180 COUNTING DICK 



"Mother, you will have to come and help 

 me," he called out from the window where he 

 stood watching the white storm; "there are just 

 thousands of twenties. Well, I will slide on them 

 tomorrow if I cannot count them, and my jolly 

 new sled will go whiz! won't it, mother? O 

 mother, papa won't forget to bring it tonight, 

 will he? He promised, you know, and it's to 

 be a red one with gilt trimmings, and it's to 

 have 'Rover' painted on the top of it. Will 

 papa have enough dollar bills, mother? How 

 many will it take? Has papa got a lot of dol- 

 lar bills in the bank, like Willie's papa? Can 

 I go and count them some day? Has he got 

 twenty, mother?" 



"What a chatterbox you are, little son, ex- 

 claimed Dick's mother as she caught the child 



O 



in her arms and held him close. Then her face 

 grew very sad as she said, "Your papa used to 

 have many twenties of dollar bills in the bank, 

 and he would have them today if there were no 

 bad whisky nor beer in the world." 



Dick sat still for once in his life. This 

 was something he had never heard before. 



"Mother," he cried, "won't papa have enough 

 to buy my Rover? Could he forget his own 



