"I'll help," said Ruth after she had watched Billy sturdily working to get his pile completed. "Aunt Hester wants to send you to the store and I'm going, too. Billy, did you know she hated to make buttonholes and her father had a gold-headed cane?"
"I know; I saw it once, the cane I mean. I didn't know about the buttonholes. She won't have to make 'em when I am a man."
"Why? What for?" asked Ruth, struggling with a stick of wood.
"'Cause, she has to do 'em now, so she can buy things for us."
"Oh, I didn't know that was why."
Ruth placed her stick of wood so that it rolled down from the pile. She thrust it back again and stood looking very thoughtful, then she said soberly, "She's awful good, isn't she, Billy?"
"You bet she is. She's a Jim dandy, if she does make a fellow work Saturday afternoons. Where'd you and me be, if it wasn't for her?"
"You'd be selling papers and I'd be in an orphan asylum, I suppose," returned Ruth readily. She was accustomed to this reminder from Billy.
"That's just what," he returned settling Ruth's wobbly stick more securely in place.
"Tell me where you saw the cane," said Ruth, picking up a stick more suited to her abilities.