THE BUTTON BOY.
The wind blew as it never had blown before.
I think it blew that boy straight through the gate, up the path, through the door, and into the back parlor where the family sat. He stopped there, gave a little puff of spent breath and sat down. He had a box under his arm. It was flat and wide, a pasteboard box, and when he put it down all the family dropped their books and looked at it attentively. They were a very literary family and read so much that it was a great compliment to any box to have them put down their books when they had once taken them up.
"You haven't opened it yet?" asked the Mother.
"No," said the Boy scornfully; all the family had long ago agreed he had a high caste of countenance which this manner suited remarkably well—but he was not in the least conscious of it himself. "No, what's the hurry? plenty of time to look in it when I get home."
"It's a suit, a suit of clothes," calmly said the Sister, picking up her book again. Every one stared at the Sister who could see through a pasteboard box. "Somebody has made a hole in the bottom of the box and I see a button, a brass button," she explained.
True; there was a hole in the bottom of the box.
"He said, if I put the contents of this box to their proper use," said the Boy, "every day as long as they would bear it, I would not only learn something, but I should be his heir; so I might as well open the lid and see what is inside. I thought books, for Uncle knows I always put books to their proper use."
"Of course," said the Father; "it is books, no doubt."
"But," said the Sister, turning a page and reading all the time, "nobody puts brass buttons on books."