"Be keerful, young 'uns," he drawled, "this 'ere mewel's heels is loaded." The boys shoved back a little to give the newcomer more room, and then kept on shoving each other in play. The end boy fell against Johnny, and Johnny fell against Jode, and Jode took another step backward. This time his little bare foot came down on the piece of hot iron that the blacksmith had thrown aside when he went to wait on his new customer. Jode never distinctly remembered what happened after that, he was so nearly crazed with the fierce pain. He knew that the blacksmith lifted him in his strong arms, and carried him, screaming, to the house. He felt some woman bandage his foot with something cool and soothing, and wash his hot, flushed face. Then two of the big boys carried him home, and laid him on the sitting-room lounge, and went off, forgetting to close the door. He sat up and called his mother. No one answered. Everything was so still about the house that his own voice sounded strange when he called. Then he remembered that she had gone to a quilting that afternoon, and that Aunt Jane had built a fire away down by the ash-hopper and was making soap. So it was useless to call. Three or four chickens, seeing the door open, seized that opportunity to venture in, and walked around pecking at the carpet, and looking inquiringly at the disconsolate figure on the lounge. "Shoo!" he cried, savagely, "you tormentin' old things!" Then he hopped across the room and banged the door after them, and hopped back. The throbbing pain in his foot, and the deserted appearance of the house, brought the tears to his eyes. Then he remembered the show, and that his foot would not be well enough for him to earn the money dropping corn. He would have to miss it. Throwing himself on the lounge again, he cried softly to himself with great sobs that nearly choked him. When his mother came home, she found him fast asleep with cheeks and lashes wet, and sobbing at intervals in his sleep. Aunt Jane undertook to lecture him next day about his disobedience and what it led to, but he began to cry again, and she relented. "Well, Joseph," she said, looking over her square-bowed spectacles, "I guess you've had a hard lesson, and one you won't forget in a hurry. As long as your heart's set on goin' to that show, if you'll learn to sew carpet-rags I'll pay you by the pound, and you can earn the money that way." So Jode went patiently to work with thread and needle, and all those long April days sat in the house with his foot on a pillow, and sewed yards and yards of carpet-rags. The pounds grew slowly, but the day came at last when he rolled his balls into the sack with Aunt Jane's, and two new silver dimes and a nickel jingled in his pockets. Johnny Harris came every day to ask about the foot, and see the size of the balls. He looked enviously at the shining coins when Jode proudly displayed them.