Page:Chetyates00yateiala.pdf/323

 she needed one? I had the money and could have bought the thing just as well as not, but all I thought of was what a nice Christmas gift it would make. It seems sort of foolish, when you come to think of it, doesn't it?"

"It surely does," said Bess.

I thought again. "Well," I said, "what's the matter with getting it right now? We have 'em in the store, and Dad will give it to me at cost. She's only got one left, and she's doing a lot of embroidery for Christmas; and whenever she picks that up, her thimble is up in the sewing room, in her work basket; and when she goes todarn anything, it's down in the pocket of her embroidery apron. I heard her say the other day that she was going to bore a hole in it and hang it around her neck, so she wouldn't wear the stairs out so."

"And the gold one would be perfectly fine to keep with her embroidery all the time," said Bess.

"Of course she could keep it there after Christmas," I said. I wasn't quite ready to take the Christmas label off of it, after all.

"But the embroidery will be all done then," said Bess.