something to do, and ran into the bedroom.

"I sh'd have screamed if I'd sat there another minute longer,"
she said, leaning up against the bureau. "O dear me! We
_must_--I mean, what shall we do if we can't go? I guess
Mamsie will let us go." And she pulled open the upper drawer,
took out the stocking-leg, and ran back to put it in Mrs.
Pepper's hand.

Mrs. Pepper slowly untied the red flannel string and shook out
the contents on the table, the eyes of all five little Peppers
riveted on them. There were six silver quarters, three halves,
two ten-cent pieces, and eight pennies.

"Three dollars and twenty-eight cents," said Mrs. Pepper, slowly,
as she set the pieces in a row. No one dared to speak, except
Joel. "What a lot!" he cried joyfully; "now we can go, Mammy,
can't we? Oh, whickets!" and he clapped David on the back.

"Children," said Mrs. Pepper, and her eyes swept the whole
circle around the table, but they rested on Polly's face, "there
won't anything pay very well, circus or anything else, if we go
when we hadn't ought to. We haven't got a debt, thank the Lord,
but that money--" she pointed to the row--"is all that keeps us
from it."

It was impossible for Joel not to see by Polly's and Ben's faces,
more than by what Mrs. Pepper had said, that they were not
really to go, and he flung himself out of the chair and face
downward on the floor, breaking into heartrending sobs, little