Page:The shoemaker's apron (1920).djvu/240

 “Pooh, pooh, what nonsense! Wife, where’s that old wornout measure that we’re going to throw away? It’s the very thing to lend these beggars.”

The woman who was just as disagreeable as the man handed the child an old broken measure and said, severely:

“See you bring it back at once!”

In a short time the little girl returned the measure.

“Thanks, Godfather,” she said. “We’ve got a hundred bushels.”

“A hundred bushels!” the farmer repeated scornfully after the child was gone. “A hundred bushels of what? Look inside the measure, wife, and see if you find a trace of anything.”

The woman peered inside the measure and found a golden ducat lodged in a slit. She took it out and the mere sight of it made her face and her husband’s face turn sick and pale with envy.

“Do you suppose those beggars really have got some money?” he said. “We better go over at once and see.”

So they hurried over to the shoemaker’s cottage and they shook hands with him and his wife most effusively and they rubbed their hands together and they smiled and they smiled and the rich man said: