The result was a determined rivalry as to which pupil should collect the largest sum; and this rivalry was especially intense in our home coterie.

Our relatives started us with a quarter apiece.  For the rest, we knew we must depend on our own exertions.  Peter was handicapped at the beginning by the fact that he had no family friend to finance him.

“If my Aunt Jane’d been living she’d have given me something,” he remarked.  “And if my father hadn’t run away he might have given me something too.  But I’m going to do the best I can anyhow.  Your Aunt Olivia says I can have the job of gathering the eggs, and I’m to have one egg out of every dozen to sell for myself.”

Felicity made a similar bargain with her mother.  The Story Girl and Cecily were each to be paid ten cents a week for washing dishes in their respective homes.  Felix and Dan contracted to keep the gardens free from weeds.  I caught brook trout in the westering valley of spruces and sold them for a cent apiece.

Sara Ray was the only unhappy one among us.  She could do nothing.  She had no relatives in Carlisle except her mother, and her mother did not approve of the school library project, and would not give Sara a cent, or put her in any way of earning one.  To Sara, this was humiliation indescribable.  She felt herself an outcast and an alien to our busy little circle, where each member counted every day, with miserly delight, his slowly increasing hoard of small cash.

“I’m just going to pray to God to send me some money,” she announced desperately at last.

“I don’t believe that will do any good,” said Dan.  “He gives lots of things, but he doesn’t give money, because people can earn that for themselves.”

“I can’t,” said Sara, with passionate defiance.  “I think He ought to take that into account.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” said Cecily, who always poured balm.  “If you can’t collect any money everybody will know it isn’t your fault.”

“I won’t ever feel like reading a single book in the library if I can’t give something to it,” mourned Sara.

Dan and the girls and I were sitting in a row on Aunt Olivia’s garden fence, watching Felix weed.  Felix worked well, although he did not like weeding—­“fat boys never do,” Felicity informed him.  Felix pretended not to hear her, but I knew he did, because his ears grew red.  Felix’s face never blushed, but his ears always gave him away.  As for Felicity, she did not say things like that out of malice prepense.  It never occurred to her that Felix did not like to be called fat.

“I always feel so sorry for the poor weeds,” said the Story Girl dreamily.  “It must be very hard to be rooted up.”

“They shouldn’t grow in the wrong place,” said Felicity mercilessly.

“When weeds go to heaven I suppose they will be flowers,” continued the Story Girl.

“You do think such queer things,” said Felicity.