the partition.
Peeping through a crack, she saw a sight that confounded her.

Every boy in the neighbourhood seemed to be there, and every one was
making patchwork. One boy was dangling his feet over the manger,
several were perched on a ladder, and one was sitting cross-legged on
a huge pumpkin. Johnny was going around as Grand Inquisitor from one
to another. If a seam was puckered, he gave the unlucky seamstress
what they called a "hickey,"--a tremendous thump on the head with his
thumb and middle finger. If the stitches were big and uneven, he gave
two hickeys and a pinch, and one boy got half a dozen, because Johnny
said his dirty hands made the thread gray. Mrs. Marshall gathered that
it was some sort of secret society, and that they had signed an oath
in their own blood not to tell.

"Johnny is at the bottom of it," she thought, laughing as she went
back to the house. "He has set the other boys to sewing in order to
forestall them. Now they cannot tease him, should they hear of his
private quilt-piecing."

[Illustration]

Another week went by of peaceful, uninterrupted evenings, and every
night at bedtime Johnny counted out his tale of finished blocks with
a sigh of relief. On the second Saturday evening he disappeared
immediately after supper. It was nearly an hour later when he came
tumbling excitedly into the house.

"Look, mother! Look, everybody!" he exclaimed. "It's all done! Here
are the three hundred and fifty blocks all in one pile. Now, I'm ready
for my money, mother."

"Why, Johnny!" gasped Mrs. Marshall, in astonishment. "It isn't
possible you have done them all in two short weeks!"

"Here they are," answered Johnny, smiling broadly. "Todd got in a
hurry for his money, and I was so everlasting tired of the old
patchwork that I had to think of some plan; so I farmed out two
hundred of the blocks at a quarter of a cent apiece. I got up a sort
of secret society, and we sewed after school and on Saturdays in the
barn. The boys are waiting around the corner for their money now.
There's ten of 'em, and I owe each one a nickel. So give me part of
the money in small change, please, mother. Todd's there, too, 'cause I
told him that you said you'd pay the very hour they were done."

He dropped the bundle in her lap and hopped up and down, holding one
foot in his hand. "Now the rifle's mine," he sang. "I can look the
whole world in the face, for I owe not any man." He was quoting from
the memory exerci