“It would be queer if I didn’t, mamma,” he said, drawing his stool closer, and resting his arms on her knees, “you’ve come out right so often when I was pretty sure you wouldn’t, you know. Now, its just this way—I know you and papa aren’t rich, and I know I oughtn’t to ask you for any more money than you give me now, but I do want more, dreadfully, sometimes! F’r instance, here’s Tiny’s birthday next week, and I’ve only twenty-five cents to buy her a birthday present with, and she really needs a new doll; that old dud she carries about isn’t fit to be seen, but what kind of a doll can you buy for twenty-five cents? And then your birthday will be coming along, and then papa’s and then Easter, and I want to give presents and send cards to lots and lots of people, and how can I do it without any money?”
Mrs. Leslie could not help laughing.
“O Johnny, Johnny!” she said, “you’re as bad as the old woman who called her lazy maids on Monday morning: ‘Come girls! Get up! It’s washing day, and to-morrow’s ironing day, and Wednesday’s baking day—here’s half the week gone, and you not out of bed yet!’ Dear little boy, we can’t have more than one day at a time, and here you are borrowing trouble for almost a whole year!”
“Well, anyhow, mamma,” said Johnny, laughing in spite of himself, and looking a little foolish, “Tiny’s birthday is, most here, and if I might buy a quarter’s worth of peanuts, and sell them, and then invest the money again, I do believe I’d have a dollar before it was time to buy her present.”
“And I wonder,” said his mother, “how many of your lessons you would learn, and on how many errands you would go for me, and how many steps you would save for papa, when he comes home tired, and how much carpentering you would do for Tiny and her little friends? No, darling, if you can’t quite see what I mean, you must just trust me. You can help a great many people, in a great many ways, without money, and it is all beautiful practice for you, against the time when you can help them with money too; but just now, your main business is to see that papa and I are not disappointed in the man that, with the dear Father’s help, we are trying to help you to grow into. Keep your heart and your eyes open, and you’ll see plenty of chances without the peanut-stand.”
Johnny looked, and felt, a good deal disappointed, but he was a boy of his word, so he said resolutely,—
“I promised to trust you, mamma, and I will, for although you never were a boy, papa was, and I sometimes think he’s a kind of one yet; but you see I can’t help feeling pretty badly about it. Perhaps it’s partly from sitting still so long—my legs are all cramped up. Come out and race me just twice ’round the house,” he added, coaxingly. “I should think your legs would be as stiff as pokers, sitting sewing here the way you do, for half a day at a time!”
“They do feel a little stiff,” said Mrs. Leslie, springing up, and dropping her sewing into the never-empty basket, “but for all that, I think I can beat you yet, Mr. Johnny.”
She took off her apron and tucked up her skirt a little, and Johnny made a line on the gravel-walk with a stick.
“Now, mamma, are you ready? One, two, three, off!” and away they skimmed, down the walk, across the grassplot; into the walk again, over the line, around once more, and then—