Colonel Harrington had left for a fashionable resort two days after the Fourth, and Bart understood that Mrs. Harrington was preparing to join him there.

Bart’s father had been taken home after spending two days in the hospital.

The surgeon there had told him that his case was not at all hopeless, and the old express agent was cheerful and patient under his affliction, and nights Bart made a great showing of the necessity of going over the business of the day, so as to keep his father’s mind occupied.

So far Bart’s affairs had settled down to what seemed to be a clear and definite basis, and when that afternoon a new platform scale arrived, and he received a letter of instructions from Mr. Leslie concerning the sale of the unclaimed express packages, he felt a certain spice of pleasant anticipation injected into the business routine.

“Why, it will be a regular circus!” said Darry Haven that afternoon, when Bart told him about it.  “Last year they advertised the sale at Marion.  I was up there at my uncle’s.  All the farmers came in for miles around, and the way they bid, and the funny things they found in the packages, made it jolly, I tell you!”

When Bart got through with the routine work the next day, he started in to formulate his plans for the sale.

It was to take place in thirty days, and the superintendent had relied on Bart’s judgment to make it a success.

Darry Haven came in as Bart was laboring over an advertisement for the four weekly papers of Pleasantville and vicinity.

“Here,” he said promptly, “you are of a literary family.  Suppose you take charge of this, and get up the matter for a dodger, too.”

“Say, Bart,” said Darry eagerly, “we can print the dodgers—­my brother and I—­as good as a regular office.  You know we’ve got a good amateur outfit at home.  Father was an editor, and I’ll get him to write up a first-class stunner of an advertisement.  Can’t you throw the job our way?”

“If you make the price right, of course,” answered Bart.

“We can afford to underbid them all,” declared Darry; and so the matter was settled.

“Oh, by the way,” said Darry, as he was about to leave—­“Lem Wacker’s out of a job again.”

“You don’t surprise me,” remarked Bart, “but how is that?”

“Why, Martin & Company are buying green peppers at seventy cents a bushel.  They heard that down at Arlington someone was offering them to the storekeepers at one dollar for two bushels, investigated, detected Dale Wacker peddling the peppers from factory bags, and found that his uncle, Lem, was mixed up in the affair.  Anyway, Dale’s father had to settle the bill, and they fired Lem.”

“Mr. Lem Wacker is bad enough when at work,” remarked Bart, “but out of work I fear he is a dangerous man.  All right!” he called, hurrying to the door as there was a hail from outside.

Colonel Harrington’s buckboard was backed to the platform and its driver was unloading a large trunk.