“Why, this is empty!” said Chippy, facing round on him and holding out the box. “Did you send it off?” “No,” answered Christy, uncertainly. “It was full. I took the money out.” “I see,” said Chippy. There was relief in his voice and in the clever, dark, little face. He plunged his hand into his jacket and brought out a small newspaper parcel tied with twine. “I promised Lin to bring it to you,” he said. “It would have been too bad if I’d been too late.” “What is it?” asked Christy, receiving the packet with no show of distrust in its dinginess. And he was fastidious. “Who is Lin?” “It’s money. She’s my sister,” answered Chippy. “She wants it to go with the rest.” Christy pushed a chair towards him. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me all about it. Take your time.” Chippy crossed his knickerbockered legs, and by tilting forward a little managed to keep one toe on the carpet. “There’s two of us boys home,” he began. “And there’s Lin. My brother Bob and me are like lots of other fellows. But Lin is extry. I’d call her quite extry myself. She’s like—well, she’s like Lin. That’s all I can say.” “I have seen one or two such persons,” said Christy. “One Sunday night one of those foreign preachers was talking about the heathen. If it hadn’t been for Lin,” said Chippy, “we’d have forgotten all about them inside of a week. But Lin was bound that something had got to be done. ‘There’s so many of them, Lin,’ says Miss Loretta Pease. (Miss Loretta lives on the next floor to us; she’s educated.) ‘They’re a multitoode,’ she says. ‘You can’t never reach ’em.’ ‘Not all of them at once,’ says Lin to her. ‘Not just us alone by ourselves. We ain’t expected to do only our part.’” “Miss Lin is sagacious,” said Christy. “‘It isn’t any more than right for us to do our part,’ she told Miss Loretta. ‘And for one I won’t back out of it,’ Nor, you may be sure, she wouldn’t. Lin is the sort that wouldn’t.” “An uncommonly good sort,” said Christy. “You are like that, too, ain’t you!” said Chippy, looking over at him kindly. “Miss Loretta came round all right after Lin had worked over her a while. She ain’t obstinate. She’s genteel. So Lin fixed it up that we was all to chip in together and make up a purse for the heathen. So we did it. And there it is.” He nodded proudly toward the newspaper parcel. “You must have worked hard,” said Christy. “It’s savings, mostly. I mean our part of it is, Lin’s and my brother’s and mine. Lin got off the neighbors, too, you know; it’s all there together.” “You saved yours?” questioned Christy. “Yes, sir. Lin is grand on saving. She scatters it. She don’t bunch it all on one thing till it appears as nothing else but just that was worth eating. First it’s sugar, and then it’s sausage, and then it’s something different again. And sometimes it ain’t anything at all. You don’t hardly miss it that way.” Chippy slipped still farther forward on his seat and felt for his cap. He glanced at Christy’s unfolded note.