Nelly shut the door, and went singing up-stairs, two at once, while the old woman employed her valuable time in smoking her pipe.
In a short time eager, young footsteps were heard dancing along the entry, and into the room came Nelly, looking as happy as though for her there existed no ill-natured schoolmate in all the world.
“Here it is!” she said, holding triumphantly up the foot of an old stocking, ragged at the edges, but scrupulously clean,—the same in fact, from which Comfort had once given her a small gift of money; “here it is, Comfort; but didn’t I have a powerful hunt for it! I dived under the bolster and under the mattrass,—at the foot,—at the head,—at the sides,—and then I found it on the sacking. Hear how it jingles! What fun it must be to earn money, Comfort! Do look at my hair,—if I haven’t got it full of feathers, poking among your pillows!” Sure enough, starting up all over her curls were gray and white downy particles.
“Laws sakes,” exclaimed Comfort, helping her to pick them off, “that ar hole must a broke loose ag’in in my bolster! I can sew it up every Saturday night, and sure as I’m livin’, it bursts ag’in Monday mornin’.”
"That’s ’cause your brain is too heavy; you’ve got too many thoughts in it, perhaps," laughed Martin, who entered at that moment, and began to stamp the snow from his feet on the kitchen doormat.
“O Martin,” cried Nell, “see how rich Comfort is! She has saved that fat stocking full of money, to buy her neffy.”
“Buy her neffy!” repeated Martin, unbuttoning his overcoat.
“Yes, he’s a slave, you know.”
“No,” said the boy, “I don’t know, Nelly; I never even heard of neffy before.”
"Oh, his name isn’t neffy, Martin. Oh, no, not at all," said the little girl, with an air of importance. “He is called John, and Comfort is going to buy him, and I am to begin a pair of stockings for him to-morrow.”