"Fifty cent," replied the Princess.
Nancy had just eight cents at home. Flora had nothing at all. Her father sent her money every month, and the last instalment was all spent. Neither of them could buy the basket, and fifty cents sounded enormous, but their faces were quite dignified and immovable. It might have been the echo of their strange surroundings, but they acted as if they had Indian blood themselves.
They turned about and went out of the tent; they crossed the old road and climbed the stone-wall. Flora spoke as she picked her way across the meadow. "Guess I'll buy that basket when my money comes next week," said she.
Nancy said nothing; she looked gloomy. She stepped in an oozy place and wet one foot, but she did not mind it. She thought of her eight cents, and did an example in mental arithmetic. "Eight from fifty leaves forty-two," she calculated. For the first time she was envious of Flora. Everybody finds some object to grudge to another. Nancy had found hers—the sweet-grass basket. If she had expressed her feelings, she would have said, "Must she have all those pretty dresses and hats and the sweet-grass basket, too?"
The girls went home silently; they were never great talkers. Flora sat down in the sitting-room with her aunt; Nancy went up-stairs to the chamber where she slept with Flora, and got her little purse out of the corner of her bureau drawer. She counted the eight cents, and puzzled over the problem how to increase it to fifty. She puzzled over it all the rest of that day until she went to sleep at nine o'clock. The next day was Sunday; she puzzled over it as she sat in the pew in church, but she could not arrive at any solution.
However, the next morning she had an inspiration. Her mother sent her over to Aunt Lucretia's on an errand. Flora was not allowed to go; it was a very hot morning, and she was rather delicate. Nancy on her way to Aunt Lucretia's thought of a way to swell eight cents to fifty. She trudged down the sunny road in a cloud of dust, her face was scarlet with the heat, but she ignored all little discomforts.
Aunt Lucretia lived in a nice square white house with a green lattice-work porch over the front door. She was an elderly lady and quite rich. She had a Brussels carpet in the parlor and kept a servant-maid.
"SHE WAS A REAL INDIAN PRINCESS"