Who cares now?"
"I do."
"I never saw such a boy. You can't ride and you can't skate. You are just
good for nothing. You're just fit to be sold at a rummage-sale."
He was less easily vexed than made curious. "What's a rummage-sale?"
"Oh! we had one two years ago. Once in a while Aunt Ann says there must
be one, so she gathers up all the trash and Uncle Jim's old clothes (he
hates that), and the village people they buy things. And Mr. Rivers sells
the things at auction, you know--and oh, my! he was funny."
"So they sell what no one wants. Then why does any one buy?"
"I'm sure, I don't know."
"I wonder what I would fetch, Leila?"
"Not much," she said.
"Maybe you're right." He had one of the brief boy-moods of
self-abasement.
Leila changed quickly. "I'll bid for you," she said coyly.
He laughed and looked up, surprised at this earliest indication of the
feminine. "What would you give?" he asked.
"Well, about twenty-five cents."
He laughed. "I may improve, Leila, and the price go up. Let us go and
learn to skate--you must teach me."
"Of course," said Leila, "but you will soon learn. It's hard at first."
At lunch, on Christmas day, John had thanked his uncle for the skates in
the formal way which Ann liked and James Penhallow did not.
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