“Mosey!”  
“Wotcher want, Nosey?”
 
“Wisht I had two bits.”
 
“Wot fer? You girls is alius thinkin’ o’ money.” Moses clinked the nickels in his pocket with the air of a Vanderfeller. Betty’s voice became .
 
“Mosey, ef I darn yer socks fer a month would you let me hev’ two bits?”
 
“Well, I’ll be blowed, gosh! ’d larf to hear you tarlk. You’ll darn my socks, two bits or no two bits, ef Mar says.”
 
“Now, Mosey, Mar’d be as mad as a wet hen ef she heard you. I want two bits to give to the heathens in Arfrica an’ Mar don’t pay me fer doin’ chores like she pays you. Wisht I was a boy.”
 
“Well, I’ll see,” replied Moses, but as he his hand again into his pocket the cheerful of coins stirred his masculine sense of ownership to profounder depths and he frowned and turned on his heel.
 
For a moment Betty stood in an attitude of dejection, but suddenly her face brightened. The muscles at the corners of her mouth , her little chin was thrust forward ever so slightly and a look came into her brown eyes which said plainly, “Never you mind, Moses Wopp, I’ll get money and more than two bits for my box.”
 
The expression on the childish became even more complex and a close observer could have seen that all was not going to be well with Moses Wopp for the next few days, and that “he’d be sorry.”
 
As far as general knowledge went, Betty was a complete ahead of Moses. That youth’s brains had too many passages through which knowledge and got lost to ever lay claim to erudition. As for creative ability, Betty ideas at every pore. She took odd moments of her busy days and patching them together made hours of creative joy, a sort of mental Joseph’s coat of rainbow brightness.
 
Her disappointment over Moses’ led her now to see the urgent necessity of ideas, vital ideas, in fact, ideas that could cause silver to flow to her empty coffers, or in other words her missionary box.
 
She had made the box herself of small pieces of wood, the lid was nailed on and was provided with a wide inviting-looking so that coins of large could be deposited therein.
 
Betty had lent Moses fifteen cents of her Christmas money and was receiving two pink and white candy as her weekly dividend—“truly a lean annuitant.”
 
The child had been content to extract but moments of sweetness from the confection and as the weeks passed had in the time-honored custom kept the canes shining. Thus accumulated quite a bagful of the sweets. These she sold to a plutocrat at school for a . This coin of the realm made a pleasing in her wooden box; but she reflected, not without some degree of , that ten cents would not go very far in carrying to the suffering heathen in Africa.
 
But ideas came flooding into Betty’s active mind. The desire to fill her box, by an even greater desire to let Moses see she didn’t need his shekels, sent electrical energy to her brain.
 
Once she had seen a moving picture show. It was a marvellous experience to her and had filled her dreams for many nights. She now to have a little moving picture show of her own.
 
Her birthday would fall on the last Saturday in September and she was sure to be allowed a party. Each guest could be secretly advised to bring as many carrots as could be conveniently carried to gain entrance to “The greatest movin’ picter gallery in the world, where fairies an’ birds an’ flowers would act an’ tarlk.” The carrots so obtained could be off to the adults present, and Betty felt sure that her mother, seeing her carrots were not a success, would give a high price for the succulent vegetables. A hint must also be thrown out that anyone not so fortunate as to be the possessor of a spare carrot could bring silver.
 
How the missionary box would jingle! How the heathen would sing for joy! While on the Wopp table carrot pudding could become a felicity!
 
What busy and secret evenings Betty spent in the kitchen with Mrs. Wopp and expostulating! What sighs from Moses who, like the Marchioness, cooled his eye at the keyhole! His sighs through the said keyhole and almost the Betty; but, , his ended only in the edge of his curiosity! What from Jethro when Moses trod on his foot in headlong flight from the door as his mother approached! What notes written by Ebenezer Wopp on the whispering and in the kitchen! And then again what up and burning of cardboard, what hunting through old newspapers and magazines, and what clicking of scissors while a small pair of worked ! What gorgeous from the paint-box as Betty mixed her colors and painted innumerable pictures cut from the magazines! Animals, birds, flowers! Gay as color could make them! A veritable garden and zoo turned loose in the kitchen!
 
Moses regretted a hundred times his refusal to grant Betty’s request for two bits. He had since offered it and had tried to thrust it on her, but injured pride could not thus be .
 
At last the long-looked-for day arrived and by two o’clock eight children from the nearest had ridden or had been brought by grownups to the Wopp farm, all arrayed in their best bibs and tuckers.
 
For two days the from the kitchen had been such as to the gloom from Moses’ countenance, and hope and blended on his youthful visage.
 
The in the barn had been swept and by Mr. Wopp for Betty’s moving picture show, and , after the preliminary how-d’you-do’s were over, she led her eager audience. Her head was held at the exact angle for the ladder to perform the duties of moving picture operator, and her foot was on the first rung when she suddenly thought of the collection box for the carrots the children were carrying.
 
“Moses,” she directed, “git an empty apple-box fer the burnt orfferin’s.”
 
Moses, who was still in the dark as to the exact character of the entertainment planned, was all eagerness to get preliminaries over.
 
“Here, slow-pokes, drop yer carrots in this here .” He indicated an empty oat-bin.
 
Pat Bliggins approached the receptacle and deposited a overgrown, forked, dusty carrot, endowed with powers of emotion, for several wrinkles beneath its green feathery top betrayed extreme .
 
Norah Bliggins carried in a little basket several carrots of various sizes and , all carefully scrubbed as became respectable members of the vegetable family, and shining as sweet and clean as the face of the child. These must have put to shame their forked brother, for that carrot rolled heavily to a corner and hid his grimy visage.
 
Norah clutched a fat smiling doll in one arm. As the result of a from a nail in the fence the doll was bleeding sawdust badly at the knee. However a operation with needle and thread would restore health, and Norah the wound with her pinafore and prepared to enjoy life to the full. The doll continued to smile as though sawdust ran in her .
 
Peter Stolway carried a large paper bag, and as the carrots fell with thuds into the bin, they seemed like question marks, so ungainly and irregular were their shapes. One giddy carrot teetered on the edge as though about to entertain the by an acrobatic performance.
 
“Git in there, an’ no nonsense,” ordered Moses, who was at the delay.
 
Mannel Rodd’s round face was very solemn as in two fists he held out a small box containing a number of short knobby .
 
With the gracious air of a duchess, Maria Mifsud dropped into the oat-bin about a peck of the vegetables. They were coiffured and manicured correctly and doubtless considered themselves the of the carota species.
 
“Bctcher took orl mornin’ to tittyvate them there carrots,” offered Moses, edging up to Maria with conciliatory glances, and jostling St. Elmo who stood waiting to contribute his donation. The little fellow, whose nose was still “bluggy” from tripping over the saw-horse, dropped his lonely long scraggy ............