I WAS ten when I held in my hand two round dollars, the first money that I had ever earned by my own toil. It seemed an immeasurable sum as I gazed at it, wondering how I could best spend it.
My father laid his hand upon my head saying, "Well, lad, I wouldn't spend it all on myself if I were you. Buy something for your mother." Then he gave me a little talk about mother and what her love and sacrifice and teaching had meant to me. The next time we went to the little country town where we traded he took me along, and I bought mother a new dress with part of the money I had earned by dropping seed corn in the long furrow as our neighbor turned the prairie sod. The dress was calico,—a light brown with pale blue flowers, and there were ten yards at ten cents
