“I swan, if I was a little younger, I’d buy it myself,” Mrs. Biggs said, holding it up and slipping the straps over her shoulders and her hands into its pockets.

Jack felt relieved when she took it off, gave it another smooth with her iron, and folded it ready for the sale.

“I am going to put it in a box,” she said, “with a card on it saying it is Miss Smith’s contribution, and that she made every stitch herself.”

Jack was now resolved that it should be his at any cost.  As to its real value he had no idea, and when Mrs. Biggs said it “or’to bring a good price, and probably will seein’ whose ’tis,” he replied, “I should say so,—­four or five dollars at least.”

“For the Lord’s sake,” Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, dropping her flatiron in her surprise.  “Four or five dollars!  Are you crazy?”

“Do you think it ought to bring more?” Jack asked, and Mrs. Biggs replied, “Was you born yesterday, or when?  If it brings a dollar it’ll do well.  Rummages ain’t high priced.  Four or five dollars!  Well, if I won’t give up!”

Jack did not reply, but he was beginning to feel a good deal of interest in the Rummage Sale, and his interest increased when he went in to see Eloise, and heard from her that she was going down in the evening, as Ruby Ann said it would be more lively then, with more people present and possibly an auction.

“Tim is to wheel me,” she said, “and has promised not to run into any one, or tip me over.  I feel half afraid of him, as he does stumble some.”

Jack looked at her a moment as she leaned back in her chair, her blue dressing sacque open at the throat showing her white neck.

“Miss Smith,” he said, “I shan’t stumble.  I’ll take you.  I’d like to.  I’ll make it right with Tim.”

Eloise could not mistake the eagerness in his voice, and her cheeks flushed as she replied, “It is very kind in you and kind in Tim, who perhaps will be glad to be rid of the trouble.”

“Of course he will,” Jack said quickly.  “Day after to-morrow, isn’t it?  I’ll see you again and arrange just when to call for you, and now I must go.  I’d forgotten that I was to drive with Howard this morning.  Good-by.”

He went whistling down the walk, thinking that a Rummage Sale was more interesting than anything which could possibly happen in the country, and that he’d telegraph to his sister to send something for it.  As he started on his drive with Howard, he said, “Let’s go first to the telegraph office, I want to wire to Bell.”

They drove to the office, and in a few minutes there flashed across the wires to New York, “We are going to have a Rummage Sale for the poor.  Send a lot of things, old and new, it does not matter which;—­only send at once.”

“I believe I made a mistake about the object of the sale.  I said ’For the poor,’ and it’s for a public library, isn’t it?” he said to Howard, who replied, “Seems to me you are getting daft on the Rummage.  I don’t care for it much.  It will be like a Jews’ or pawnbroker’s bazaar, with mostly old clothes to sell.”