“I’ll show you, sure,” Dicky offered generously.
“What are you making so many for?” Maida queried.
“Well, you see it’s this way,” Dicky began in a business-like air. “Arthur and Rosie and I are going to have a fair. We’ve had a fair every spring and every fall for the last three years. That’s how we get our money for Christmas and the Fourth of July. Arthur whittles things out of wood—he’ll show you what he can do in a minute—he’s a crackajack. Rosie makes candy. And I make these paper things.”
“And do you make much money?” Maida asked, deeply interested.
“Don’t make any money at all,” Dicky said. “The children pay us in nails. I charge them ten nails a-piece for the easy things and twenty nails for the hardest. Arthur can get more for his stuff because it’s harder to do.”
“But what do you want nails for?” Maida asked in bewilderment.
“Why, nails are junk.”
“And what’s junk?”
The three children stared at her. “Don’t you know what junk is, Maida?” Rosie asked in despair.
“No.”