In imagination he could see Nick, who never liked hard work any too well, they said, busying himself like a beaver, putting in coal for some neighbor, perhaps; or cleaning a walk off for a dime.

He must have done considerable work to earn that first dollar.
"Then after that," Hugh was saying to himself, "he sold a pair of his pet pigeons, and I reckon he thinks a heap of them, from all I've heard said.

Yes, Nick must have wanted my old skates worse than he ever did anything in all his life.

And when I refused to sell them to him he just thought he'd do the trading by himself.

It's a queer way of doing business, and one the law wouldn't recognize; but, after all, it was an upward step for Nick Lang, when he could have taken the skates, and kept the cash as well.