The Eagle's Nest

by S. E. Cartwright

Madge was heavily laden with money. Five shillings and sevenpence, mostly in coppers, take up a great deal of room. This sum represented the joint property of Madge, Betty, and John. They collected it in a tin money-box shaped like a small doll's house, with a slit in the roof to drop in the pennies. Miss Thompson kept the key of the front-door, and they had to apply to her for it before any money could be taken out. They had made this rule themselves, because they found that unless their money was locked up so that they could not get at it without a little trouble, they used it as soon as it was given them. To-day they had all three asked for the key, and opened the front-door with pleasant anticipations of finding a fortune inside. They were able to judge in some measure of the probable extent of their fortune by the weight of the tin house. Luckily there was no space required for sitting-rooms or stairs inside the house (which was in fact rather a sham, being really nothing better than a box), so that it would hold an almost unlimited quantity of money. Even five shillings and sevenpence did not half fill it.

Of course Madge could not take a tin house with chimneys in her pocket to Churchbury on a shopping expedition, and she signally failed in an attempt to squeeze the money into her purse. Betty and John offered theirs in addition; but at this point she was met by a fresh difficulty, no pocket will hold three purses unnaturally distended with pennies.

"I really do think I had better only take my share and leave you two your own money to spend another day," Madge had observed rather dolefully, for she had been looking forward with some pride to the unusually substantial purchases that the possession of their united fortunes would enable her to make.

But John and Betty would not hear of this suggestion for a moment. They were longing to spend their saved-up hoards of money, and as there was no immediate prospect of their going to Churchbury themselves, they had been counting on Madge returning in the evening laden with interesting purchases.

There was a short period of dismayed silence. Then Betty suddenly broke out: "I know a way! Wait just a second!"

She rushed excitedly off, and returned waving a neat bag of shiny brown calico.

"Why, that's what Nurse made for you to pack your best shoes in when you went away on visits!" exclaimed Madge.

"Yes, it was made out of a bit of lining that was left over from Mama's last winter dress, and it has got a wreathing-string and everything," replied Betty proudly. "It really seems as if Nurse had made it on purpose for a money-bag."

To make a long story short, the brown calico bag appeared so exactly suited to hold the sum of five shillings and sevenpence (mostly in pennies), that it would have been a stupid neglect of opportunities not to use it. Madge quickly emptied the contents of the tin house into their new resting-place, and then started for Churchbury with the comfortable feeling of having practically boundless wealth at her disposal.

Now it happened that Miss Thompson had several errands of a peculiarly uninteresting nature to do in the town, as Mrs. West had asked her to buy a number of things for the household. Generally the children enjoyed being inside any sort of shop, but after watching Miss Thompson carefully select dusters and pantry-clothes, cotton, tape, and buttons, for what appeared an interminable time, Madge sighed deeply.