Did anyone trade a puppy?
<answer>  By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat --and so on <context> at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said, "Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." Tom thought for a moment, was about to agree; but he changed his mind. "No --no --it won't do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don't think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough." "No --is that so? Oh come, now --let me just try. Only just a little." "Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn't done right, I'm afraid Aunt Polly... " "Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say --I'll give you the core of my apple." "Well, here --No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid..." "I'll give you all of it." Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat --and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures. And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company -and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends. He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get.