A Colonial Wooing
after he saw the chest that he had made brought back by Matthew Watson's boys.
"Did your father send this back?"
"Yes, he told us to bring it. Mother was up-stairs when we came, but I guess she knows too. Sister Ruth hadn't enough to put in both, and father said thee might find some one who wanted this, and what was the charge for the one sister took?"
John bit his lip to keep from laughing, and quite forgot the two lads that stood wondering and waiting for an answer. Finally coming back from the world of day-dreams to this more prosy one, he said, "Tell your father, boys, that Ruth paid for them both, but I will keep this one for the present." The boys left without delay, and John again said to his helpers he would close the shop and they might go. "I have some accounts to cast up and such work, and will be some time." The men left, wondering what had happened, and, knowing a little and thinking they knew a great deal more, drew their own conclusions.
John had not told a white lie. He did
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