slipped—ker-che-ew!"

Unlucky Johnny! This dime slipped also, for a mighty sneeze seized him, and sent the money rolling across the floor. Both boys darted after it with outstretched hands, but it bounced through the open door, and slipped out of sight behind the old stone steps. It was useless to attempt to move them. The toys of half a century had found a hiding-place in that crack, and Aunt Jane herself had, years ago, seen it swallow up the cherished treasure of her childish affection—a string of amber beads.

Johnny stood in open-mouthed horror at what he had done, while Jode's gaze wandered from the steps to Johnny, as if he saw the whole menagerie, animals, tent and all, disappearing down that gaping crack and the little red throat. It was more than he could bear.

"It's all your fault, Johnny Harris; if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have burnt my foot in the first place. I just can't bear to do it all over again, and besides, there isn't time anyway."

He lifted his hand angrily, and slapped Johnny's fat, freckled face. Then both the boys began to cry.

Aunt Jane disappeared in the closet for something, and stood there a moment, shaking with inaudible laughter, till the square-bowed spectacles slid down her nose. She looked very stern, though, when she came out and said, "There! there! boys, that's enough. It's no use to cry over spilled milk or swallowed money, either."

"Oh, please, ma'am, Miss Jane," begged Johnny, "won't you teach me to sew carpet-rags? I'll pay him back sure if you'll let me."

Aunt Jane looked at the clumsy little hands, brown, dirty, and covered with warts, and shook her head. It seemed a hopeless task. But the earnest look on the face and in the anxious eyes made her relent, and she gave a reluctant promise.

The rag-sewing commenced again. This time two boys sat on the door-step, longing to be out in the spring wind and sunshine, and one nursed his lame foot, and one wrestled manfully with thread that would snarl, and needles that would stick into his clumsy fingers.

As they sewed they talked, and the subject that came up oftenest was the circus. How Johnny longed to go! After awhile a hope whispered to him, that maybe he could pay his debt to Jode in time to earn enough money to go himself.

Although Aunt Jane sorted the rags so that most of the short ones fell to her lot, and the long ones to Johnny's, and contributed many a yard on the sly, Jode's foot was well before Johnny proudly paid over the two dimes, and only a long, red scar remained, to remind Jode of his disobedience and punishment.

"Wisht I was goin', too," sighed Johnny, when the last pound was weighed and delivered.

Then, regardless of ceremony, he pulled his hat over his eyes, and started home on the run. He did not go all the way. Aunt Jane spied him when she went to the barn for eggs. He was lying on the hay with his face in his arms.

She stood and looked at him a moment, thinking what an honest little heart it was, beating under the patched, faded jacket,—thinking of his drunken father and his miserable home,—of how much he wanted to go with the other boys, and how keenly he felt his poverty.

Then she took the eggs to the house, and tying her sunbonnet tighter, started resolutely down the lane to the big road in the direction of Johnny's home. The hand under her gingham apron gripped firmly an old leather purse.

That evening as Jode sat in the twilight, just inside the door, listening to the frogs croaking in the meadow-pond, a dusky little figure came running down the path. It was Johnny.

"Hi! Jode," he cried, "I'm a-goin', too! I'm a-goin', too! I'm too glad to hold still. The money jest rained down like the manna on ole Moses! I don't know who left it, but it was left at our house, and it was left fer me!"

Then, throwing himself on the ground, he turned one somersault after another down the path into the dewy darkness of the warm April night.