The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle

Book Excerpt: ...cts us to raise ourselves up to."Mr. Marshall made a similar confession one day, and it seemed that Johnny alone was the only member of the family who had no sentiment in regard to the quilt, except, perhaps, a feeling of gratitude. It had brought him the rifle. He snuggled down under it on cold winter nights, tumbled out from under it on cold winter mornings, and went his happy-go-lucky way, regardless of what it might have said to him if he had had ears to hear. Then, when, worn and faded by many washings, it outgrew its usefulness as he outgrew his boyhood, one spring morning his mother packed it carefully away in folds of old linen and lavender. It was toward the middle of John Marshall's freshman year at college. The boy "all wriggle and racket" was a strong, athletic young fellow now, still with the same propensities of his restless boyhood. His overflowing animal spirits made him a jolly companion, and he found himself popular from the start. There was no need now for petty economies in the Mars...