"Thunder!" he exclaimed at last, "I wisht I had that clock to take apart."
He put the unfinished spoon aside and, choosing another piece of maple wood, began whittling a funny cat, singing, "Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby," as he worked. It was late when his eyelids drooped and he wrapped himself in his blanket. Three more cats had been added to the animals in the gunny-sack.
"Some little kid like Buddy'll like them," he thought with satisfaction, and dropped asleep.
Early the next morning he tramped across the "bottom" to the farmer's.
"You said you was going to town to-day," Peter said, "and I thought maybe you'd leave this sack at the Baptist Church for me, if it ain't too much out of your way. It's some old truck I won't have any use for, and I took notice they were having a sale there today. You don't need to say anything. Just hand it in."
Before the farmer could ask him in to have breakfast Peter had disappeared toward the wood-yard, and when, later, he started for town he could hear Peter's saw.
At the Baptist Church the farmer left the sack. A dozen or more women were busily arranging for the sale, and one of them took the sack, holding it well out from her skirt.
"For our sale? How nice!" she cried in the excited tone women acquire when a number of them are working together in a church. "Who are we to thank for it?"
"Oh, I guess there ain't no thanks necessary," said the farmer. "I guess you won't find it much. I just brought it along because I promised I would. It's from a shanty-boatman down my way--Lane 's his name--Peter Lane."
"Oh," said the woman, her voice losing much of its enthusiasm. "Yes, I know who he is. He's the jack-knife man. Tell him Mrs. Vandyne thanks him; it is very kind of him to think of us."
Mrs. Vandyne carried the sack into the Sunday school room and snipped the twine with her scissors, which hung from her belt on a pink ribbon. She was a charming little woman, with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and she was the more excited this afternoon because she had been able to bring her friend and visitor, Mrs. Montgomery, and Mrs. Montgomery was making a real impression. Mrs. Montgomery was from New York, and just how wealthy and socially important she was at home every one knew, and yet she mingled with the ladies quite as if she was one of them. And not only that, but she had ideas. Her manner of arranging the apron table, as she had once arranged one for the Actors' Fair, was enough to show she was no common person. Already her ideas had quite changed the old cut and dried arrangements. At her request ladies were constantly running out to buy rolls of crêpe paper and other inexpensive decorative accessories, and the dull gray room was blossoming into a fairy garden.