60 SOBER JOHN.

tell them, but that they might go over the
next morning, and see if their cousins were
willing to furnish a quarter of a dollar apiece.

“They agreed to do so; and just before
school they came over each with a quarter
of a dollar in his hand. The way they got
their money was this: The boys used to
work sometimes, and their fathers paid
them, and thus they had all laid up quite a
sum of money; and they used to take from
this whenever they wanted any money to
carry into execution any of John’s plans.
Their fathers allowed them to spend it in
any way that John recommended, for they
had confidence in him; but in other cases
they were not allowed to expend any of it,
without their father’s or mother’s leave.

“When they went to school that morning,
they found that John had gone on before
them ; and, watching him, they observed that
he went into a carpenter’s shop, with a paper
in his hand. So they supposed that he was
going to get the carpenter to make some-
thing, and that the paper was a drawing of
it; for John had learned to draw, and al-
ways made a drawing of any curious thing
he wanted to have made.