“I can’t pay it, ’n that’s all there is about it,” said Griffin, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground.
There was a moment of silence. Many of the boys knew that Griffin belonged to a family that had no money to spare.
“Well,” said Graham, “if Griffin really can’t pay it, I’m the one to do it, and I will, though I can’t do it just now. Christmas cleared me out entirely.”
“And me, too, of course,” said Hamlin; “that and the school dues that I paid yesterday.”
“See here, boys, neither Clark nor Graham ought to foot that bill, and I reckon we’re all pretty short just now. Say we all chip in and earn it to-day,” was Reed’s suggestion.
“Earn it, how?” cried several voices.
“Shoveling snow,” was the prompt reply. “This snow is so heavy that the fellows that usually go around to clear walks can’t begin to cover the ground that they generally do. You see they haven’t cleared anywhere about here yet. What’s the matter with our borrowing shovels again over yonder, or anywhere we can get ’em, and each of us clearing one sidewalk. At ten cents each, we’d raise six dollars that way in a jiffy.”
“Three cheers for Reed. His head’s level!” called out one; and in two minutes not a boy was to be seen on the vacant lots; not one except Griffin. He stood there biting his nails, and scraping a hole in the snow with the toe of his shoe. When the boys passed the lots with their borrowed shovels, Griffin was gone.
Late that afternoon, somebody left at Hamlin’s door twenty-five cents done up in a bit of paper, on which was scrawled the one word, “glass.”
“Griffin left that, I’m sure,” Hamlin said as he read the word. “I’m glad he had grace enough to do that much.”