dable,--"well, my child, what did you wish for?"

"That Jim Crow there in the window," answered the urchin, holding out a
cent, and pointing to the gingerbread figure that had attracted his
notice, as he loitered along to school; "the one that has not a broken
foot."

So Hepzibah put forth her lank arm, and, taking the effigy from the
shop-window, delivered it to her first customer.

"No matter for the money," said she, giving him a little push towards
the door; for her old gentility was contumaciously squeamish at sight
of the copper coin, and, besides, it seemed such pitiful meanness to
take the child's pocket-money in exchange for a bit of stale
gingerbread. "No matter for the cent. You are welcome to Jim Crow."

The child, staring with round eyes at this instance of liberality,
wholly unprecedented in his large experience of cent-shops, took the
man of gingerbread, and quitted the premises. No sooner had he reached
the sidewalk (little cannibal that he was!) than Jim Crow's head was in
his mouth. As he had not been careful to shut the door, Hepzibah was
at the pains of closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation or two
about the troublesomeness of young people, and particularly of small
boys. She had just placed another representative of the renowned Jim
Crow at the window, when again the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and
again the door being thrust open, with its characteristic jerk and jar,
disclosed the same sturdy little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago,
had made his exit. The crumbs and discoloration of the cannibal feast,
as yet hardly consummated, were exceedingly visible about his mouth.

"What is it now, child?" asked the maiden lady rather impatiently; "did
you come back to shut the door?"

"No," answered the urchin, pointing to the figure that had just been
put up; "I want that other Jim Crow."

"Well, here it is for you," said Hepzibah, reaching it down; but
recognizing that this pertinacious customer would not quit her on any
other terms, so long as she had a gingerbread figure in her shop, she
partly drew back her extended hand, "Where is the cent?"

The little boy had the cent ready, but, like a true-born Yankee, would
have preferred the better bargain to the worse. Looking somewhat
chagrined, he put the coin into Hepzibah's hand, and departed, sending
the second Jim Crow in quest of the former one. The new shop-keeper
dropped the first solid result of her commercial enterpr