“I know how I can earn some,” cried Betty. “When I especially want to earn money, mother gives me five cents a day for emptying waste-baskets; and I will ask father to let me black his boots. How many days are there before Christmas,—let me see, just fourteen, and the waste-baskets would give me seventy cents, surely. What are you going to do, Elsa, to earn money?”
“Uncle Ned said he would give me fifty cents a week if I would write a four-page letter to him twice a week.”
“That will be a dollar,” said Betty, a little envious at Elsa’s being able to earn more than she. “What will you do, Alice?”
“Mamma sometimes pays me for washing the dishes. If I do them twice a day, she will give me five cents, I think, each day.”
“That will be seventy cents more,” Betty said encouragingly, “and two dollars and forty cents in all.”
“And I’m sure Ben can earn some, shovelling snow and running errands,” cried Alice eagerly.
“I wish grandmother would let me wash dishes or black boots,” sighed Elsa. “Work hurts people’s hands, she says.”
“But we will have at least three dollars, if Ben earns some, too,” Betty said quickly, thinking how tiresome it must be to have to be careful all the time about keeping one’s hands soft and white. “Won’t Miss Ruth be surprised, though!” she added joyfully.
Elsa clasped her slender little hands around her knees: “I know a lovely surprise the Club is going to have;” her violet-gray eyes danced with pleasure.
“O, what is it?” cried both the other girls.