When Edna awoke on Saturday morning her first thought was of Nettie and she scrambled out of bed that she might not lose a moment’s time in telling her of the discovery she had made the night before. She hurried through her breakfast and was off to the little house as soon as she had been given leave by her mother. She carried the page of her father’s paper safely folded in her hand, and ran nearly all the way, arriving breathless. She could scarcely wait for Nettie to open to her knock, and her words tumbled over each other as she replied to Nettie’s greeting of “How nice and early you are,” by saying, “Oh, I have something so nice to tell you.”
“You had something nice to tell me when you came last evening,” returned Nettie; “you don’t mean to say there is anything more.”
“Yes, I’ve found a way that maybe you can make some money, a dollar.”
This was exciting, “Oh, do tell me quick,” returned Nettie.
Edna hastily began to open the paper she carried, and then she thrust it before Nettie, pointing to a line and saying, “There, read that.”
Nettie did as she was told, her eyes eagerly running over the words. “Oh, Edna,” she said, “do you believe we could do it?”
“Why, of course, but you see the main thing is to get it done as quickly as possible, for the one who gets the answer to the puzzle the quickest and who has the clearest answer will get the first prize. Maybe we couldn’t get the very first, but we could get the second, and that’s a dollar. We must set to work right away. I thought we’d do the best we could and then we’d get Cousin Ben to fix it up for us.”
“Would that be right?”
“Oh, I think so, for it doesn’t say you mustn’t have any help; it just says the one who sends it in the soonest. I left a note for Cousin Ben to stop here if he had time this morning.”
“Do you think he will?”