Aunt Edith was going away. Her short and happy visit of one week ended that morning.
The taxi had drawn up at the curb and she was bidding hem all good bye.
Chubby four-year old Hazel turned up her expectant face for a kiss.
"Goodbye, darling," Aunt Edith said, catching up her wee niece with a warm kiss and loving hug, "Auntie would just love to be taking you with her; out house needs a little girl, I often think." At the door she took the child's hand in here and laid a silver dime in each pink, outspread Palm, closing the fingers tightly over them for safe keeping. "One is for Sunday school, sunshine," she said. "The other one is to spend exactly as you please."
A last quick kiss and she was off. The house seemed empty without Her. Mother, Hazel and big brother Billy went back to finish their lunch before it got cold. Shortly after the big brother Billy went back to school, and mother and Hazel were left alone.
Twenty cents! She felt very rich indeed. "Could I play with my two dimes a little while, Mother?" She wondered.
Mother smiles. "I think So, dear," she said
It was fun to cup your hands tightly, shaking the coins up, down, up, down, or to spell out letters and the figures of the dates.
One was black, though still clear and plain; the other one was new and shinning. One said "Ten Cents Canada;" the other was "One-Dime United State of America."
(Mother helped her find that out)
One was for Sunday School; the other to spend.
Mother was standing above the sudsy, yellow dishpan at sink watching with a smile amusement as Hazel handled the dimes lovingly, when the shiny one rolled away out of the little girls hand, bent on an adventure of its own. Across the floor it sounds, and slipped out of sight down a crack.
"Oh, Mother, it's gone! One of my dimes rolled down the big crack under the table."
Mother looked at a disappointed, almost tearful face. Very nearly holding her own breath because so much depended on the answer, she asked: "Which one was it, Hazel?"
Instantly the answer came back: "The one to spend." A sunny smile broke through as the little girl dashed away tear.
"Yes, dear, that's right." She put her arm around her small daughter with quiet approval and it best that way, I Know," she added.
Hazel put the other dime away in a little box in the sewing machine drawer, and was soon playing with other dolls so happily that she forgot all about the lost one.
But that night when her father heard the story he kissed his dear little, unselfish daughter and promised to find it for her.
So after supper he got his big hammer, and when he had loosened the nails and lifted the board, big brother Billy reached down and picked the shinning silver piece out of the dirt.
Father put the board back tight so as to close the crack, and Hazel laid the runaway dime in the box beside the other.
It was for Sunday, of course, because it would look so bright, new and clean on the big plate, but the next day she spent the black one for two big, red apples at the corner store, and gave big brother Billy one.
The end.