There was silence.
“What is it you want the money for?” asked Aunt Phoebe suddenly. “Maybe I could help.”
“I think you could, Aunt Phoebe. I want it to help somebody who is sick.”
“It’s the little lame girl, Joyce, isn’t it?—I didn’t know they needed money. Of course, dear, I knew they were not rich, but riches do not always mean money. I know very many poor persons who are rich because they have the things many rich persons do not have. I mean love and hope and happiness and work. Riches are not always money, Jimsi. I think you’re a rich little girl because you are so resourceful. You have such happy clever ways of making things. The crow’s magic book has been very magic indeed with the things you and Joyce have made. I’ve been thinking about it all as I watched you. There’s one thing you’ve made that is splendid. It’s the motion picture play screen.”
“Crow told Joyce about it,” said Jimsi. “Yes, it’s ever so much fun. Do you think maybe we could sell that? I could make them, ever so many of them. I want the little lame girl to go to the hospital and be made well, Aunt Phoebe. She can’t go till the money is in the bank, and it may be two whole years—”
Aunt Phoebe sat upright with a jump. “You don’t mean that Joyce could get well if there was money to send her where she could have treatment, do you?”
A hot, little tear crept from Jimsi’s eye and fell on Aunt Phoebe’s hand that clasped hers in her lap.
“Why, I’ll send Joyce,” she cried. “They never told me!”
“No, no, you can’t,” declared Jimsi. “Joyce wouldn’t let you. She wouldn’t go that way, she says. She wants to help her mother earn the money. Her father can’t put much aside. They need it. That’s why I wanted to help.”
“Nonsense,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “They’ll have to take it from me.”