CHAPTER IX.
A BARGAIN AND A PROMISE.
DURING the next few days work went on rapidly in the Decker home: or, more properly speaking, in the room over Job Smith's barn. Jerry developed such taste in the manufacture of furniture, or of "skeletons," that Nettie grew alarmed lest there should never be found clothing enough to cover them. However, matters in that respect began to look brighter. Mrs. Job Smith, as she grew into an understanding of the plan, dragged out certain old trunks from her woodhouse chamber and looked them over. There were treasures in those trunks, which even Mrs. Job herself had forgotten. A gay chintz dress of Job's mother's, which had been saved by her daughter-in-law "she couldn't rightly tell for what, only Job set store by it because it was his old mother's." Nettie fairly clapped her hands in delight over it, and then blushed crimson when she remembered it was not hers.
"Well, now," said Mrs. Job, "I'll just tell you what it is. If you see anything in life to do with these rolls of things, here is a bundle of old muslin curtains, embroidered, you know, and dreadful pretty once, I suppose, but they are all to pieces now. Mrs. Percival, a lady I used to clear starch and iron for, gave them to me; paid me in that kind of trash, you know, though what in the world she thought I could ever do with them is more than I could imagine. But I was younger then than I am now, and was kind of meek, and I lugged home the great roll and said nothing; only I remember when I got home I just sat down on a corner of the table and cried, I was so disappointed. I had expected to be paid in money, and I had planned two or three things to surprise Job, and they had to be given up. Well, as I was saying," she added, in a brisker tone, having roused from her little dream of the past to watch Nettie's fingers linger lovingly and wistfully among the rolls of soft muslin, "they have never been the least mite of good to me. I have just kept them because it didn't seem quite the thing to throw such pretty soft stuff into the rag-bag, and they were dreadful poor trash to give away; and Sarah Jane, she is tired of having them in the attic taking up room, and if there is anything in life can be done with these things in this trunk, I wish you would just go shares, and make some things for me too. Sarah Jane would like it, first-rate."
This sentence fairly made Nettie catch her breath. The treasures in that trunk were so wonderful to her. "I could make such lovely things!" she said, almost gasping out the words; "but, O Mrs. Smith, you can't mean it! I'm afraid I oughtn't to."
"Why, bless your heart, child, I tell you I don't know of a single useful thing in that trunk; not one; it is just a pack of rubbish, now, that's the truth; and if Sarah Jane has begged me once to let her sell it to the rag pedlers, I believe she has twenty times."
The bare thought of such a sacrifice as this almost made Nettie pale. Also it settled her resolution and her conscience. She reached forward and plunged into the delights of the despised trunk with a satisfied air. "I will make you some of the prettiest things you ever saw in your life," she said, with the air of one who knew she could do it. And Mrs. Smith laughed, and watched her with admiring eyes, and told Sarah Jane that she believed the child could do some things that other folks couldn't.
It was after the day's work was done, and the little girls were asleep, and Nettie sat in the back door waiting for father and Norm, and wishing that they had not gone down town again, that she had a chance to say the few little words which she had made up her mind to say to Jerry. While her hands had been busy over long seams of rag carpeting, and over the wonderful trunk full of treasures, her thoughts had, much of the time, been busy with other matters. Yesterday at noon she had been sure that she should never go to that Sabbath-school again. By night, after the quiet talk under the trees with Norm and the little girls, she had not been so sure of it. The little girls could not go without her, and they had learned sweet lessons that very day, which had filled their young heads full of wondering thoughts, and they had asked questions which had at least amused Norm, and which might set him to thinking. In any case, ought she, because she had not been happy in her class, to deprive the little girls of the help which the Sabbath-school might be to them? Then how badly it would look to Norm, and to her mother, if she went no more. And what would Jerry think? On the whole, the longer she thought about it, the more she felt inclined to believe that her decision might have been a hasty one, and it was her duty to continue in that Sabbath-school, and even in that class, at least until the superintendent placed her in some other. It was a good deal of a trial to her to decide the question in this way, but she could not make any other seem right.
There had also been another question to decide, which had been harder, and cost her more tears than the other. She was a very lonely little girl, and it seemed hard to give up a friend. But this, too, seemed to be the only right thing to do, so she made it known to Jerry in the moonlight.
"Do you know, Jerry, I have been thinking all day of something that I ought to say to you?"
"All right," said Jerry, whittling away at the stick which he was fashioning into a proper shape to do duty as a towel rack for Mrs. Job Smith's kitchen towel. "Go ahead, this is a good time to say it." And he held the stick up and took a scientific squint at it in the moonlight. "This thing would work better if the wood were a little softer. I am going to make one for your mother if it is a success, and it will be. Now what is your news?"