y met her with a sly grin. "Have you been chin-chopperin' some more
of them, Rosie?"

Rosie looked at her old friend reprovingly. "Aw now, Danny, why do you
always talk about that? I don't like to fight boys, you know I don't. It
was Otto Schnitzer's own fault. But, Danny, listen here: Bet you can't
guess what I'm saving for."

Danny couldn't, so Rosie explained. Then she continued:

"You see it's this way, Danny: those old cheap skates are no good
anyhow. They're always breaking. I'd give anything for a good pair and
so would Janet. We just love to skate on Boulevard Place--the cement's
so smooth and it's so shady and pretty. But do you know, Danny, last
summer when we used to go up there on one old broken skate they called
us 'muckers.' We're not muckers just because we're poor, are we, Danny?"

Danny Agin snorted with indignation. "As long as ye mind yir manners,
ye're not to be called muckers! You don't fight 'em, Rosie, and call 'em
names, do you?"

"No, Danny, I don't, honest I don't, but sometimes Janet does. She gets
awful mad if any one calls her 'Cross-back!' You see, Danny, they're all
Protestants and Jews on Boulevard Place."

"From their manners, Rosie, I'd know that!"

"But it seems to me, Danny, if we had a pair of ball-bearing skates we'd
be just as good as they are."

"Betther!" said Danny.

"So you think I'm right to save for skates, do you, Danny?"

"Do I think so? I do. Why, Rosie dear, as soon as people find out that
ye're savin' in earnest, they'll be givin' ye many an odd penny here and
there. Let me see now.... Go to the panthry, Rosie, and on the third
shelf from the top ye'll see a cup turned upside down, and under the
cup--well, I dunno what's under the cup."

Rosie went to the pantry and under the cup found two nice brown pennies.
"Thanks, Danny. But do you think Mis' Agin would want me to take them?"

"Mary? Why, Mary'd be givin' ye a nickel--she's that proud of you for
chin-chopperin' the young Schnitzer. He stones her cat, but if he does
it again she'll be warnin' him that you'll take after him. Ha, ha,
that'll stop him if anything will!"

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT

What Danny said proved right. As soon as Rosie's immediate family and
friends heard of the project, they gave her every encouragement. Little
Jack lent her his last Christmas money-box--one of those tin banks whose
opening is supposed to be burglarproof against the seducing attractions
of a