Year: 1874

J0HNNY'S LOST DOLLAR.


BY hook and crook, and many hard
knocks, such as turning the grindstonc,
pulling cookie out of the wheat and tax
ing medicine when he was sick, Johnny
Brown had picked up quite fortune,
as it seemed to him when reckoned in
cents, namely, one dollar!


Don't you think that much? You
don't? Well, my dear little fellow, how
much money did you ever earn and ay
up? Johnny never had a cent given him
in his life; he earned his money like Il
man. But must now tell you the story
of what became of Johnny's earnings.


Johnny poured his cents out of the lit
tie tin box which he used for a safe Che
had no brazcn frog to swallow his ccnts),
counted them carefully, tumblcd them
into his trousers pocket with much un-
necessary jingle, and walked into town,
where he exchanged them at the bank
for Il gold dollar.


He could not but feel that he had made
a poor trade as he walked home through
the dust and heat-a pockctful of money
for that little yellow scale of gold.


AS he trudgcd along every now and
then he tossed his shining treas
urc few feet ahead of himself
in the most careless way in the world,
and then, when about to step over 1t,
would accidentolty catch u glimpse of it,
and seize it with great ado, and brush
the dust off it till il shonc again, and
stare at it, and study the very few words
on it, and throw it up and catch it, and
dorll sorts of queer things, as most
boys do with their first money.


When Johnny had got home he had
not seen quite enough of his dollar; and
so, before he showed it to his folks, he
thought he would have one nice little
play with it on the threshing- floor of the
big barn.


So he brushed away the chail and
straw with an old broom and cleared him
a fine place for rolling his precious
dollar.


Poor Johnny, The floor was just a
little bit shrunken by the long drought;
and the very first roll, the dollar ended
by slipping through crack the width of
straw.


His fortune was lost! Johnny was Il
beggar! His heart stopped beating; the
tears blinded him; his hand shook like a
grandfather's.


But the hardy spirit that helped him
to earn the money soon braced him up
to try to regain it. He fetched crow
bar and pried up the heavy plank, and
looked down into the blackncss under
the barn.


"Nothing but dark, dark, dark, and
maybe toads and snakes and things"
thought Johnny. 1t was plain that he
must have light.


He ran to the house in a great hurry,
for fear something might swallow his
dollar while he was gone. Into the
pantry he went, and took a tallow candle
out of the candlc-box, and a few matches
from the safe.


As he went out of the kitchen-door
his mother saw him, and asked what he
was going to do with the candle.


Johnny very honestly told his mother
all about his bad luck; and his mother
shook him little, then scoldcd him, and
finally ended by plying him.


Just then his father came in, and asked
what allied Johnny.


Mrs. Brown told him all about it.


Mr.. Brown scoldcd some, of course :;
but he did not shake Johnny nor pity
him.


"Let's go to the barn, and see what
can be done about it," he said to Johnny
:" But you needn't bring that candle along;
can't have the barn burned up for a
dollar!" SO they went to the barn; and
both of them got down on their knees,
and pcered into the dark, and got hay
seed in their hair, and dust in their eyes,
and cobwebs on their clothes.


"No use," said Mr.. Brown, "it's gone
Come, help me put back the plank"


But, instead of helping to replace the
plank, Johnny cried so loudly that the
school teacher who was walking down
the road heard him, and went up to the
barn to see what was the matter.


II had dollar-a-a-goldd dollar; and
it's lost" Johnny told him. And NJ.
Brown explained the matter, and added
that it would not do to 60 down under
the barn with light, as there was SO
much dry litter about"


You never studied natural philoso-
ply, did you, Johnny?" said the school
master. "Now l am going to give you
short lesson in practical optics if you
will go to the house and borrow two
looking glasses of your mother"


Johnny went on the run, and soon
came back with the little looking-glass
from the spare bedroom under one arm
and the cracked one from the kitchen
under the other.


The schoolmaster took them from
Johnny, and, going out in front Of the
open barn door, leaned one of the mir
rors at such an angle as to throw daz-
cling beam of sunshine into the dusky
barn. Securing the glass in position he
went into the barn, and, standing near
the opening in the floor, he held the
other glass in such way as to catch the