The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle | Page 3

tumbling excitedly into the house.
"Look, mother! Look, everybody!" he exclaimed. "It's all done! Here are the three hundred and fifty blocks all in one pile. Now, I'm ready for my money, mother."
"Why, Johnny!" gasped Mrs. Marshall, in astonishment. "It isn't possible you have done them all in two short weeks!"
"Here they are," answered Johnny, smiling broadly. "Todd got in a hurry for his money, and I was so everlasting tired of the old patchwork that I had to think of some plan; so I farmed out two hundred of the blocks at a quarter of a cent apiece. I got up a sort of secret society, and we sewed after school and on Saturdays in the barn. The boys are waiting around the corner for their money now. There's ten of 'em, and I owe each one a nickel. So give me part of the money in small change, please, mother. Todd's there, too, 'cause I told him that you said you'd pay the very hour they were done."
He dropped the bundle in her lap and hopped up and down, holding one foot in his hand. "Now the rifle's mine," he sang. "I can look the whole world in the face, for I owe not any man." He was quoting from the memory exercises at school. His eager face clouded a little at his mother's ominous silence. He shifted uneasily from one foot to another, wondering why she did not speak. At last she said, slowly:
"But I had expected to pay you out of the turkey money, and I can't get that before Christmas. I hadn't an idea you could finish before then. And, oh, Johnny!" she added, sadly, "I thought it would be all your own work. What do I care for a quilt made by Tom, Dick, and Harry? I consented to spend so much money on it, because I thought it would give you employment for six or seven weeks at least, and that we would all set such store by a quilt that you had made with your own little fingers,--every stitch of it!"
Johnny wriggled uncomfortably. It had been purely a business arrangement with him. He could not understand his mother's sentiment. There was another disagreeable pause. Mrs. Marshall gazed into the fire with such a disappointed look in her eyes that Johnny felt the tears coming into his own. Then his father and Rob and Rhoda, seeing the humour of the situation, began to laugh.
"Oh, what a joke!" gasped Rhoda finally, holding her sides.
"Who on? I'd like to know," demanded Johnny, savagely, and threw himself full length on the rug.
"I don't know what to do!" he sobbed, his face buried in his arms, and his feet waving wildly back and forth above his prostrate body. "I don't know what to do-oo! The boys are out there waiting for me around the corner, expecting me to bring the money right away. I told them sure I'd bring it--that you promised--the very hour! I didn't know it made any difference to you who finished 'em, just so they was done."
"It was a misunderstanding, Johnny," said his mother, rising slowly, "but I'll keep my promise, of course." She went up-stairs, and in a few minutes came back with a five-dollar gold piece that she had taken out of a little box of keepsakes. They all knew its history.
"Oh, mother, not that!" cried Rhoda. "Not the gold piece that grandfather gave you because he was so proud of your leading the school a whole year both in scholarship and deportment!"
"Yes, he gave it to me on my tenth birthday, just a little while before he died. It was the last thing he ever gave me, and I have kept it for thirty years as one of my most precious possessions." She was rubbing the little coin until it shone like new, with the bit of chamois skin in which it had been folded. "But dear as it is to me, it is not so dear as the keeping of my word. Here, Johnny, take it down to the corner, and ask Mr. Dolkins to change it for you."
Mr. Marshall listened with a pained contraction of the brows. "Couldn't you wait until the latter part of next week, Abby?" he asked. "I think I could get the money for you by that time, and I hate to have you part with the little keepsake you have treasured so long."
Mrs. Marshall shook her head. "No, Robert," she answered, "for that would make Johnny break his word, too. You know he promised the boys,--and we couldn't afford that, could we, son? We must keep our word at any cost." She slipped the money into his hand, kissed him, and bade him hurry home again; and Johnny, rushing back to his impatient creditors,