Cricket

“How funny it is to think of your telling a lie!” exclaimed Cricket. “I never heard about that before. Tell us another one.”

“Do you remember, Margaret,” asked auntie of mamma, “how we put our money in the bank?”

“Indeed, I do,” laughed mamma. “What disappointed children we were!”

“What was that?” the children asked, eagerly.

“It isn’t much of a story, I think, only it was funny. I was about six and Jean was eight, weren’t we? Some friend of my mother’s came to visit her for a few days, and brought her little daughter with her. Do you remember that little Cecilia, Jean?”

“I should think I did! I remember her distinctly, although we never saw her again. She was such a prim little thing, with long, light curls—such cork-screw curls! She wore a silk dress, and didn’t like to do anything but sit in the parlour and keep herself trim.”

“But we children admired her immensely,” said mamma. “We thought that her name was beautiful—Cecilia. She said her mother found it in a book. We loved to race about and romp as much as you children do, but she didn’t know how to play anything. She was a little older than we were, and would tell us long stories about her home. One thing impressed us especially. She asked us if we had any money in the bank, and we said, ‘None at all,’ in much surprise at the question.

“‘I have three hundred dollars in the bank,’ she said, proudly, ‘and my father’s going to leave it there till I’m twenty-one, and put in one hundred more every year. It will grow to be a lot of money when I’m a young lady. Then I’m going to buy wedding clothes with it.’

“This was entirely new talk to Jean and me. We had heard of banks, of course, but we had never really thought what they were. Cecilia’s words puzzled us, for awhile, although we did not ask her any questions further about it.

“The word ‘bank’ only meant to us a literal bank,—a sand-bank. Do you remember, children, those long sand-banks back of the shore, on the other side of grandpa’s orchard? They are just within his fence, you know. Well, we thought that Cecilia surely meant just such a place as that. After she was gone we talked the matter over very seriously. Cecilia’s money seemed like untold wealth to us, and of course we would have nothing like that to start with, but we decided that we would take what we had and put it in the bank.

“We opened our chamois bags to count our money. We used to put in them any pennies that remained of our weekly five cents, and extra bits that would come in our way. Putting this in the bank meant, to us, digging a hole in the sand-bank, and burying the money in it. Then in some strange way, which we didn’t at all understand, the money would ‘grow,’ as Cecilia said, and by-and-by we would have a great deal more. I think we thought of its growing as the roots of a tree grow. Do you remember, Jean, how grand we felt, emptying our chamois-skin bags, and counting our pennies?”

“Indeed, yes,” said auntie. “It was getting near the County Fair time, to which we were always taken, and for which we had been saving our pennies eagerly. There seemed such a lot of them.”

“How many and shining they looked!” went on mamma. “We took our bags, one day, and a little shovel, and started out. We did not tell grandma, because we thought that we would like to surprise her some day with a big pile of gold dollars, which, for some reason, we had made up our minds would be our crop. How earnest and sincere we were!”

“We certainly were,” said auntie, smiling. “I wish I could remember just how I thought that the money would ‘grow’ in the bank, but I am not sure whether I thought it would spring up like a plant, and we would pick the dollars, or whether we thought it would just spread in the ground. Mother often used to say to us, when we wanted something that was very absurd, ‘I’ll buy it for you when I can pick gold dollars off the rosebush.’ Perhaps that gave us the idea.”

Then mamma took up the story again.

“We travelled off with our money-bags, and when we got to the sand-banks, we selected a nice, smooth place, and dug a deep hole. Then we laid our chamois-skin bags carefully in. Oh, I believe we wrapped them in newspaper first, didn’t we? We covered them all up evenly, and stuck two sticks down to mark the place, and then, feeling very rich, we trotted home.

“For a week after this we made a trip down there every day, in great excitement, and every day we came slowly back, much disappointed that there were no signs of growth. Once we dug down and uncovered our bags, to see if they had struck roots yet, but we were much discouraged to find them only mouldy and damp, but still whole. Not a root had struck out.

“Then Jean suddenly remembered that Cecilia had said that when she grew to be a lady that there would be a lot of money, so perhaps we would have to wait just as long, and let our bags lie there till then. This thought was a greater disappointment, for we had expected to surprise the family with our crop of gold dollars when your grandfather came home from his next voyage.

“By-and-by, of course, other things came up, and the bank was rather forgotten, till one day grandma said that the County Fair was to be held in a few days, and we would go, as usual. Then we looked at each other in dismay, for we had buried all our money. We had expected at first, you know, to reap our crop long before this important day, and here we were with a very small number of pennies, and no sign of any money sprouting yet.

“Grandma noticed our dismayed faces and at once asked us what was the matter; so we told her the whole story. How she laughed! but she explained to us very carefully what a bank really is, and how money does ‘grow’ or increase in a savings bank. Then she told us to run down and dig up our bags before they were entirely spoiled.”

“Did you get them?” asked Cricket, eagerly.

“That is the sad part of my story, dear. Two very downcast children, we went down to the sand-bank, and what do you think?”

“Had it all been taken away?” asked the children, breathlessly.

“No, but it might as well have been, for do you know, we couldn’t find it. Heavy rains had come, and had washed away our sticks. We ran up and down the sand-bank, which extends a long distance, you know, but we could not find the spot anywhere. We dug here and there, for we could not believe that we would not find our money, but all in vain. At last we came, crying, back to grandma, and she comforted us, as usual. She told us that little girls usually got into trouble when they did things without asking their mammas, but that next time we would both be wiser, and ask her advice first. Then she asked us how much money we had buried, and two days after, on the very morning when we were to start for the Fair, we found by our pillows, when we woke up, two pretty, new chamois-skin bags, with the same amount of money, all in bright new nickels, which grandma had taken the trouble to get for us.

“For months afterwards, we used to go down at intervals, and dig for those bags, till I think we must have pretty nearly spaded up the entire bank. But, at any rate, we did not strike just the right spot, and we never saw those bags again.”

“Are they there now,” demanded Cricket, sitting up suddenly.

“For all I know. Much of the sand-bank on the other side has been carted away for building purposes, but this side, I believe, has never been disturbed.”

“Won’t I dig for it, next time I go to grandma’s!” cried Cricket. “How much was there in them?”

“I think about three dollars altogether, wasn’t there, Jean? What heart-broken children we were, weren’t we, when we first realized that we couldn’t find the place!”

“Indeed we were. That was my first and last speculation,” laughed auntie.

“Isn’t it funny,” said Cricket to Eunice, “to think that mamma and auntie were ever such little geese!”