“Well now, for instance,” replied Jim, who delighted in an argument, “I’m taking what the newspaper-poetry-man would call an ever-fresh delight in those three jolly warm nightshirts your mother had made for me. I’d never have saved the money for ’em in the world, if she hadn’t kept me up to it, and I feel as proud as Cuffee, every time I put one on, to think I paid for every stitch of it—I can’t help feeling sort of sorry that it wouldn’t be the correct thing to wear them on the street. Now do you suppose your millionaire finds any fun in buying nightshirts? I guess not! And that’s only one thing out of dozens of the same sort. See?”
“Yes,” answered Johnny, thoughtfully, “I see what you mean; I didn’t think of it in that way, before. But, all the same, I’d be willing to try being a millionaire for a day or two. And I do wish the fellow in there would kind of pile up the other knives over that white one till I can raise money enough to buy it!”
It is needless to say that the shopkeeper did not act upon this suggestion—perhaps because he did not hear it; and yet, by some singular chance, day after day passed, and still the white-handled knife remained unsold. And then Johnny’s uncle came to say goodbye, before going on a long business journey, and just as he was leaving, he put a bright half dollar in his nephew’s hand, saying,—
“I’ll not be here to help keep your birthday this year, my boy, so will you buy an appropriate present for a young man of your age and inches, and give it to yourself, with my love?”
Would he? Uncle Rob knew all about that knife, in less than five minutes, and then, as soon as he was gone, Johnny begged hard to be allowed to go out after dark, “just this once,” to secure the knife; he felt so entirely sure that it would be gone the next morning!
But it was not. And its presence in his pocket, during school hours, had a rather bad effect upon his pursuit of knowledge. On his way home, as I have said, he stopped to show his newly-acquired treasure to Jim, and he was a little disappointed that Jim did not seem more sympathetic with his joy, but simply said, thoughtfully,—
“It’s a queer world, and no mistake!”
THE NEW KNIFE.