"How soon do you think the thirty dollars will come?" Ben asked the next day at breakfast, buttering a piece of corn bread and sprinkling
some salt and pepper... not too much... on his fried eggs.
"I'm not sure," Mary Ellen said. "Probably about a week. But when it comes, I'll get some presents for everyone," she promised.
"Like what?"
"You'll have to wait and see, Jim-Bob, but one thing I plan to get is lots of candy."
"Not too much candy," Grandma said. "We don't want any toothaches around here."
"We won't eat it all at once," John-Boy said.
"Please pass the bacon," said Jason.
####
At recess later that day, Mary Ellen took Martha Rose aside and said, "In case you've forgotten, you owe me a dollar."
"I didn't forget," Martha Rose answered. "I got a dollar from my Daddy."
"Did you tell him why you needed it?"
"I didn't have to. I just told him I wanted a dollar, and he handed it right over. You know my parents always give me
whatever I want."
She gave the dollar to Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen was relieved that nobody saw that little transaction.
Two days later, Olivia walked into Ike Godsey's store.
"Ike, I need a pound of coffee."
"One pound of coffee coming up," Ike said. "You know, I've already sold every copy I had of the Junior Journal, and
there are still folks coming in and asking for it, and it's all thanks to Mary Ellen."
Olivia replied, "We're all very proud of Mary Ellen. Grandma is a bit worried, though."
"Why would she be worried?"
"She's afraid we may be falling into sinful pride, but Grandpa says there's a difference between accepting congratulations from
others, and blowing your own horn."
"I agree with him," Ike said, measuring and then grinding the coffee.
"I love the smell of freshly ground coffee," Olivia said.
####
Meanwhile, miles away, a ten-year-old girl named Charlotte Blake was reading her copy of the Junior Journal.
She came to the page with the prize-winning poems. When she read the first-prize winner, she gasped, and walked over to the armchair
where her mother was sitting, crocheting a hat.
Mom, look at this. That's the poem great-aunt Clara wrote when she was a girl."
"Yes," Mrs. Blake said indignantly, "it is. That Mary Ellen Walton is nothing but a little plagiarist."
