meone else had the money.

"But don't you see, Mac," explained Trina, "it's ours just the same. We
could get it back whenever we wanted it; and then it's the reasonable
way to do. We mustn't let it turn our heads, Mac, dear, like that man
that spent all he won in buying more tickets. How foolish we'd feel
after we'd spent it all! We ought to go on just the same as before; as
if we hadn't won. We must be sensible about it, mustn't we?"

"Well, well, I guess perhaps that's right," the dentist would answer,
looking slowly about on the floor.

Just what should ultimately be done with the money was the subject of
endless discussion in the Sieppe family. The savings bank would allow
only three per cent., but Trina's parents believed that something better
could be got.

"There's Uncle Oelbermann," Trina had suggested, remembering the rich
relative who had the wholesale toy store in the Mission.

Mr. Sieppe struck his hand to his forehead. "Ah, an idea," he cried.
In the end an agreement was made. The money was invested in Mr.
Oelbermann's business. He gave Trina six per cent.

Invested in this fashion, Trina's winning would bring in twenty-five
dollars a month. But, besides this, Trina had her own little trade. She
made Noah's ark animals for Uncle Oelbermann's store. Trina's ancestors
on both sides were German-Swiss, and some long-forgotten forefather of
the sixteenth century, some worsted-leggined wood-carver of the Tyrol,
had handed down the talent of the national industry, to reappear in this
strangely distorted guise.

She made Noah's ark animals, whittling them out of a block of soft wood
with a sharp jack-knife, the only instrument she used. Trina was very
proud to explain her work to McTeague as he had already explained his
own to her.

"You see, I take a block of straight-grained pine and cut out the shape,
roughly at first, with the big blade; then I go over it a second time
with the little blade, more carefully; then I put in the ears and tail
with a drop of glue, and paint it with a 'non-poisonous' paint--Vandyke
brown for the horses, foxes, and cows; slate gray for the elephants and
camels; burnt umber for the chickens, zebras, and so on; then, last, a
dot of Chinese white for the eyes, and there you are, all finished. They
sell for nine cents a dozen. Only I can't make the manikins."

"The manikins?"

"The little figures, you know--Noah and his wife, and Shem, and all the
others."

It was true. Trin