“Which we won’t,” smiled Joyce.
The twilight deepened into dusk and the firelight lit the room. “Oh, I must run,” declared Jimsi. “Aunt Phoebe told me to come home before dark. Good-bye, dear. I’m going to make a fortune somehow—see if I don’t, and then you’ll go to the hospital and get well right off fast. Let’s pretend we’re going to make a fortune anyhow.”
CHAPTER XIII
The Christmas-Tree That They Made in the Happy Shop
THAT night after tea, Aunt Phoebe curled up on the lounge. “Jimsi,” she said, “I don’t feel like reading and I don’t know what to do. Come talk to me. What’s the matter, dear? You hardly said a thing all through supper. Don’t you feel well?”
“Oh, I’m all right, Aunt Phoebe,” Jimsi declared. “But I was thinking—I want to make some money dreadfully!”
“What for?” Aunt Phoebe drew Jimsi onto the couch beside her. “Is it for Christmas, Honey?” she asked.
Jimsi shook her head from side to side slowly. “Of course, I do want money for Christmas presents, but what I want it most for is to give it to somebody. I want to know if you think, Aunt Phoebe, that I could earn some money some way. Do you think that I could make things to sell if I made blotter-pads and little presents and took them to a shop? Would the shopkeeper buy them to sell at Christmas, do you think?”
“I don’t believe so, Honey. You’d not make much money that way, I’m afraid.” Aunt Phoebe smiled. “It wouldn’t be a fortune, dear. Shopkeepers would not pay little girls much. The things you make are lovely, I know, but—you see, shopkeepers don’t buy that way.”