The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the
Bicycle, by Annie Fellows Johnston
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Title: The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle
Author: Annie Fellows Johnston
Illustrator: Etheldred B. Barry
Release Date: December 3, 2005 [EBook #17214]
Language: English
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THE QUILT THAT JACK BUILT
Works of
ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON
The Little Colonel Series
(_Trade Mark, Reg. U.S. Pat. Of._)
Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated
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Two Little Knights of Kentucky .60
Big Brother .60
Ole Mammy's Torment .60
The Story of Dago .60
Cicely .60
Aunt 'Liza's Hero .60
The Quilt that Jack Built .60
Flip's "Islands of Providence" .60
Mildred's Inheritance .60
The Little Man in Motley .60
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THE PAGE COMPANY
53 Beacon Street Boston, Mass.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "HIS SERIOUS LITTLE FACE PUCKERED INTO AN ANXIOUS
FROWN" (_See page 4_)]
Cosy Corner Series
THE QUILT
THAT JACK BUILT
HOW HE WON THE BICYCLE
By
Annie Fellows Johnston
Author of "The Little Colonel" Series, "Big Brother,"
"The Story of Dago," "Joel: A Boy of Galilee," etc.
_Illustrated by_
Etheldred B. Barry
_Boston_
_The Page Company_
_Publishers_
_Copyright_, 1904
BY L.C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1904
Third Impression, March, 1910
Fourth Impression, February, 1911
Fifth Impression, March, 1914
Sixth impression, July, 1919
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C.H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.
TO
THE BOY
WHO HAS MADE ALL BOYHOOD DEAR TO ME--
MY ONLY SON
=John=
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"HIS SERIOUS LITTLE FACE PUCKERED INTO AN
AN ANXIOUS FROWN" (_See page 4_) Frontispiece
"EVERY ONE WAS MAKING PATCHWORK" 6
"'DEAR AS IT IS TO ME, IT IS NOT SO DEAR AS THE
KEEPING OF MY WORD'" 11
"THE FAMILIAR SQUARES OF FADED PATCHWORK MET
HIS EYE" 19
"EACH BOY LONGED TO OWN IT" 30
"HOEING AWAY IN HIS GARDEN" 38
"'I STOPPED AND READ IT THROUGH TWICE'" 44
"'AND THAT KID JUST STARTED OFF ON FOOT'" 52
THE QUILT THAT JACK BUILT
HOW HE WON THE BICYCLE
THE QUILT THAT JACK BUILT
"Johnny _make a quilt!_" repeated Rob Marshall, with a shout of
laughter. "I'd as soon expect to see a wild buffalo knitting mittens!"
"But you're not to speak of it outside the family, Rob," his mother
hastened to say, "and you must not tease the little fellow. You older
children have ways of earning pocket-money,--Rhoda with her painting,
and you with your bent iron work, but Johnny hasn't had a cent of
income all fall. You know when your father explained what a hard
winter this would be, and said we must economize in every way
possible, Johnny offered to give up the little amount I allowed him
every week for chores. He has been doing his work ever since without
pay. Now, he is wild to buy Todd Walters' rifle. He can get it for
only three dollars, and I want him to have it if possible. He has
cheerfully gone without so many things this fall. He followed me
around the house all morning, begging me to think of some way in which
he could earn the money, until, in desperation, I suggested that he
piece a quilt for me at a cent a block. To my great surprise, he
consented eagerly. He usually scorns anything that looks like girls'
work."
"And mother will have to do without the new bonnet that she had
counted on getting with the turkey money that always comes in just
before Christmas, in order to pay for it," said Rhoda to her brother.
"I think it's a shame. She needs it too badly to give it up for that
child's whim."
"No, daughter," answered Mrs. Marshall, gently. "In a country
neighbourhood like this it matters little whether I wear my clothes
one year or seven: and it is not a mere whim with Johnny. He wants
that rifle more than he ever wanted anything in his life before. I
think the quilt money would be a good investment. The work will teach
him patience and neatness, and above all keep him quiet in the
evenings. Since your father has been so worried over his business, he
needs all the relaxation possible at home, he enjoys reading aloud in
the evenings, and Johnny's fidgeting annoys him. A ten-year-old boy is
all wriggle and racket without something to occupy him."
She did not say it aloud, but, as she cut out the gay patchwork, she
thought, with a warm glow of heart, of another reason for the
investment. The quilt would be such a precious reminder of Johnny's
boyhood some day, when he had put away childish things. Every stitch
would be dear to her, because of the little stubby fingers that worked
so patiently to set them, despite the needle pricks and knotted
thread.
That evening, with every curtain drawn tight, so that no prying
outsider might see and tell, and ready to run at the first sign of an
approaching visitor, Johnny sat down on the hearth-rug, tailor
fashion, to begin the quilt. A slateful of calculations had shown him
that, by making five blocks every evening and fifteen every Saturday,
he could finish by Christmas. Todd would wait until then for his
money. Three hundred and fifty blocks would give him enough for the
rifle, and half a dollar besides for ammunition.
"Well, Johnny," said Mr. Marshall, teasingly, "I suppose your mother
signed a contract for this. 'There's many a slip,' you know. What
would you do if the turkeys died before Christmas, and she couldn't
pay you?"
"Huh! No danger of mother's not keeping her word!" answered Johnny,
with a confident wag of his head. "She said she'd pay me, not only the
day, but the very _hour_ they were done. Didn't you, mother?"
"Yes, son," was the smiling answer, as she put the first block into
his hands, and the quilt was begun. Not only the quilt, but a series
of quiet evenings long to be remembered by the Marshall family. The
picture of Johnny bending over his patchwork, his serious little face
puckered into an anxious frown, as he tugged at the thread with
awkward fingers, is one of the ways they love best to think of him.
They still laugh heartily over the time when he rolled under the sofa,
work-basket and all, to escape the eyes of a gossipy neighbour, who
had knocked unexpectedly at the side door, and who stayed so long that
he fell asleep and snored loudly.
The following Saturday morning, Mrs. Marshall, going out to the barn
for a hatchet, heard voices on the other side of the partition.
Peeping through a crack, she saw a sight that confounded her.
Every boy in the neighbourhood seemed to be there, and every one was
making patchwork. One boy was dangling his feet over the manger,
several were perched on a ladder, and one was sitting cross-legged on
a huge pumpkin. Johnny was going around as Grand Inquisitor from one
to another. If a seam was puckered, he gave the unlucky seamstress
what they called a "hickey,"--a tremendous thump on the head with his
thumb and middle finger. If the stitches were big and uneven, he gave
two hickeys and a pinch, and one boy got half a dozen, because Johnny
said his dirty hands made the thread gray. Mrs. Marshall gathered that
it was some sort of secret society, and that they had signed an oath
in their own blood not to tell.
"Johnny is at the bottom of it," she thought, laughing as she went
back to the house. "He has set the other boys to sewing in order to
forestall them. Now they cannot tease him, should they hear of his
private quilt-piecing."
[Illustration]
Another week went by of peaceful, uninterrupted evenings, and every
night at bedtime Johnny counted out his tale of finished blocks with
a sigh of relief. On the second Saturday evening he disappeared
immediately after supper. It was nearly an hour later when he came
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, felt that it was something very solemn indeed
which had just taken place.
[Illustration: "'DEAR AS IT IS TO ME, IT IS NOT SO DEAR AS THE KEEPING
OF MY WORD.'"]
Johnny's little room at the head of the stairs was heated by the hall
stove, so that the door stood open all day long. When the new quilt
was folded across the foot of his bed, it was the first thing that
caught the eye of every one passing up the stairs.
Rob made up a verse about it, which he sang so often to tease Johnny
that the first note was enough to make the child bristle up for a
fight:
"This is the patchwork all forlorn,
Made by the boys in Marshall's barn.
The dog and the cat and even the rat
Had a hand in that--
A hand in the Quilt that Jack built!"
"You needn't make fun of it," said Rhoda one day. "It has held me to
my word more than once. Yesterday, for instance. I would have broken
my promise to poor little Miss Sara Grimes, to help her entertain her
old ladies, and would have accepted Harry Dilling's invitation, which
came later, to go sleighing. But that quilt would not let me. It
showed me mother as she stood there with her precious little gold
piece, saying. '_We must keep our word at any cost!_' After that I
couldn't disappoint poor old Miss Sara."
"I know," answered Rob, softly, looking up from his algebra. "It's
served me the same way. It lies there like the exponent of a higher
power,--the exponent of mother's standards and ideals that she expects
us to raise ourselves up to."
Mr. Marshall made a similar confession one day, and it seemed that
Johnny alone was the only member of the family who had no sentiment in
regard to the quilt, except, perhaps, a feeling of gratitude. It had
brought him the rifle. He snuggled down under it on cold winter
nights, tumbled out from under it on cold winter mornings, and went
his happy-go-lucky way, regardless of what it might have said to him
if he had had ears to hear. Then, when, worn and faded by many
washings, it outgrew its usefulness as he outgrew his boyhood, one
spring morning his mother packed it carefully away in folds of old
linen and lavender.
It was toward the middle of John Marshall's freshman year at college.
The boy "all wriggle and racket" was a strong, athletic young fellow
now, still with the same propensities of his restless boyhood. His
overflowing animal spirits made him a jolly companion, and he found
himself popular from the start. There was no need now for petty
economies in the Marshall homestead. Business had been prosperous
since that one hard winter when Johnny made patchwork to pay for his
gun, and he found himself now with as liberal an allowance as any one
in his class.
"I'm in for having a royal good time," he wrote to Rhoda, who was
home-keeper now, for it had been two years since her mother's death,
and Rhoda had done her best to fill the vacant place to them all. "And
you needn't preach to me, Sis," he wrote. "I'm all right, and I'm not
going to get into the trouble which you cheerfully predict. I shall
not get into any scrapes that I can't skin out of; but a fellow would
be a fool who didn't squeeze as much fun as possible out of his
college life."
As he was finishing this letter, three students, who were foremost in
all the fun going, came tumbling unceremoniously into his room. "Say,
you there, Marshall," cried the first one, "hustle up and get ready
for a lark to-night. You know that Sophomore Wilson, the long-faced
fellow the boys call Squills? He's rooming in the old Baptist
parsonage away out on the edge of town. It's vacant now, and they're
glad to let him have a room free for the sake of somebody to guard the
premises. We've found that he will be out to-night, sitting up with a
sick frat., so we've planned to borrow the parsonage in his absence to
give a swell dinner. Tingley and Jones will visit several hen-roosts
in our behalf, and we'll roast the fowls in the parsonage stove. If
you'll just set up the champagne, Jacky, my boy, we'll be 'Yours for
ever, little darling,' and we'll gamble on the green of the defunct
parson's study table 'till morning doth appear.'"
He took out a new deck of cards as he spoke, and slapped
significantly on his overcoat pocket, bulging with packages of
cigarettes.
"What if Squills should come back unexpectedly?" asked Johnny.
"Oh, that's all arranged. We'll toss him up in a blanket until he
hasn't breath enough left to squeal on us. Suppose you bring along a
blanket, if you have one to spare," suggested the wild senior, whose
notice always flattered the susceptible freshman. "In case Squills
does turn up before schedule time, it would be a good thing to have
one handy."
"All right, I'll be ready. When do you start?"
"At ten o'clock," was the answer. "We'll come by for you," and the
three conspirators tramped down the long corridor, shoulder to
shoulder, to the whistled tune of "John Brown's Body."
John sat down at his table, frowning over his lessons for the next
day. For nearly an hour he tried to work, first at his Latin and then
on the theme that he was expected to hand in directly after chapel.
But his thoughts were on the coming lark.
"Oh, bother!" he exclaimed at last, tossing the books into a
disorderly heap and tearing his theme in two. "What difference will it
make fifty years from now, if I'm not prepared to-morrow? I guess I'll
get that blanket while I think about it."
At the beginning of the cold weather, he had written home for some
extra blankets, and Rhoda had sent a box immediately. It had been
standing in the closet several days, waiting for him to find time to
unpack it. A sofa pillow made of his class colours came tumbling out
as he removed the lid, and, wondering what other extras his sister
might have put in the box, he turned it upside down on the bed to
investigate. Two fine soft blankets came first, then an eiderdown
comfort, and then--something wrapped in a square of time-yellowed
linen, and smelling faintly of lavender.
"What under the canopy!" he muttered, beginning to unfold it. "Well,
I'll be--jiggered!" he exclaimed, as the familiar squares of faded
patchwork met his eye. "It's that old quilt I made for mother!" He had
forgotten its existence, but now, as he spread it out full length,
smiling at the well-known object, it seemed only yesterday that he
had been at work upon it. Rob's old teasing rhyme came back to him:
"This is the patchwork all forlorn,
Made by the boys in Marshall's barn."
[Illustration: "THE FAMILIAR SQUARES OF FADED PATCHWORK MET HIS EYE"]
"It _was_ funny," he thought, "the way I farmed out those two hundred
blocks to the other boys. Why, here's a piece of one of those little
striped waists I used to wear, and there's a piece of Rob's checked
shirt and Rhoda's apron. I wouldn't have imagined that I could have
recognized them after all these years, but they look as natural as
life. And this,"--his finger was resting on a square of dotted blue
calico,--"mother wore this. My! the times I've hung on to that dress,
following her around the house, bothering her to stop and cover a
ball, or make me a marble bag, or untangle my fishing-lines. And she
always stopped so patiently."
He was back in the sunny old kitchen, with its spicy smell of
gingerbread and pies, hot from the Saturday baking. Outside, the snow
clung to the trees, but the wintry sun shining through the shelf of
yellow chrysanthemums by the window, made dancing summer shadows on
the clean white floor. He was looking at the quilt through blurred
eyes now. How many, many nights she had spread it over him and tucked
him snugly in, and softly kissed his eyelids down, before she carried
away the lamp. It came over him all in a swift rush, with a sudden
cold sense of desolation, that she could never do that again! never
any more! The light had been taken away, never to be brought back.
Big fellow as he was, he dropped on his knees by the bed, and buried
his face in the old quilt, with a long, quivering sob. He had been
occupied with so many things in the new experiences of his college
life that he had not missed her for the last few months: but the sight
of the old quilt brought her so plainly before him that the longing to
have her back was almost intolerable.
Several blocks away, a crowd of students crossing the campus in the
moonlight started a rollicking chorus. It floated blithely up to him
on the wintry night air.
"The fellows will be here in a minute," he thought. "What would she
say if she knew? I promised her that I would never, never touch a
drop of liquor or a deck of cards, and here I am, getting ready for a
night of drinking and gambling and carousing. But I've gone too far to
back out now. How they'd hoot and laugh if they knew!"
He got up, and began to fold the quilt, preparatory to putting it back
in the box. The old scenes still kept crowding upon him. He saw
himself lying on the hearth-rug, the night the boys were waiting for
him around the corner, and he was crying out, "But you _promised me!
You promised me!_" and there was his mother with the bit of a gold
piece in her hand,--the precious little keepsake that she had
treasured for thirty years, saying, in answer to her husband's
remonstrance: "No, Robert, that would make Johnny break his promise,
too, and we couldn't afford that, could we, son? We must keep our word
at any cost!"
It stood out fair and fine now, the memory of her unswerving
truthfulness, her fidelity to duty. If the commonplace deeds of those
early days had seemed of little moment to his childish eyes in
passing, he saw them at their full value now. He recognized the high
purpose with which she had pieced her little days together, now that
he could look at the whole beautiful pattern of her finished life. How
sacredly she had always kept her word to him, the slightest promise
always inviolate! Ah, the little gold coin was the very least of all
her sacrifices.
He was about to say, "No, they shall not all be in vain," when he
heard the fellows on the walk outside. A cold perspiration broke out
on his forehead, as he considered the consequences should he refuse to
go with them. Strong as he was, he had a fear of ridicule. To be
laughed at, to be ostracized by the set he admired, was more than he
could endure. Like many another brave fellow, fearless in every
respect but one, he was an arrant coward before that one overpowering
fear of being laughed at.
He gathered the quilt in his arms, debating whether he should hide it
hastily in the closet, or come out boldly before them all with its
whole homely little story. The fellows were tramping down the hall
now. Oh, what _should_ he do? Go or not? It meant to break with them
for all time if he refused now.
There was an instant more of indecision, as the footsteps halted at
the threshold, but, when the door burst open, he had squared his
shoulders to meet whatever might come, and was whispering between his
set teeth: "_At any cost_, mother! I'll keep my promise _at any
cost!_"
* * * * *
HOW HE WON THE BICYCLE
_This story first appeared in the Central Christian Advocate.
The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of the editor in
permitting her to republish it in the present volume_.
HOW HE WON THE BICYCLE
"Looks like everybody in Bardstown has a wheel but us," said Todd
Walters, wistfully pressing his little freckled nose against the
show-window of the bicycle shop, where a fine wheel was on exhibition.
It was the third time that day that Todd had walked five blocks out of
his way to look in at that window, and each time Abbot Morgan and
Chicky Wiggins were with him. In the two weeks that the new store had
been open, the boys never failed to stop by on their way from school,
and the more they looked at the wheel displayed so temptingly in the
window, the more each boy longed to own it.
None of them had any spending money. Todd might have by and by when
school was out, and he began selling fly-paper again, as he had done
the summer before; but it was understood in the tumble-down little
cottage that Todd called home that every penny thus earned was to be
saved toward the purchase of a much needed new suit.
[Illustration]
Chicky Wiggins never could hope to buy the wheel, for he was a
district messenger boy, and it took all his weekly earnings to pay for
his board and lodging and washing and shoe-leather. Chicky had no
family to look after him, or help him make one nickel do the work of
three.
Abbot Morgan was such a well-dressed boy that one might have supposed
that his pockets were always supplied with spending money, but those
who knew Abbot's uncle, the hard, grasping man with whom he lived,
knew better. Peter had worked hard for his little fortune, and, while
he was willing to provide a comfortable home for his sister's orphan
son, he did not propose that one penny should be spent in foolishness,
as he called it. So there was little hope of Abbot ever owning the
wheel.
"But I'll have something to spend as I please this summer," he said,
as they stood looking in through the window. "Uncle said that after I
have done Aunt Jane's chores every morning, I shall have my time to
myself this summer. He let me have the two acres back of the house for
a garden, and I've got it planted with all sorts of vegetables. They
are coming on fine, and I'm going to sell them and have all the money
myself, after uncle has paid for the seed."
Many a conversation about the wheel took place in front of that
window, and old Judge Parker, who had his law-office next door, soon
began to look for the boys' visit as one of the most interesting
happenings of the day. Everybody in Bardstown knew old Judge Parker.
He was as queer as he was kind-hearted, which was saying a great deal,
as he was the most benevolent old soul that had ever lived in the
little town. There was a kindly twinkle in his blue eyes as he laid
down his paper and beckoned the boys to come into his office. He had
been making inquiries about them for several days, and one of the
queerest of his many queer plans was soon unfolded to the wondering
boys.
"I've noticed that you seem to admire that wheel in the window of
Stark Brothers a good deal," he said, "and I'm going to give you each
a chance to win it. I'll offer it as a prize if you are willing to
work for it on my conditions. I've heard that you will each be in
business for yourselves in a small way this summer, and I'll make this
offer. If each of you boys without any help from any one, will choose
a good proverb or text out of the Bible for a business motto, I'll
give the wheel to the boy who makes the best choice. You can select
any three business men in Bardstown to be the judges; but the proof of
a pudding is in the eating, you know, so you must apply that motto to
your own business faithfully for two months, and the excellence of the
motto will be judged by the results."
The boys looked at the judge in open-mouthed surprise. They thought he
surely must be joking, but nothing could be more serious or dignified
than the way in which the white-haired old gentleman repeated his
offer. So, after awhile, the boys succeeded in naming three business
men to be the judges, who were satisfactory to all of them. They chose
a grocer, a druggist, and a livery-stable proprietor, who were located
on the same street with Stark Brothers.
"Ain't it the funniest thing you ever heard of?" said Chicky Wiggins,
when they were once more on the street. "It'll be a long time to keep
a secret, and I'll be aching to know what mottoes you kids have picked
out. I'll bet it's just a trap to get us to read the Bible. He's one
of your pious kind."
"Well, it's a trap worth walking into," answered Abbot, "if it's
baited with something as tempting as a bicycle. The only trouble is
that it will take so long to find a motto. The Bible is so full of
them that a fellow'd feel like he ought to read it clear through, for
fear of skipping the very one that might take the prize, and we have
only a week to make a choice."
Abbot did not have to search long for his verse. He found it the
second day, and chose it the instant his eye caught the sentence on
the page. "Why, I've heard uncle say that a dozen times!" he
exclaimed, as he read the familiar line, "_'The hand of the diligent
maketh rich.'_ That worked all right in uncle's case, and it will be
an easy one to live up to, for, if I buckle down to it, and sell a
whole lot of vegetables, I can prove my motto is the best." From that
day Abbot began to feel a sense of ownership in the wheel in Stark
Brothers' show-window.
Todd Walters worried nearly a week over his choice. It was the last
week of school, and he sat with a little pocket Bible hidden between
the covers of his geography many an hour when he should have been
learning the rivers of Asia, or doing long sums in the division of
fractions. Six days of the seven went by before he found a motto to
his liking. He was lying stretched out on the old lounge in the tiny
sitting-room that noon, waiting for dinner. Todd and his mother lived
alone in this little cottage, and she was busy all summer making
preserves and pickles and jellies to sell. It was their only means of
support.
As the delicious odour of strawberry preserves floated in from the
kitchen, Todd thought of his sweet-faced little mother bending over
the steaming kettle, and wished he could tell her the secret of the
prize wheel. "I wisht I could ask her for a verse," he said. "She must
know pretty near the whole Bible off by heart. I never knew anybody
that could say so many verses in a string without stopping."
Just then his eye fell on the old family Bible, lying in state on the
marble-topped centre table, and remembering how boldly the big type
always seemed to stare out at him when he used to look at the
pictures in it, he got up from the lounge to walk across the room and
open it. The leaves opened as of their own accord at a chapter in
Proverbs, where an old-fashioned cardboard book-mark kept the place.
It had been years since his grandfather's trembling hand had placed
that book-mark there, the last time he led in family prayers, and his
mother had never allowed it to be moved. So the book opened now at the
chapter that had been read on that memorable morning, and Todd's eye
caught the text at the top of the page: "_A good name is rather to be
chosen than great riches, and loving favour than silver and gold._"
"I'll take that," said Todd, softly, to himself, as he closed the
great volume, "for I remember just what mother said about it when she
explained it to me."
So that was the motto which found its way to Judge Parker's office in
a sealed envelope, as he had directed they should be sent, with each
boy's name signed to the verse of his choice.
It was not so easy for Chicky Wiggins to make a decision. To begin
with, nobody in the cheap lodging-house that was his only home had a
Bible, and he was ashamed to ask for one from the other boys. Still
the daily sight of that wheel in Stark Brothers window finally nerved
him to borrow a little old dog-eared Testament from the Swede who
swept out the office. The young Swede had gotten it at a mission
school he faithfully attended. There was no back on it, and several of
the leaves were missing, but some reverent hand had heavily
underscored some of the verses, and these were the ones that Chicky
spelled out when no one was looking.
"Here's one in Luke that somebody has marked," he said to himself.
"That ought to bring good luck, 'cause Luke is my real name, and it
was daddy's, too. Everybody that knew daddy says that he was a good
man. I believe I'll take this just because it is in Luke, and somebody
seemed to think it was an extra good one, or he wouldn't have put
three lines under it. The other verses that are marked have only one.
_'He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in
much.'_ I reckon that that's about as good a motto for the district
messenger business as any. I'll take this and sign myself Luke. Folks
have called me Chicky so long they must have forgotten I have any
other name."
[Illustration]
The Monday after school was out found Abbot in a pair of old overalls,
hoeing away in his garden as if his life depended on getting rid of
the last weed. Several of the boys stopped at the back fence to beg
him to go fishing with them, but he gave them a laughing refusal.
"I'm after bigger fish than your little brook trout," he said, in a
mysterious way. "I've got my line set for a whaling big fish that will
make you all green with envy. You just wait and see what I get on the
end of _my_ line."
He chuckled as he spoke. The line he meant was in a sealed envelope on
Judge Parker's desk, and he was sure that it would draw the prize
which would be envied by every boy in the neighbourhood.
"I'll bet it's tied to a bean-pole," was the mocking answer. "Come
along, boys, no use wasting time on an old dig like Ab."
He stood leaning on his hoe-handle a moment, watching the boys file
down the alley with their fishing-poles over their shoulders, and
thought of the shady creek bank where they would soon be sitting. How
much pleasanter to be where the willows dipped down into the clear,
still pools than here in the rough furrows of the garden, with the hot
sun beating down on him. It was only for a moment he stood there,
longing to follow, then he fell to work again.
Every thud of the hoe, as it struck into the rich earth, kept time to
the refrain which repeated itself over and over in his mind: "The
_hand_ of the _dil_-i-gent _ma_-keth _rich_!" That was the tune to
which he set everything during the two months that followed. He
hurried through his Aunt Jane's chores in an impatient way, doing as
little as possible in order to get back to his own work. She wondered
why he was so absorbed in his garden. When he was not weeding or
watering or planting, he was counting the number of pea-pods on every
vine, or the ears of corn as they tasselled out on each stalk. He had
put brains as well as muscle into his summer's work, asking questions
and advice of every gardener in Bardstown, and carefully reading the
agricultural papers one of them loaned him. Every vegetable he
attempted to raise was a success, and he carried them all three miles
down the road toward the city, to some rich customers that he found in
the elegant suburban homes there. They were willing to pay nearly
double the price that the Bardstown people offered him, everything he
had was so fresh and good.
It was a long way to trudge with his heavy baskets, and he longed
every day for the wheel he was trying so hard to win. "Won't I spin
along then!" he said to himself on more than one occasion, as he
dragged his tired feet homeward.
His Aunt Jane wanted to buy some of his vegetables, and hinted several
times that he might supply the table once in awhile for nothing; but
beyond an occasional contribution in the way of a few inferior
vegetables that he could not sell, he would not part with any at the
price she offered.
"He's a boy after your own heart, Peter Morgan," she complained to her
husband. "He's closer than the bark on a tree."
"Well, that's nothing against him," was the answer. "That's business.
He'll be rich some day. Keep all you get and get all you can is the
only way to get along in the world, according to my notion."
It was the Monday after school was out that Todd Walters also started
to work. He was selling fly-paper on commission for his friend, the
druggist. It was that sticky kind, called "Tanglefoot," that promises
such a pleasant path to the unwary insect, but proves such a snare and
a delusion at the last.
Mrs. Walters waved him good-bye from the kitchen door as he started
hopefully off, bare-footed and happy, with a smile all over his
little, round, honest face. He came back at noon with forty cents and
a glowing account of his morning's work.
"I might have made more," he said, "but Mrs. Carr asked me to play
with the baby while she ran across the street to ask about another
cook. Hers is gone, and she was afraid to leave the baby by itself
while she hunted another. Then when I stopped at Mrs. Foster's, the
professor's wife, you know, she was nearly crying. She had lost a ring
in the grass that she thought everything of. It had belonged to the
professor's grandmother. I helped her look for it for nearly an hour,
and at last I found it on the tennis-court. It was a beauty, and she
was so glad she fairly hugged me, and wanted to pay me for finding it,
but of course I wouldn't take anything for a little work like that."
"Of course not," echoed his mother. "Well, what else hindered you?"
"Old Mr. Beemer for one thing. He is too blind to read, you know, and
he was sitting out under a tree, with a letter in his hand. His
daughter told me she had read it to him five times this morning, but
he wants to hear it every half-hour. He is so old and childish. She
had bought several sheets of fly-paper, so I stopped and read it
through twice, and he seemed so pleased, and called me the light of
his eyes. I hope I can do better than this this afternoon."
Mrs. Walters took the four dimes he handed her to put away, and, as
they jingled down into the old cracked ginger jar that served for
Todd's bank, she said: "Well, under the circumstances, I'm glad you
didn't earn any more this morning, if it would have kept you from
doing those little kindnesses. You need your clothes bad enough, in
all conscience, but it is better to smooth out the way for people as
you go along. Old Solomon was right, loving favour _is_ better than
silver and gold."
Todd's sunburned face grew so red, as his mother unconsciously
stumbled upon the motto that he had chosen, that he turned a
somersault on the kitchen floor to hide his embarrassment. He need not
have been so confused, for she was always saying such things.
[Illustration]
Sales were not always so good as they were the first hot morning. Many
a day Todd wandered all over the little town, stopping at every door,
only to be met by a disappointing "no." Many a time, when the hot
pavements burned his bare feet and he was tired and discouraged, he
longed for the wheel which he hoped would some day be his; and every
evening, on his way home, he stopped to look in at Stark Brothers'
window, to feast his eyes on that bicycle inside.
One evening, as he stood looking in, Chicky Wiggins slipped up and
slapped him on the back in his friendly way. "Hullo, Todd," he called,
"admiring my wheel, are you? I'm letting it stay in there awhile to
accommodate Stark Brothers, but the truth is I've been thinking
seriously of having to take it out. The company sends me on such long
errands that I seem to be getting more walking than the doctor
prescribed. It doesn't agree with me."
"You mean _my_ wheel," laughed Todd. "I'll lend it to you sometimes,
Chicky, my son, if you'll promise to be good."
"I say, Todd," said Chicky, giving him a quizzical glance, "I'd give a
doughnut to know what motto you and Ab chose."
Todd grinned. "You won't have much longer to wait," he said. "Time is
nearly up, and we'll know our fate in another ten days."
The last week in August, the three men whom the boys had selected to
decide their case met in Judge Parker's office.
"If you want my opinion," said the grocer, when he was called upon, "I
think Ab Morgan has worked the hardest for this prize. He has proved
the truth of his motto beyond a doubt, for he has made a success of
his garden, and has never slacked up a day. He has made a nice little
pile of money, too, and I would recommend him to any business man in
this town as an example of diligence. I'll be glad to have him clerk
for me any time he gets ready to come."
"I think that little Todd Walters has made the best choice," said the
druggist. "You see, he has been selling fly-paper for me all summer on
commission, and I've had a chance to see the inner workings. People
are always coming to me with some pleasant thing to say about him.
He's certainly won the 'loving favour' of all he's had anything to do
with, whether they were his customers or not, and the good name he
has made for himself will stick to him all his life.
"He had a lemonade stand at the baseball game last week, and I heard
Doctor Streeter say to a friend: 'Come on, Bill, let's go over and get
a glass,--patronize the little fellow.' The man said, 'No, thank you,
doc, none of that weak circus stuff for me,--acid and colouring matter
and sweetened water. I've been an enterprising boy myself, and know
how it's done.'
"'I assure you it's all right if Todd Walters made it,' answered the
doctor. 'I'm willing to guarantee him to any extent. He's "all wool
and a yard wide" in everything he does, and, if you don't find his
lemonade is pure stuff, made of real lemons, my name is not James
Streeter. That little fellow has the respect and confidence of
everybody who knows him, and I'd trust him with anything I've got.'"
"That's all right as far as it goes," interrupted the grocer, "but he
hasn't made as much money as Ab. Ab has furnished straight goods, too,
and has never misrepresented things."
"Yes," answered the druggist, "but the almighty dollar has been his
sole aim and ambition. He has been selfish and miserly in the pursuit
of it, and money is all he has gained. Now Todd has been industrious
enough, and gone about his business quite as faithfully as Ab, but
instead of putting his head down like a dog on the scent of a rabbit,
he has had some thought of the people he passed. I like that in a
business man. Aside from any ethical consideration, a man makes more
in the long run if he cares for the good-will of his customers as well
as their cash."
"What have you to say on the subject, Mr. Brown?" asked the judge,
turning to the proprietor of the livery-stable.
"Well, my choice is for Chicky Wiggins," answered the man, tipping
back his chair and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "I may not have
as much book-learning as these other gentlemen, but there's one thing
that I do know when I see it, and that's a good steady gait either of
a horse or a man. Now Chicky is no thoroughbred, and he'll probably
never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him
this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every
time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish
and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the
corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the
district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own
brass buttons for him. I've come across him too many times, when he'd
been sent on an errand, stopping to play marbles and fly kites with
the other boys.
"But since he's took up with that motto of his, he's settled down in
the harness as steady as a ten-year-old horse. Now I notice if there's
anything specially important to be done, Chicky's the one they pick
out. There's something almost pitiful in the way he's been trying,
when you recollect he has never had any raising, and has shifted for
himself all his life. I don't really believe that it's to get the
wheel that has made such a change in him as the idea of being faithful
in every little thing has taken such a holt on him. I've known him to
walk two miles to straighten out the matter of a penny or a
postage-stamp.
"I'm not saying but that the other fellows' mottoes are best for them
that likes them, but, if I was a-hunting somebody that I could tie to
through thick and thin, in any kind of business, and under every kind
of circumstance, I'll be blamed if I wouldn't rather choose somebody
that was a-living up to Chicky's text in dead earnest."
"He certainly does seem to have made more improvement than the others
personally," admitted the grocer, "but in a business way the results
do not show so plainly."
"Well, there's still a week," said Judge Parker, finally. "We'll wait
a little longer before we decide."
Several days later, Todd Walters ran breathlessly up the alley that
led to the back of the Morgan place, and scrambled over the high board
fence. "Hi, Ab!" he called, as he dropped lightly to the ground. "Have
you heard the news?"
"No," answer Ab, dropping the basket he was carrying, and
straightening up to listen.
"Chicky is in luck. He's had a perfectly splendid position offered him
in an express-office in another town. He'll make as much in one month
there as he did here in a whole year. I'm going down after dinner to
ask all the particulars. All I know now is that some strange gentleman
telephoned down to the District Messenger Office a few days ago for
them to send the trustiest employee that they had up to the hotel as
quick as possible. Something important had to be attended to, and he
didn't want anybody that couldn't be trusted in every way. And out of
the whole bunch Chicky was the one they picked, as the most reliable
one in the office.
"The gentleman was sick and couldn't go to take some important papers
somewhere that they had to go, and he was a stranger, and didn't know
anybody in town. But he told Chicky it was very particular that they
should get there on time, and he would make it all right with the
company for sending him out of town. Then he gave him some money to
buy a railroad ticket, and told him just where to go, and what to do
and everything.
"Well, there was a wreck on the road, somewhere along in the night,
and lots of people were hurt. Chicky got a bad cut on his head that
bled awfully, and sprained his shoulder besides. But when he shook
himself together, and got somebody to tie up his head, he found that
the train would be seven hours behind time on account of that
smash-up. And that kid just started off on foot. He walked all the
rest of the night, and, when he got to the town where he was to leave
the papers, he was so near done for that he had to hire a hack to haul
him up to the man's house. It turned out that he got there just in
time to save the stranger a big lot of property in some way or
another, and the man said he'd been looking for years for a boy like
that, who could be faithful to a trust, and now that he'd found him he
intended to stand by him. I think it was real brave of Chicky to go
all that way in the dark, all alone on a strange road. I'll bet it
will be in all the papers."
[Illustration]
"And I'll bet he'll get the bicycle now," said Ab, gloomily, as he sat
down on the wheel-barrow and kicked his heels against it. "I feel it
in my bones. All my summer's work's gone for nothing."
"I wanted it awfully bad, too," said Todd, with a sigh and a sudden
clouding of his bright little face. "Of course, I'd be glad for Chicky
to have it, when he hasn't any home or nothing, but I've worked _so_
hard for it, and I can't help feeling disappointed."
All the way home his heart felt as heavy as lead, and, when he came in
sight of the little tumble-down cottage, his eyes were blurred with
tears for a moment.
"Todd, dear," called his mother, running out to meet him, "guess who
has been here. It was Judge Parker's wife. Yes, I know all about your
secret now. She told me the men have finally decided that Luke Wiggins
has won the wheel. But she is so disappointed on your account, and
told me so many nice things that people have said about you that I
just sat down and cried. I was so proud and happy. And, Todd, what do
you think she left here for you to take care of? She'll pay you well
for doing it, and it will be yours to use just as if it were your
own,--a pony! A beautiful little Shetland pony. It was her little
grandson's, and they have kept it since he died, because they could
not bear to part with anything he had been so fond of. Now they are
going away from Bardstown for a long, long time. They have been
looking around for somebody to take care of it, and they say they
would rather trust it to you than any one they know. You can have it
to pet and love and use just as long as you want it."
"Oh, it's too good to be true!" cried Todd, giving his mother a hug of
frantic joy before he rushed off to the stable. There she found him a
little later with his arms around the pony's neck, saying over and
over: "Oh, you dear, beautiful old thing! You're better than a
thousand wheels!"
"It's all because of your living up to your motto, sonny boy," she
said, as she held out a lump of sugar for the pretty creature to
nibble. "It was your 'good name' that brought you into Mrs. Parker's
'loving favour.'"
Abbot Morgan's disappointment was not tempered by any such great
happiness as came to little Todd, but it was a proud moment when he
showed his uncle his bank-book, and heard his hearty praise. Judge
Parker and the grocer were there also at the time.
"I came to tell you," said the grocer, "that there is a man in my
store who has a first-class wheel that he wants to sell cheap. You
have earned more than enough to pay the price he asks for it, so you
see your summer's work has not been in vain. And I want to say that
any time you want to put that 'hand of the diligent' into my business.
I'll make a place for you."
There was a gratified smile on Ab's face as he thanked him. "I'll go
right down now and buy that wheel," he exclaimed.
"Well," said the judge, as he took his departure, "every one of those
texts worked out just as true as preaching, and brought its own
reward, but I rather think Luke's is the best one to tie to."
As he turned the corner, he met Chicky himself, who was coming to find
him on the new bicycle that had just been sent to him.
"Oh, Judge Parker!" he cried, jumping off the wheel, cap in hand. "I
was just coming to thank you, but," he stammered, "I--I--don't know
where to begin. I'm tickled nearly to death. It's a beauty, sure!"
He looked down, growing red in the face, as he dug his toe in the
gravel. Then he said, bashfully: "You've more than put me on a wheel,
Judge Parker. I can't help feeling that you've started me on the right
track for life, too. I'm glad you had that put on it."
His stubby fingers rested caressingly on the little silver plate
between the handle-bars, on which was engraved the motto that had come
to mean so much: "_He that is faithful in that which is least is
faithful also in much._"
THE END.
* * * * *
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