out. I'll bet it's just a trap to get us to read the Bible. He's one
of your pious kind."

"Well, it's a trap worth walking into," answered Abbot, "if it's
baited with something as tempting as a bicycle. The only trouble is
that it will take so long to find a motto. The Bible is so full of
them that a fellow'd feel like he ought to read it clear through, for
fear of skipping the very one that might take the prize, and we have
only a week to make a choice."

Abbot did not have to search long for his verse. He found it the
second day, and chose it the instant his eye caught the sentence on
the page. "Why, I've heard uncle say that a dozen times!" he
exclaimed, as he read the familiar line, "_'The hand of the diligent
maketh rich.'_ That worked all right in uncle's case, and it will be
an easy one to live up to, for, if I buckle down to it, and sell a
whole lot of vegetables, I can prove my motto is the best." From that
day Abbot began to feel a sense of ownership in the wheel in Stark
Brothers' show-window.

Todd Walters worried nearly a week over his choice. It was the last
week of school, and he sat with a little pocket Bible hidden between
the covers of his geography many an hour when he should have been
learning the rivers of Asia, or doing long sums in the division of
fractions. Six days of the seven went by before he found a motto to
his liking. He was lying stretched out on the old lounge in the tiny
sitting-room that noon, waiting for dinner. Todd and his mother lived
alone in this little cottage, and she was busy all summer making
preserves and pickles and jellies to sell. It was their only means of
support.