“Yas’m, I kin sholy git dat much money together in th’ee weeks de way I’s a-wo’kin’.”

“Well, now, Polly, be sure; for if you are not prompt I shall have to dispose of it where it was first promised,” was the admonition.

“Oh, you kin ‘pend on me, Mis’ Mo’ton; fu’ when I sets out to save money I kin save, I tell you.”  Polly was not usually so sanguine, but what changes will not the notion of the possession of a brown silk dress trimmed with passementrie make in the disposition of a woman?

Polly let Sam into the secret, and, be it said to his credit, he entered into the plan with an enthusiasm no less intense than her own.  He had always wanted to see her in a silk dress, he told her, and then in a quizzically injured tone of voice, “but you ought to waited tell I ketched dem policy sha’ks an’ I’d ‘a’ got you a new one.”  He even went so far as to go to work for a week and bring Polly his earnings, of course, after certain “little debts” which he mentioned but did not specify, had been deducted.

But in spite of all this, when washing isn’t bringing an especially good price; when one must eat and food is high; when a grasping landlord comes around once every week and exacts tribute for the privilege of breathing foul air from an alley in a room up four flights; when, I say, all this is true, and it generally is true in the New York tenderloin, seven whole dollars are not easily saved.  There was much raking and scraping and pinching during each day that at night Polly might add a few nickels or pennies to the store that jingled in a blue jug in one corner of her closet.  She called it her bank, and Sam had laughed at the conceit, telling her that that was one bank anyhow that couldn’t “bust.”

As the days went on how she counted her savings and exulted in their growth!  She already saw herself decked out in her new gown, the envy and admiration of every woman in the neighborhood.  She even began to wish that she had a full-length glass in order that she might get the complete effect of her own magnificence.  So saving, hoping, dreaming, the time went on until a few days before the limit, and there was only about a dollar to be added to make the required amount.  This she could do easily in the remaining time.  So Polly was jubilant.

Now everything would have been all right and matters would have ended happily if Sam had only kept on at work.  But, no.  He must needs stop, and give his mind the chance to be employed with other things.  And that is just what happened.  For about this time, having nothing else to do, like that old king of Bible renown, he dreamed a dream.  But unlike the royal dreamer, he asked no seer or prophet to interpret his dream to him.  He merely drove his hand down into his inside pocket, and fished up an ancient dream-book, greasy and tattered with use.  Over this he pored until his eyes bulged and his hands shook with excitement.

“Got ’em at last!” he exclaimed.  “Dey ain’t no way fu’ dem to git away f’om me.  I’s behind ’em.  I’s behind ’em I tell you,” and then his face fell and he sat for a long time with his chin in his hand thinking, thinking.