Jimsi thought. “Oh, I’m going to have more than one,” she answered. “The scrapbooks don’t cost anything and I can have as many as I like. I like them better than the ones that are sold in shops. They are prettier and they have more leaves. Once I wanted to buy a scrapbook and when I priced it, it cost two dollars! It was a big scrapbook like the one you are making. Of course, I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t, for there wasn’t that amount of money in my bunny-bank on the mantel-shelf at home.”
“I’ve one dollar and seventy-three cents saved in my bank,” Henry volunteered. “I’ve earned twenty-eight cents just lately. Once it was for doing errands for the lady next door and once I swept the snow off the walk for her, too. She said I did it well and asked me to come next time it snowed.”
“Boys can always earn money,” sighed Jimsi. “It’s different with girls. Nobody asks them to shovel snow or do errands, if there is a boy anywhere around. I could sweep snow!”
“I know,” agreed Henry. “But there are things girls can do.”
“What?”
“Oh, girls can amuse little babies and take them riding in a go-cart and see that they are happy while the babies’ mother goes away out-doors for an hour. Mrs. Brown said she wanted a little girl who was a good responsible girl to do that for her. And once when Birdie Smith hurt her eyes studying with the sun shining on her book and the doctor wouldn’t let her use them, Mrs. Smith said she would be glad to pay some boy or girl to come and read aloud to Birdie—because Birdie was always asking to be read to and she had work to do and couldn’t read to her all the time.”
“I could take care of babies,” Jimsi thought. “Having Katherine helps ever so much. I’d love to wheel a baby in a carriage out-doors, if its mother would trust me—I’d like it so well I’d do it without money.”
“That’s the way with girls. They aren’t businesslike,” sniffed Henry. “It’s business to pay for errands and shoveling snow and it’s business to be paid for taking care of babies, I think.” He tied the raffia that bound his scrapbook at the back of the cover and held it up. “I’ve finished,” he smiled. “See!”
“But if one likes to do things, one hates to be paid for doing them,” Jimsi protested. “I love to play with little bits of children, I do.”
“Well, I’m only telling you how girls can earn money,” said Henry. “You don’t need to take it, if you don’t want to. My, but I’m hungry! Isn’t it most time for pancakes? Aunt Phoebe said we were going to have pancakes this morning.”