"You know I caught one quail to-day?" whispered Jack.
"Well!" said his mother.
"Well, I'm going to save 'em all the week, and Saturday take 'em to the meat-man in the village. I guess he'll buy 'em. I heard that quails were fetching two cents apiece. And I'm going to get enough money to buy the girls something nice, and you must make 'em hang up their stockings, mother, and then we'll put the things in after they get asleep."
His mother smiled quite cheerfully. "Well," said she, "do the best you can."
Their father was away that evening. He was generally away evenings, because most of the neighbors had cozier firesides than his, besides apples, and sometimes cider; and so he passed many a pleasant hour in gossip and farm-talk, while his own little family shivered gloomily at home.
By Saturday morning Jack had ten quails. The four traps had not been as fruitful as they ought to have been, perhaps, but this was doing very well, and he trudged joyfully to town with his game hanging on a stick over his shoulder. The meat-man did indeed give two cents apiece for quails, and he invited Jack to bring as many more as he could get.
The next Saturday was only two days before Christmas, and how beautiful were all the stores on the village street! Even the groceries had Christmas toys and Christmas trees. A good many boys and girls stood around the store windows pointing out the things they most admired, and wondering what Santa Claus would bring them. Jack had fifteen quails, which brought him thirty cents; so he was now the owner of half a dollar, which was more money than he had ever possessed in all his life before. But when two dolls were bought, and they weren't very fine dolls either, there were only twenty cents left. Jack did mean to buy something for his mother too, but he had to give that up, and after looking over the bright colored toy-books in the show-case, he selected two little primers, one with a pink cover and one with a blue one, and with a big ache in his throat, parted with his last ten cents for candy. How very, very little he was buying after all, and not one thing for his dear mother who had sat up till two o'clock the night before, mending his ragged clothes for him.
Jack's heart was very heavy as he walked out of the gay store with such a little package, but it sank still lower when his father's tall form loomed up suddenly before him right in front of the door.
"'LET ME SEE 'EM,' SAID HIS FATHER."