In a few days’ time the list was ready. It ran like this:
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Mrs. Meadows’ false teeth want mending. It can be done for | 0 | 12 | 6 |
| Tommy Pringle ought to go to a Nursing Home by the sea for three weeks. This costs 7s. a week and 5s. 4d. return fare | 1 | 6 | 4 |
| Old Mrs. Wigram really must have a new bonnet | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Mrs. Ryan has been saving up for months to buy a sewing machine. She had it all ready, but Sarah’s illness has taken away 10s. I should like to make that up | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| The little Barretts ought to have a real ball. It isn’t any fun playing with a bit of wood | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Mr. Eyles has broken his spectacles again | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| Old Mr. and Mrs. Snelling have never been in London, and they’re both nearly eighty. I’m sure they ought to go. There is an excursion on the first of the month at 3s. return each, and their grandson’s wife would look after them there. Fraser’s cart to the station and back would be 4s. | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Mrs. Callow will lose all her peas and currants again if she doesn’t have a net | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| The schoolmaster says that the one thing that would get the boys to the village room is a gramaphone like the one at the public-house. This is 15s., and twelve tunes for 9s. | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| Mrs. Carter’s mangle will cost 8s. to be mended, but it must be done | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| Thomas Barnes’ truck is no good any more, and his illness took away all the money he had; but he will never take it if he knows it comes from us | 1 | 10 | 0 |
Mary read through her list and once more added up the figures. They came to £6 11s. 10d.
“Dear me!” she said, “I hadn’t any idea it was so difficult to be an almoner.”
She went through the list again, and brought it down to £5 0s. 10d. by knocking off one week of Tommy Pringle’s sea-side holiday and depriving the village room of its gramaphone.
“I suppose I must make up the tenpence myself,” she said.
III
That afternoon Mary went to call on Mr. Verney. Mr. Verney was an artist who lived at the forge cottage. He and Mary were great friends. She used to sit by him while he painted, and he played cricket with her and Harry and was very useful with a pocket-knife.
“No one,” she said to herself, “can help me so well as Mr. Verney, and if I decide myself on how the money is to be spent, it will be all right to get some help in spending it.”
Mr. Verney liked the scheme immensely. “But I don’t see that you want any help,” he said. “You have done it so far as well as possible.”