Winifred agreed promptly. "I'll make the legs," she volunteered.
"Be sure and have them all the same length," advised Ruth. "You can take this chalk and mark the places where to saw;" and in a few moments Winifred with a small sharp saw was endeavoring to cut through the strips of hard wood selected for table legs, while Ruth with a sharp knife tried in vain to make some impression on the square of mahogany. Snap! went the slender knife-blade!
"Oh, Winifred! quick! I've cut off my thumb!" screamed Ruth, as she raced past the horrified Winifred and ran into the kitchen calling: "Mother! Mother!"
In a moment her mother was beside her; the injured thumb was bathed and bandaged, and Ruth was explaining, with Winifred's help, how the accident occurred. It was really a deep cut, and it was no wonder that the little girl had been frightened.
Mrs. Pennell went to the shed with the little girls, and looked with troubled eyes at the cherished pieces of polished wood, and the fine tools scattered about the floor.
"We must put all these tools carefully back in the chest, and the wood on the shelf just as your father left it. Winifred will help me, for you must not use your hand, Ruth," she said.
"But, Mother, we want to make a heart-shaped table for a birthday present for Betty," Ruth explained. "Mayn't we use Father's tools?"
"No, my dear. It would have been a very serious thing if you had spoiled any of his saws or planes. And those strips and squares of wood are valuable. Besides that you and Winifred are not accustomed to the use of tools; and you might really have cut off your thumb instead of only cutting it," said Mrs. Pennell. "I am to blame that I did not tell you how much your dear father valued these tools and wood."
"Oh, Mother! You are never to blame. I ought to have asked you," Ruth declared.
"Well, my dear, I really think it would have been wiser. But now we must think of something else as a present for Betty. With that hurt thumb, Ruth, I am afraid you cannot make her anything," responded her mother, leading the way to the seat under the maple tree.