CHAPTER IX.  MAGIC SEED

When the time came to hand in our collections for the library fund Peter had the largest—­three dollars.  Felicity was a good second with two and a half.  This was simply because the hens had laid so well.

“If you’d had to pay father for all the extra handfuls of wheat you’ve fed to those hens, Miss Felicity, you wouldn’t have so much,” said Dan spitefully.

“I didn’t,” said Felicity indignantly.  “Look how Aunt Olivia’s hens laid, too, and she fed them herself just the same as usual.”

“Never mind,” said Cecily, “we have all got something to give.  If you were like poor Sara Ray, and hadn’t been able to collect anything, you might feel bad.”

But Sara Ray had something to give.  She came up the hill after tea, all radiant.  When Sara Ray smiled—­and she did not waste her smiles—­she was rather pretty in a plaintive, apologetic way.  A dimple or two came into sight, and she had very nice teeth—­small and white, like the traditional row of pearls.

“Oh, just look,” she said.  “Here are three dollars—­and I’m going to give it all to the library fund.  I had a letter to-day from Uncle Arthur in Winnipeg, and he sent me three dollars.  He said I was to use it any way I liked, so ma couldn’t refuse to let me give it to the fund.  She thinks it’s an awful waste, but she always goes by what Uncle Arthur says.  Oh, I’ve prayed so hard that some money might come some way, and now it has.  See what praying does!”

I was very much afraid that we did not rejoice quite as unselfishly in Sara’s good fortune as we should have done.  We had earned our contributions by the sweat of our brow, or by the scarcely less disagreeable method of “begging.”  And Sara’s had as good as descended upon her out of the skies, as much like a miracle as anything you could imagine.

“She prayed for it, you know,” said Felix, after Sara had gone home.

“That’s too easy a way of earning money,” grumbled Peter resentfully.  “If the rest of us had just set down and done nothing, only prayed, how much do you s’pose we’d have?  It don’t seem fair to me.”

“Oh, well, it’s different with Sara,” said Dan.  “We could earn money and she couldn’t.  You see?  But come on down to the orchard.  The Story Girl had a letter from her father to-day and she’s going to read it to us.”

We went promptly.  A letter from the Story Girl’s father was always an event; and to hear her read it was almost as good as hearing her tell a story.

Before coming to Carlisle, Uncle Blair Stanley had been a mere name to us.  Now he was a personality.  His letters to the Story Girl, the pictures and sketches he sent her, her adoring and frequent mention of him, all combined to make him very real to us.