something like consternation. In one hand he fluttered a packet of receipted freight bills, and he spoke as one in an evil dream.

"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, it suttinly do seem lahk