She hastened to finish the figure of the animal she was then at work upon, putting in the ears and tail with a drop of glue, and tossing it into the basket at her side. Then she rose and went into the bedroom and opened her trunk, taking the key from under a corner of the carpet where she kept it hid.
At the very bottom of her trunk, under her bridal dress, she kept her savings. It was all in change—half dollars and dollars for the most part, with here and there a gold piece. Long since the little brass match-box had overflowed. Trina kept the surplus in a chamois-skin sack she had made from an old chest protector. Just now, yielding to an impulse which often seized her, she drew out the match-box and the chamois sack, and emptying the contents on the bed, counted them carefully. It came to one hundred and sixty-five dollars, all told. She counted it and recounted it and made little piles of it, and rubbed the gold pieces between the folds of her apron until they shone.
“Ah, yes, ten dollars is all I can afford to give Mac,” said Trina, “and even then, think of it, ten dollars—it will be four or five months before I can save that again. But, dear old Mac, I know it would make him feel glad, and perhaps,” she added, suddenly taken with an idea, “perhaps Mac will refuse to take it.”
She took a ten-dollar piece from the heap and put the rest away. Then she paused:
“No, not the gold piece,” she said to herself. “It's too pretty. He can have the silver.” She made the change and counted out ten silver dollars into her palm. But what a difference it made in the appearance and weight of the little chamois bag! The bag was shrunken and withered, long wrinkles appeared running downward from the draw-string. It was a lamentable sight. Trina looked longingly at the ten broad pieces in her hand. Then suddenly all her intuitive desire of saving, her instinct of hoarding, her love of money for the money's sake, rose strong within her.
“No, no, no,” she said. “I can't do it. It may be mean, but I can't help it. It's stronger than I.” She returned the money to the bag and locked it and the brass match-box in her trunk, turning the key with a long breath of satisfaction.
She was a little troubled, however, as she went back into the sitting-room and took up her work.
“I didn't use to be so stingy,” she told herself. “Since I won in the lottery I've become a regular little miser. It's growing on me, but never mind, it's a good fault, and, anyhow, I can't help it.”