CHAPTER VI.
SIXTY-FIVE DOLLARS.
Willie took the boys into the parsonage. They figured on it. There were sixty-five dollars to be raised to buy the machine. The seven boys were together, for Tommy Puffer had gone home. He said he didn’t feel like staying, and Sammy Bantam thought he must be a little hungry.
Willie attacked the problem, sixty-five dollars. Toward that amount they had three dollars and a half that they had intended to spend on a present for Mr. Marble. That left just sixty-one dollars and fifty cents to be raised. Willie ran across the street and brought Mr. Marble. He said he had made up his mind to give the boys a book apiece, and that each book would cost a dollar. It was rather more than he could well afford; but as he had intended to give eight dollars for their presents, and as he was pleased with their unselfish behavior, he would make it ten.
“Good!” said Charley Somerset, who always saw the bright side of things,“that makes it all, except fifty-one dollars and a half.”
“Yes,” said Sammy Bantam, “and you’re eleven feet high, lacking a couple of yards!”
Willie next called his father in, and inquired how much his Christmas present was to cost.
“Three and a half,” said his father.
“That’s a lot! Will you give me the money instead?”
“Yes; but I meant to give you a Life of George Stephenson, and some other books on engineering.”