As she started up the stairs, a small boy shot past her. “Mama! mama!” he called excitedly, “come quick! Open the door! Mama, look! See what I found in the gutter—five cents! Mama, it was right down there in the gutter!”
The boy’s outcry caused several doors to open before his mother had time to appear; but as Jean reached the second flight she heard: “That’s very nice, dear; but don’t make such a noise. Come in, and we’ll put it in your bank.”
A chunky, ringleted lady was smiling benevolently upon the scene. “Well, now,” she said, “Owen has been such a nice boy that I’m going to give him something else for his bank. Look, Owen, here’s a nice big quarter for you.”
The little boy was too much absorbed to answer. He was rubbing the nickel energetically on his trousers.
“Can’t you thank the lady?” exclaimed the embarrassed mother.
“Got a pin, anybody? I want to clean these stars and get the dirt out of this face.” He bent over the nickel with delighted concentration.
His mother interposed petulantly: “But look at this nice new quarter, Owen.”
“Don’t bother me with that old quarter!” Instinctively feeling Jean’s sympathy, he looked up at her and smiled. “Say, won’t the fellows be s’prised, though, when they know I found this nickel right down in the gutter?”
Jean, amused, started up the next flight of stairs. At the top she turned and looked back. Then, hardly knowing why, she sat down. Some powerful suggestion was working in her, subconsciously. Her eyes were fixed on the little boy, fascinated.
“That old nickel!” she said to herself. “Why in the world does he prefer that to the quarter, I’d like to know!”