"Go to-morrer, boys, and God bless ye. I'll take care of Lizzī."
Levi pulled from his pocket some money, not very much, although it was the savings of two years, and began counting it in the moonlight, while the others watched him curiously. He fingered the bills fondly. He slowly dropped the gold coins into his hat, and listened with evident delight to the clinking of the falling pieces. He held the silver close to the window, and looked from it to the gold, from the gold to the moon.
"The moon is a silver dollar, and the sun is a twenty-dollar gold-piece."
About to make a sacrifice, he said a silly thing that his father and brothers should think he gave easily and without pain.
"There, father," he said, turning first the silver, then the gold, into his father's hat, and on top of the yellow and argent pile laying the paper money, "there, father, that's for Lizzī, and will keep her until we come back, bringing her husband. If we don't find him, we'll work for her."
Peter, seized with a fit of trembling, sat down helplessly, and picking up the hat, ran his fingers among the coins, clinking them. Cassi and Matthi looked on in quiet admiration, both wishing heartily that the balance due them on the furnace books was not so light. Although half ashamed to place his small savings beside Levi's princely gift, Matthi remarked:
"Guess if we put our money together it would look bigger, Cassi."
"Kind of small potatoes beside of Levi's pile," Cassi replied; "but if Levi will write us an order, we'll sign it, hey, Matthi?"
Levi had with him an inkstand, a then new invention for the pocket, and pen and paper. He wrote the order in the moonlight, and the brothers signed it.
"God bless ye all!" exclaimed Peter as he received the order. "Ye are the best sons any man ever had. Oh! if yer mother's lookin' down on us, she's not ashamed ter hold her head up among the angels, 'less she feels bad 'bout not believin' in Lizzī." He put the money and order in his pocket. When they were secure, Levi hoisted a window on the dark side of the school-house and crawled through it. Then he helped his father out, and the others followed. For a moment they stood under the trees and breathed the resinous atmosphere of the woods just budding.