pair of spectacles.

"Oh, never mind him. Come on, and let's learn this. I've got through half the day all right, and don't want to spoil it all now. Rhode Island is bounded on the north by Massachusetts, on the east by Massachusetts and Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Atlantic—"

"I say, Jode," interrupted his seat-mate, "I can pick up three marbles at a time with my toes."

"So could I," answered Jode, "if I didn't have my shoes on."

"Bet you couldn't!"

"Bet I could!"

"Take 'em off and try," coaxed Johnny.

"Well, I'll just show you," retorted Jode.

There was a class in algebra at the board, and the teacher was very busy explaining some problem. "Let x equal the length of the fish," he was saying. Jode raised his foot carefully and began to untie his shoe.

"And let y equal the length of its tail," continued the teacher, completely absorbed in the problem.

In a moment the shoe slipped off noiselessly, and Johnny put three of his largest marbles in a row on a crack in the floor.

"Aw, that ain't fair," said Jode. "You can't pick up that big Pompey yourself. Put down three little grays."

Johnny grumbled, but made the change, and Jode triumphantly picked them up with his toes.

"There," said he. "What did I tell you?" Just then one of the marbles began to slip. He tried to regain his hold, and all three of them dropped noisily, and went rolling across the floor.

The teacher turned quickly, and his eyes fell, not on Johnny and Jode, but on Boney Woods, who had finished the spectacles and put them on, and was now lolling out his tongue, and making hideous faces at the smaller children.

So intent was he on this, that he did not know he was being watched, until the awful stillness that had settled over the noisy room warned him that something was the matter. Then he faced around in his seat in great haste, to make the discovery that he was the centre of attraction.

"Are you quite through with your little exhibition, Bonaparte?" asked the teacher. "Come here! Just as you are—don't take them off."

Poor Boney went up with fear and trembling.

"I'll settle with you after school, sir. Take a seat on the platform and study your lesson."

Boney stumbled to his place, and sat looking at his book, with hot, briny tears stealing down under the huge spectacles. From past experiences he had learned too well what that meant. The school settled down into almost breathless silence, and the guilty couple began to study violently.

"I can't get my shoe laced up without his seeing me," whispered Jode, presently.

"Oh, leave it off," begged Johnny, "and slip the other one off, too. It feels awful good to get rid of shoes." He stretched out his ten little brown toes, and surveyed them with a satisfied air. "See them feet?" he asked. "Them old feet don't care for nothing but glass. They can stand rocks or anything. Why, in summer, I can tramp down the thorniest kind of bushes, blackberryin', and never mind the briars a bit."

"Aw, I wouldn't be such a brag," responded Jode. Nevertheless, he silenced the inward voice that reminded him of his mother's command, and followed his little friend's example.

It was soon time for the afternoon recess, and they all went trooping out into the warm sunshine, all but Boney, doomed to solitude and the leather spectacles.

Half a dozen boys crossed the playground, and went to the blacksmith shop on the other side of the road. Jode followed slowly, for the sticks and stones hurt his bare feet, and his conscience hurt him more, as he remembered his mother's parting instructions.

As usual the good-natured blacksmith was busy at his anvil, and paid no attention to the crowd of boys making themselves at home in his smithy. A seedy-looking stranger on a mule rode up to the door to have a loose shoe fastened in place.

"Be keerful, young 'uns," he drawled, "this 'ere mewel's heels is loaded."

The boys shoved back a little to give the newcomer more room, and then kept on shoving each other in play. The end boy fell against Johnny, and Johnny fell against Jode, and Jode took another step backward. This time his little bare foot came down on the piece of hot iron that the blacksmith had thrown aside when he went to wait on his new customer.

Jode never distinctly remembered what happened after that, he was so nearly crazed with the fierce pain. He knew that the blacksmith lifted him in his strong arms, and carried him, screaming, to the house. He felt some woman bandage his foot with something cool and soothing, and wash his hot, flushed face. Then two of the big boys carried him home, and laid him on the sitting-room lounge, and went off, forgetting to close the door.

He sat up and called his mother. No one answered. Everything was so still about the house that his own voice sounded strange when he called. Then he remembered that she had gone to a quilting that afternoon, and that Aunt Jane had built a fire away down by the ash-hopper and was making soap. So it was useless to call.

Three or four chickens, seeing the door open, seized that opportunity to venture in, and walked around pecking at the carpet, and looking inquiringly at the disconsolate figure on the lounge.

"Shoo!" he cried, savagely, "you tormentin' old things!" Then he hopped across the room and banged the door after them, and hopped back.

The throbbing pain in his foot, and the deserted appearance of the house, brought the tears to his eyes. Then he remembered the show, and that his foot would not be well enough for him to earn the money dropping corn. He would have to miss it. Throwing himself on the lounge again, he cried softly to himself with great sobs that nearly choked him.

When his mother came home, she found him fast asleep with cheeks and lashes wet, and sobbing at intervals in his sleep.

Aunt Jane undertook to lecture him next day about his disobedience and what it led to, but he began to cry again, and she relented.

"Well, Joseph," she said, looking over her square-bowed spectacles, "I guess you've had a hard lesson, and one you won't forget in a hurry. As long as your heart's set on goin' to that show, if you'll learn to sew carpet-rags I'll pay you by the pound, and you can earn the money that way."

So Jode went patiently to work with thread and needle, and all those long April days sat in the house with his foot on a pillow, and sewed yards and yards of carpet-rags.

The pounds grew slowly, but the day came at last when he rolled his balls into the sack with Aunt Jane's, and two new silver dimes and a nickel jingled in his pockets.

Johnny Harris came every day to ask about the foot, and see the size of the balls. He looked enviously at the shining coins when Jode proudly displayed them.

"Gracious! Ain't she pretty?" he exclaimed, spinning one of the dimes around on the table. Then he balanced it on his thumb-nail, and tried its edge with his teeth, and finally put it in his mouth, while he watched Aunt Jane get out the steelyards, to weigh the warp for the new carpet.

Presently he turned to Jode with a white, scared face. "Oh, I've done swallered it!"

"You mean old thing," cried Jode. "I worked days and days to earn that dime. O Johnny! what did you do it for?"

"I didn't mean to," protested Johnny, eagerly. "It just slipped down as easy—this way." Suiting the action to the word, he took up the other dime, and popped it into his mouth.

"I was rolling it 'round with my tongue this way, and I sort o' choked, and it just