“Hides,” Jibby said, as serious as an owl. “I had a white mouse once and it died, so I saved the hide, and I thought it would be nice to collect hides--to get a collection of all the kinds of hides in the world.” “Say!” Skippy said. “That would be bully, wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t your father let you collect them?” “Well, we were in Egypt then,” said Jibby Jones, “and the next hide I collected was one a hunter gave me. It was a hippopotamus hide and it needed an ox cart with four oxen to haul it. When it came to our tent I was greatly pleased, and I told father I knew where there was a crocodile hide a boy would trade me if I could get something to trade for it. It weighed about one hundred pounds. And I knew an old Arab that had a sick camel, and he said I could have the camel’s hide if the camel died, only I would have to skin the camel--he was too busy. So I asked father if he would help me skin the camel.” “And wouldn’t he?” asked Wampus. “No,” said Jibby Jones. “Father put his foot down. He said I could not collect hides. We often traveled with only one suitcase, because he was an author and had to be in a hurry, and he said that if my collection amounted to much, and I got an elephant hide and a rhinoceros hide and, maybe, a giraffe hide and a buffalo hide, and added them to my mouse hide and my hippopotamus hide, there wouldn’t be room in the suitcase for his toothbrush. So I began to collect something else.” “What are you collecting now?” asked Skippy, and we all listened for the answer, because, if Jibby Jones was collecting anything, we did not know it. “Sand,” Jibby said. “I rowed over to the sand bar this morning and got eight grains of sand to add to my collection.” Well, we just all lay back and yelled. It was about the funniest thing we ever thought of--almost six feet of Jibby Jones going all the way over to the sand bar on the other side of the river with his spectacles and everything, to get eight grains of sand! Jibby Jones looked at us awhile, sort of smiling as if he could not quite see what we were laughing at, and then he said: “But, of course, I don’t always get eight grains; mostly I only get one or two grains. I got eight grains because this is the best summer I ever had in my life and I want to remember it forever. I got eight grains of Mississippi River sand so that if any got lost I would still have enough to remember you boys by.” “And is that all you are collecting?” Wampus asked. “Yes,” Jibby Jones said. “Father don’t like me to collect bulky things, and I thought grains of sand were about as small as anything could be, so I collect them.” Well, that is how Jibby Jones was. He looked silly, with his nose like a jib and his serious look, but there was always some good sense in what he said and did. When you come to think of it a grain of sand is just about the smallest thing there is.