“No, I will not!  Your mother had better be thinking about something else than wasting money for oranges!” was the angry reply, as the father passed out, and shut the door hard after him.

Jane stood for a moment, frightened at the angry vehemence of her father, and then burst into tears.  She said nothing to her mother of what had passed, but after the agitation of her mind had somewhat subsided, began to cast about in her thoughts for some plan by which she might obtain an orange.  At last it occurred to her, that at the shop where she got liquor for her father, they bought rags and old iron.

“How much do you give a pound for rags?” she asked, in a minute or two after the idea had occurred to her, standing at the counter of the shop.

“Three cents a pound,” was the reply.

“How much for old iron?”

“A cent a pound.”

“What’s the price of them oranges?”

“Four cents apiece.”

With this information, Jane hurried back.  After she had cleared away the dinner-table, she went down into the cellar and looked up all the old bits of iron that she could find.  Then she searched the yard, and found some eight or ten rusty nails, an old bolt, and a broken hinge.  These she laid away in a little nook in the cellar.  Afterwards she gathered together all the old rags that she could find about the house, and in the cellar, and laid them with her old iron.  But she saw plainly enough that her iron would not weigh over two pounds, nor her rags over a quarter of a pound.  If time would have permitted, she would have gone into the street to look for old iron, but this she could not do; and disappointed at not being able to get the orange for her mother, she went about her work during the afternoon with sad and desponding thoughts and feelings.

It was summer time, and her father came home from his work before it was dark.

“Go and get me a pint of brandy,” he said to Jane, in a tone that sounded harsh and angry to the child, handing her at the same time a quarter of a dollar.  Since the day before he had taken a pint of brandy, and none but the best would suit him.

She took the money and the bottle, and went over to the shop.  Wistfully she looked at the tempting oranges in the window, as she gave the money for the liquor,—­and thought how glad her poor mother would be to have one.

As she was hurrying back, she saw a thick rusty iron ring lying in the street:  she picked it up, and kept on her way.  It felt heavy, and her heart bounded with the thought that now she could buy the orange for her mother.  The piece of old iron was dropped in the yard, as she passed through.  After her father had taken a dram, he sat down to his supper.  While he was eating it, Jane went into the cellar and brought out into the yard her little treasure of scrap iron.  As she passed backwards and forwards before the door facing which her father sat, he observed her, and felt a sudden curiosity to know what she was doing.  He went softly to the window, and as he did so, he saw her gathering the iron, which she had placed in a little pile, into her apron.  Then she rose up quickly, and passed out of the yard-gate into the street.