When the last flake had settled in its place, Teddy buttoned on his leggings to go out.
"Are you keeping your eyes open this morning, Teddy?" asked his mother.
Teddy laughed. "Of course," he said. "I couldn't see if—" Then he stopped abruptly. "It is a way, isn't it, mummie!" he cried.
"Yes," she said. "I think I hear twenty-five cents dropping into the apple. I will give you that much if you will shovel a path to the gate."
"Goody!" cried Teddy. Then he hunted up the snow shovel and fell to work.
"Teddy! Teddy!" Teddy looked up. The old lady across the way was standing in her door. "I'll give you a quarter if you'll clean my walk."
"All right!" Teddy shouted back. And then how the snow did fly as he dug and scraped and shoveled!
"My, my!" said Father Sun. "What an industrious boy!" And he smiled till Teddy grew quite warm, and the busy hands in the red mittens were never once cold.
When the day was over, four bright quarters lay snugly in the apple bank.
The day before Christmas Teddy emptied the bank and went shopping. And that night, when the washerwoman's boy came for the clothes, on top of the basket lay, not mittens, but a pair of thick gloves lined with wool.