Edward Stratemeyer

First at the North Pole Edward Stratemeyer

?What be you a-goin? to do today, Andy?? ?I?m going to try my luck over to the Storburgh camp, Uncle Si. I hardly think Mr. Storburgh will have an opening for me, but it won?t hurt to ask him.? ?Did you try Sam Hickley, as I told you to?? continued Josiah Graham, as he settled himself more comfortably before the open fireplace of the cabin. ?Yes, but he said he had all the men he wanted.? Andy Graham gave something of a sigh. ?Seems to me there are more lumbermen in this part of Maine than there is lumber.? ?Humph! I guess you ain?t tried very hard to git work,? grumbled the old man, drawing up his bootless feet on the rungs of his chair, and spreading out his hands to the generous blaze before him. ?Did you see them Plover brothers?? ?No, but Chet Greene did, day before yesterday, and they told him they were laying men off instead of taking ?em on.? ?Humph! I guess thet Chet Greene don?t want to work. He?d rather fool his time away in the woods, huntin? and fishin?.? ?Chet is willing enough to work if he can get anything to do. And hunting pays, sometimes. Last week he got a fine deer and one of the rich hunters from Boston paid him a good price for it.? ?Humph! Thet ain?t as good as a stiddy, payin? job. I don?t want you to be a-lazin? your time away in the woods,?I want you to grow up stiddy an? useful. Besides, we got to have money, if we want to live.? ?Aren?t you going to try to get work, Uncle Si?? asked the boy anxiously, as he gazed at the large and powerful-looking frame of the man before him.