CHAPTER EIGHT
A QUEER BANK
It did seem as though some little imp of mischief was trying to worry poor Dixie Martin. She had been far more sorry about the failure of their apple-crop than she had confessed, for, although the old stove would do for another year or two, the little mother knew that Carol’s best dress was actually shabby, and that night, after the small pig had been fed with a bottle, to the great delight of Jimmy-Boy, and after he and Ken were asleep in the lean-to, and Carol in the loft, Dixie sat up in bed and listened, to be sure than no one was awake.
The light of the full moon streamed in at the small window of the loft, and so she did not need to light the candle. Lifting the corn-husk-filled mattress at one corner, she drew forth an old woolen sock that had belonged to Pine Tree Martin. Nobody knew how the girl, who had inherited so many of his courageous, optimistic qualities, treasured that and every other little thing that had belonged to the man whom she so loved. Indeed, as Carol’s admiration had been all for her mother, very much of Dixie’s had been for her father, which was not strange, for she had been old enough to see how selfish were the demands of the rather weak, though truly beautiful, woman, and how constant were the willing sacrifices of her father.
The money in the stocking was Dixie’s savings for the entire year, and she knew, even before she emptied the few dimes and nickels out upon the counterpane of her bed, that there was nowhere near enough to buy Carol a store dress, and even if there might be enough for material, who was there to make it? Kind old Grandmother Piggins on the Valley Ranch had made them each a dress two years before, the ones that buttoned down the front, but now she was dead, and there was no one to care for them.
Slowly Dixie counted. There was just two dollars and thirty cents, and Jimmy-Boy ought to have a warm coat before winter, that is, if he were to go to school. When he didn’t go, the other three children had to take turns staying at home with him, and when one only went to school two days out of every three, one couldn’t make as much headway as one desired, that is, not if one were as ambitious as Dixie. With a sigh that would have been perfectly audible had any one been awake to hear it, the dimes and nickels were replaced, the sock again knotted, and Dixie was about to put it under the mattress when she suddenly held it close to her, and, looking up at the sky, she sobbed under her breath: “Oh, Dad! Dad! You’d know just what I’d ought to do. How I wish you were here to tell me!”
Just then Carol turned over, and, fearing that she might waken, Dixie slipped the precious sock into its hiding-place and climbed back into bed, but not to sleep, for her thoughts kept going over the problem without finding a solution.
Ever since her father had died, Mr. Clayburn, the kindly banker over at Genoa, had sent Dixie twelve dollars a month, which, he said, was interest on money that her father had left there for his children. The principal, he had assured Ken and Dixie, was invested in good securities that would probably continue to provide for them the princely income of twelve dollars a month.
During the summer it was not hard for Dixie to manage, for Ken raised many things in his garden, but in winter, when there were warm clothes to buy and no garden to help provide, the little mother found it very hard to make ends meet, and now it was October and there was only two dollars and thirty cents in the sock.
“Well,” she thought at last with a sigh, “Carol’s old dress will have to do, and Jimmy’ll just have to stay at home from school when cold weather comes.”
It was very late when Dixie Martin closed her eyes in restless slumber, but even then the little imp of mischief was not satisfied, for, when the girl’s gold-brown eyes opened wearily, it was on a day when a still greater problem was to confront her.