as he started
hopefully off, bare-footed and happy, with a smile all over his
little, round, honest face. He came back at noon with forty cents and
a glowing account of his morning's work.

"I might have made more," he said, "but Mrs. Carr asked me to play
with the baby while she ran across the street to ask about another
cook. Hers is gone, and she was afraid to leave the baby by itself
while she hunted another. Then when I stopped at Mrs. Foster's, the
professor's wife, you know, she was nearly crying. She had lost a ring
in the grass that she thought everything of. It had belonged to the
professor's grandmother. I helped her look for it for nearly an hour,
and at last I found it on the tennis-court. It was a beauty, and she
was so glad she fairly hugged me, and wanted to pay me for finding it,
but of course I wouldn't take anything for a little work like that."

"Of course not," echoed his mother. "Well, what else hindered you?"

"Old Mr. Beemer for one thing. He is too blind to read, you know, and
he was sitting out under a tree, with a letter in his hand. His
daughter told me she had read it to him five times this morning, but
he wants to hear it every half-hour. He is so old and childish. She
had bought several sheets of fly-paper, so I stopped and read it
through twice, and he seemed so pleased, and called me the light of
his eyes. I hope I can do better than this this afternoon."

Mrs. Walters took the four dimes he handed her to put away, and, as
they jingled down into the old cracked ginger jar that served for
Todd's bank, she said: "Well, under the circumstances, I'm glad you
didn't earn any more this morning, if it would have kept you from
doing those little kindnesses. You need your clothes bad enough, in
all conscience, but it is better to smooth out the way for people as
you go along. Old Solomon was right, loving favour _is_ better than
silver and gold."

Todd's sunburned face grew so red, as his mother unconsciously
stumbled upon the motto that he had chosen, that he turned a
somersault on the kitchen floor to hide his embarrassment. He need not
have been so confused, for she was always saying such things.

[Illustration]

Sales were not always so good as they were the first hot morning. Many
a day Todd wandered all over the little town, stopping at every door,
only to be met by a disappointing "no." Many a time, when the hot
pavements burned his bare feet and he was tired and discouraged, he
l