thread.

That evening, with every curtain drawn tight, so that no prying
outsider might see and tell, and ready to run at the first sign of an
approaching visitor, Johnny sat down on the hearth-rug, tailor
fashion, to begin the quilt. A slateful of calculations had shown him
that, by making five blocks every evening and fifteen every Saturday,
he could finish by Christmas. Todd would wait until then for his
money. Three hundred and fifty blocks would give him enough for the
rifle, and half a dollar besides for ammunition.

"Well, Johnny," said Mr. Marshall, teasingly, "I suppose your mother
signed a contract for this. 'There's many a slip,' you know. What
would you do if the turkeys died before Christmas, and she couldn't
pay you?"

"Huh! No danger of mother's not keeping her word!" answered Johnny,
with a confident wag of his head. "She said she'd pay me, not only the
day, but the very _hour_ they were done. Didn't you, mother?"

"Yes, son," was the smiling answer, as she put the first block into
his hands, and the quilt was begun. Not only the quilt, but a series
of quiet evenings long to be remembered by the Marshall family. The
picture of Johnny bending over his patchwork, his serious little face
puckered into an anxious frown, as he tugged at the thread with
awkward fingers, is one of the ways they love best to think of him.
They still laugh heartily over the time when he rolled under the sofa,
work-basket and all, to escape the eyes of a gossipy neighbour, who
had knocked unexpectedly at the side door, and who stayed so long that
he fell asleep and snored loudly.