A Missionary Twig.

by Emma L. Burnett.

CHAPTER I.

EDITH TRIES TO EXPLAIN.

"I do think Edith is the queerest girl I ever saw in all my life!" said Marty Ashford.

"Don't jump up and down behind my chair that way, Marty," said her mother; "you shake me so that I can scarcely hold my needle. What does Edith do that is so queer?"

"Oh, she's always putting ten into things."

"Putting ten into things?"

"Yes'm. I mean when she gets any money she always says ten will go into it so many times, and then she takes a tenth of it--you know we learn about tenths in fractions at school--and goes and puts it in a blue box she has."

"I should call that taking ten out of things."

"Well, whatever it is, that's what she does. Every time she gets ten cents she puts one cent in her blue box."

"What does she do if she only gets five cents?"

"Oh, she keeps it very carefully till she gets another five, and then she takes her tenth out of it. And would you believe it, when we were all at Asbury Park last summer--"

"Marty," interrupted her mother, "can't you tell me just as well sitting still? You fidget so that you make me dreadfully nervous. Can't you sit still?"

"I don't believe I can, but I'll try real hard," said Marty, crowding herself into Freddie's little rocking-chair and clasping her arms around her knees, as if to hold herself still.

"Well, what about Asbury Park?" Mrs. Ashford asked.

"Why, when we were at Asbury Park and Edith's father was going to New York, he gave her a whole dollar to do what she pleased with. Now you know it would be the easiest thing in the world to spend a dollar there.

I could spend it just as easy as anything."

"I dare say you could," said Mrs. Ashford, laughing.

"And any way you know it was vacation, and even if you save tenths other times you oughtn't to feel as if you must do it in vacation. But Edith had to go and get her dollar changed and put ten cents of it in the old blue box."

"So she would not take a vacation from her tenths?"

"No, indeed. And the other day when her uncle from Baltimore was here, he gave her fifty cents, and it would just pay for a perfectly lovely paintbox that she wants; but she couldn't buy it because five cents of the fifty was tenths; and now she'll have to wait till she gets some more money."

"What does she do with all the money in the blue box?" Mrs. Ashford inquired.

"Oh, she gives it to some mission-band!" replied Marty in a tone of disgust.

"Is that the mission-band Miss Agnes Walsh wanted you to join?"

"Yes, ma'am; but I didn't want to take up my Sat.u.r.days going to a thing like that, I'd rather play."

"Let me see," said Mrs. Ashford, "what is the name of that band?"

"_Missionary Twigs_," replied Marty. "Funny kind of a name, isn't it?"

Then presently she said, "I don't think Edith always takes the tenths out fair; for when her grandma was away lately for six days she paid Edith three cents a day for watering her plants, and of course that was eighteen cents. So the tenth was a good deal over one cent and not quite two, and yet Edith put two cents of it away."

"I think that was more than fair."

"Well, I suppose it was," Marty admitted. She actually sat quite still for two or three minutes thinking, and then asked,

"Mamma--I never thought of this before but what do you suppose is the reason she saves _tenths_? Why doesn't she save ninths or elevenths or something else?"

"Why don't you ask her?" suggested Mrs. Ashford.

"I will," exclaimed Marty. "I'll ask her the very next time I go over there."

Which was in about five minutes, for Edith lived in the same block and the little girls were constantly visiting each other. This being Sat.u.r.day, of course there was no school. Marty ran in at the side gate and through the kitchen with a "How do, Mary?" to the cook. Edith heard her coming and called over the stairs,

"O Marty, come right up! I was just wishing you would come over and help me."

Marty flew up stairs and into the nursery. Edith's dolls were sitting in a row on the little bureau, some dressed and some undressed, and Edith was standing in front of them looking very much perplexed.

"Oh! I'm so glad you've come," she said. "Now you can help me with these troublesome dolls."

"What's the matter with them?"

"Why, we've just heard that Aunt Julia and f.a.n.n.y are coming to tea this evening, and of course I want the dolls to look decent. I wouldn't have f.a.n.n.y see them in their everyday clothes for anything; and they don't seem to have enough good clothes to go around."

"Let's see what they've got," said Marty, plunging into business with her usual energy.

"Well," said Edith, "Queenie has her new white Swiss, so she's all right, and she can have Virginia's surah sash. Louisa Alcott can wear her black silk skirt and borrow Queenie's blue cashmere waist. But Harriet has nothing fit for an evening."

"Let her wear the sailor suit she came in, and say she's just home from the seaside," suggested Marty, after a moment's meditation.

"Yes, that will do," replied Edith. "But what about Virginia? Her white dress is soiled, her red gauze is badly torn, and she can't borrow from the others because she's so much larger. To be sure she has this pale blue tea-gown I made myself. Do you think it would be good enough?" and she held it up doubtfully.

"No," said Marty candidly, "I don't think it would. It isn't made very well. It's kind of baggy. Hasn't she anything else?"

"Nothing but a brown woollen walking dress and a Mother Hubbard wrapper."

"Neither of those will do," Marty decided.

Then she put her finger to her lip and thought.

A bright idea occurred to her presently.

"Put her to bed and make believe she's sick. She can wear the best nightdress, trimmed with lace, and we can put on the ruffled pillow-cases and fix up the bed real nice."