So Mother emptied the tin box into her lap, with a great jingle of pennies and rustling of fractional currency. And how much do you think there was? Three dollars and seventy-eight cents! The seventy-eight cents Mother said would just about pay for the molasses; so there were three dollars all their own,—for Dotty and Dimple to spend as they liked!
You should have seen them dance about the kitchen! Three dollars! Why, it was a fortune! It would buy everything in the world! They had fifty plans, at least, for spending it; and sat up so late talking them over, and had such red cheeks and excited eyes, that Mother said she was afraid they wouldn't sleep one wink all night. But, bless you! they did, and were as bright as buttons in the morning.
For a week there was nothing talked about but the wonderful three dollars. And then one evening Father, who had been over to the village, came home with a very grave face, and, drawing a newspaper from his pocket, read them all about the great fire in Chicago.
He read how the flames, spreading like wind, swept from one house to another, and how people had just time to run out of their homes, leaving everything to burn; how women, with babies in their arms, and frightened children crouched all that dreadful night out on the cold, wet prairie, without food or clothes or shelter; how little boys and girls ran through the burning streets, crying for the parents whom they could not find; how everybody had lost everything.
"Oh," said Dimple, almost crying, as she listened to the piteous story, "how dreadful those little girls must feel! And I suppose all their dollies are burned up too. I wouldn't have Nancy burned in a fire for anything!" and, picking up an old doll, of whom she was very fond, she hugged her with unspeakable affection.
That night there was another long, mysterious confabulation in the children's bed; and, coming down in the morning, hand in hand, Dotty and Dimple announced that they had made up their minds what to do with the corn-ball money.
"We're going to send it to the Sicago," said Dimple, "to those poor little girls whose dollies are all burned up!"
"How will you send it?" asked their Mother.
"In a letter," said Dotty. "And please, Pa, write on the outside: 'From Dotty and Dimple, to buy some dollies for the little girls whose dollies were burned up in the fire.'"
So their father put the money into an envelope, and wrote on the outside just what Dotty said. And, when he had got through, he put his hands in his pockets and walked out of the room. The children wondered what made his face so red, and when they turned round, there was Mother with tears in her eyes.