I knew that I would get fifty cents for my day's work, so I bid
ten cents--all that I could spare.

"Sold," said the auctioneer, "for ten cents to the kid who rang
the bell all day."

I took the garment home and told my mother how I had bought it
for cash in open competition with all the world. My mother and my
aunt set to work with shears and needles and built me a suit of
clothes out of the brown overcoat. It took a lot of ingenuity to
make the pieces come out right. The trousers were neither long
nor short. They dwindled down and stopped at my calves, half-way
above my ankles. What I hated most was that the seams were not in
the right places. It was a patchwork, and there were seams down
the front of the legs where the crease ought to be. I didn't want
to wear the suit, but mother said it looked fine on me, and if
she said so I knew it must be true. I wore it all fall and half
the winter.

The first time I went to Sunday-school, I met Babe Durgon. He
set up the cry:


"Little boy, little boy,

Does your mother know you're out;

With your breeches put on backward,