“How many know how to sew?” Not a single hand was raised. “How many are willing to learn?” Every hand in the room went up. “Boys and all,” exclaimed Margaret. “Now let’s make a test. Who has a button off his shoe?”
“Jimmy! Johnnie! Nell! Sue! Mary! Jane! Jack!” sang out the noisy chorus.
“Down on the floor, every one of you. Now, I’ll furnish needles, thread, and buttons, and I want every one who has a button off to sew it on, and sew it strongly, too. Now, the one who sews a button on the best and quickest shall have that card,” and Margaret pointed to a brilliant chromo-lithograph of angels with impossible wings and beatific smiles.
“Oh, my!” chorused the girls.
“Jiminy crickets!” ejaculated the boys, with now and then a more forcible expletive thrown in. It took some time for the clumsy little fingers to get to work; but Margaret, noting down time and names, kept close tally, and at last pronounced every button in its place, and proclaimed the name of the winner of the prize.
“Now,” said Margaret, “this is not all. If every little child here will agree to keep the buttons on his shoes, I’ll give every one, at the end of a month, a still handsomer card, and by that time perhaps the boys will have learned how to make frames for them.”
“All right!” “Betcher sweet life!” “You’re a trump!” “Bully for you!” were the expressive answers with which this proposition was met.
“I want to get up a little club among ourselves and call it the ‘Busy Fingers Club,’” Margaret went on, “and I want to see how much real good work this little club can do. I expect to be mistress of the club, and the first thing I shall ask will be to see how neat and clean you can keep yourselves. Now, take this hand-glass and begin at the head, and tell me how many are sure that their faces are as clean as soap and water can make them.”
It was a shamefaced little group as the glass was passed from hand to hand, and hitherto unnoticed and unthought-of streaks and specks came into view. The girls eyed each other askance and surreptitiously applied their aprons to several more obtrusive marks, but the boys made no attempt at self-improvement and shouted their approval when one of the older ones exclaimed: “Boys and dirt go together. ’Tain’t no use to try to keep clean.”
“Trying does a great deal in this world, and I suspect it is equal to making a boy declare war upon dirt. We’ll hope it is, anyway.”