"Let's go down and look at the fire-crackers in Johnson's window," he suggested.
"I'd rather stay here and shoot this pop-gun," I declared.
"I'm tired of it," he rejoined. "Sell it to you for a cent."
Again the cent!
I put down the pop-gun and accompanied Rob to Johnson's shop, where we spent twenty minutes with our noses flattened against the pane, choosing what we would take if Mr. Johnson should come out and invite us to help ourselves.
Mr. Johnson did nothing of the sort, however.
We agreed that our first choice would be a mine, which was described as "sending to an enormous height nine colored stars, alternately green, purple, and carmine, and then exploding with a rain of golden serpents."
This point decided, we repaired to the Curriers' and spent the afternoon perfecting our skill with the lasso.
In the interval that evening, between supper and bedtime, I suffered much uneasiness.
Some member of my family read from the evening paper that thieves were reported in town. Instantly, I thought of the three cents in the apple tree. Surely it had been rash to leave them exposed. There was nothing in the story about Washington to tell what he did to protect his coin from thieves. How would he have felt if he had come back, President of the United States, and found that some one had stolen his cent?