HOW THEY SPENT THEIR MONEY 261 
“Only I don’t think any of the fellows hereabouts own 
a pair of snow-shoes,” said. Everett. 
“Then they are the very things for Jacob to help you 
make if you come to any of our Saturday meetings,” 
said Gray Lady. “Jacob was born in Canada, and 
worked with fur trappers for several years, and though, 
perhaps, he may not be able to make them as well as 
when he was a young man, they would surely be better 
than nothing, and who knows but what one of the many 
things that the Kind Hearts will organize may be a Snow- 
shoe Club.” 
Thus the big boys of Foxes Corner school found them- 
selves interested and pledged in Gray Lady’s work with- 
out a suspicion of the “playing baby” of which they 
had such dread. 
* * * * * * * 
By the time Gray Lady and the boys returned to 
Swallow Chimney, the girls had opened their bundles, 
and besides little work-boxes, each with a silver thimble 
of the right size for the owner, and a pair of scissors that 
would “cut clean and not haggle,’ as Eliza Clausen ex- 
pressed it, there were books for all. Some were about 
birds, and others about flowers, trees, butterflies, and 
the real life out-of-doors that is more wonderful than 
any fairy tale. Having disposed of their own presents, 
with many little shrieks of delight, the girls stood by, 
waiting for the boys to open their bundles. These were 
all long and flat, with a bunch in the centre, as if two 
objects of different shapes were fastened together. 
Tommy succeeded in untying his first, skeining up the 
