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diff --git a/17530-0.txt b/17530-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef3d7e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/17530-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6867 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIDA'S LITTLE SHOP *** + + + + +[Illustration: Maida’s Little Shop] + + +Maida’s Little Shop +By +Inez Haynes Irwin + +Author of +MAIDA'S LITTLE HOUSE, +MAIDA'S LITTLE SCHOOL, ETC. + +Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers +New York + +Copyright, 1909, by +B. W. HUEBSCH + + + +TO +LITTLE P. D. +FROM +BIG P. D. + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter I: The Ride +Chapter II: Cleaning Up +Chapter III: The First Day +Chapter IV: The Second Day +Chapter V: Primrose Court +Chapter VI: Two Calls +Chapter VII: Trouble +Chapter VIII: A Rainy Day +Chapter IX: Work +Chapter X: Play +Chapter XI: Halloween +Chapter XII: The First Snow +Chapter XIII: The Fair +Chapter XIV: Christmas Happenings + + + + + MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP + + CHAPTER I: THE RIDE + + +Four people sat in the big, shining automobile. Three of them were +men. The fourth was a little girl. The little girl’s name was Maida +Westabrook. The three men were “Buffalo” Westabrook, her father, Dr. +Pierce, her physician, and Billy Potter, her friend. They were +coming from Marblehead to Boston. + +Maida sat in one corner of the back seat gazing dreamily out at the +whirling country. She found it very beautiful and very curious. They +were going so fast that all the reds and greens and yellows of the +autumn trees melted into one variegated band. A moment later they +came out on the ocean. And now on the water side were two other +streaks of color, one a spongy blue that was sky, another a clear +shining blue that was sea. Maida half-shut her eyes and the whole +world seemed to flash by in ribbons. + +“May I get out for a moment, papa?” she asked suddenly in a thin +little voice. “I’d like to watch the waves.” + +“All right,” her father answered briskly. To the chauffeur he said, +“Stop here, Henri.” To Maida, “Stay as long as you want, Posie.” + +“Posie” was Mr. Westabrook’s pet-name for Maida. + +Billy Potter jumped out and helped Maida to the ground. The three +men watched her limp to the sea-wall. + +She was a child whom you would have noticed anywhere because of her +luminous, strangely-quiet, gray eyes and because of the ethereal +look given to her face by a floating mass of hair, pale-gold and +tendrilly. And yet I think you would have known that she was a sick +little girl at the first glance. When she moved, it was with a great +slowness as if everything tired her. She was so thin that her hands +were like claws and her cheeks scooped in instead of out. She was +pale, too, and somehow her eyes looked too big. Perhaps this was +because her little heart-shaped face seemed too small. + +“You’ve got to find something that will take up her mind, Jerome,” +Dr. Pierce said, lowering his voice, “and you’ve got to be quick +about it. Just what Greinschmidt feared has come—that languor—that +lack of interest in everything. You’ve got to find something for her +to _do_.” + +Dr. Pierce spoke seriously. He was a round, short man, just exactly +as long any one way as any other. He had springy gray curls all over +his head and a nose like a button. Maida thought that he looked like +a very old but a very jolly and lovable baby. When he laughed—and he +was always laughing with Maida—he shook all over like jelly that has +been turned out of a jar. His very curls bobbed. But it seemed to +Maida that no matter how hard he chuckled, his eyes were always +serious when they rested on her. + +Maida was very fond of Dr. Pierce. She had known him all her life. +He had gone to college with her father. He had taken care of her +health ever since Dr. Greinschmidt left. Dr. Greinschmidt was the +great physician who had come all the way across the ocean from +Germany to make Maida well. Before the operation Maida could not +walk. Now she could walk easily. Ever since she could remember she +had always added to her prayers at night a special request that she +might some day be like other little girls. Now she was like other +little girls, except that she limped. And yet now that she could do +all the things that other little girls did, she no longer cared to +do them—not even hopping and skipping, which she had always expected +would be the greatest fun in the world. Maida herself thought this +very strange. + +“But what can I find for her to do?” “Buffalo” Westabrook said. + +You could tell from the way he asked this question that he was not +accustomed to take advice from other people. Indeed, he did not look +it. But he looked his name. You would know at once why the +cartoonists always represented him with the head of a buffalo; why, +gradually, people had forgotten that his first name was Jerome and +referred to him always as “Buffalo” Westabrook. + +Like the buffalo, his head was big and powerful and emerged from the +midst of a shaggy mane. But it was the way in which it was set on +his tremendous shoulders that gave him his nickname. When he spoke +to you, he looked as if he were about to charge. And the glance of +his eyes, set far back of a huge nose, cut through you like a pair +of knives. + +It surprised Maida very much when she found that people stood in awe +of her father. It had never occurred to her to be afraid of him. + +“I’ve racked my brains to entertain her,” “Buffalo” Westabrook went +on. “I’ve bought her every gimcrack that’s made for children—her +nursery looks like a toy factory. I’ve bought her prize ponies, +prize dogs and prize cats—rabbits, guinea-pigs, dancing mice, +talking parrots, marmosets—there’s a young menagerie at the place in +the Adirondacks. I’ve had a doll-house and a little theater built +for her at Pride’s. She has her own carriage, her own automobile, +her own railroad car. She can have her own flying-machine if she +wants it. I’ve taken her off on trips. I’ve taken her to the theater +and the circus. I’ve had all kinds of nurses and governesses and +companions, but they’ve been mostly failures. Granny Flynn’s the +best of the hired people, but of course Granny’s old. I’ve had other +children come to stay with her. Selfish little brutes they all +turned out to be! They’d play with her toys and ignore her +completely. And this fall I brought her to Boston, hoping her +cousins would rouse her. But the Fairfaxes decided suddenly to go +abroad this winter. If she’d only express a desire for something, +I’d get it for her—if it were one of the moons of Jupiter.” + +“It isn’t anything you can _give_ her,” Dr. Pierce said impatiently; +“you must find something for her to _do_.” + +“Say, Billy, you’re an observant little duck. Can’t you tell us +what’s the matter?” “Buffalo” Westabrook smiled down at the third +man of the party. + +“The trouble with the child,” Billy Potter said promptly, “is that +everything she’s had has been ‘prize.’ Not that it’s spoiled her at +all. Petronilla is as simple as a princess in a fairy-tale.” + +“Petronilla” was Billy Potter’s pet-name for Maida. + +“Yes, she’s wonderfully simple,” Dr. Pierce agreed. “Poor little +thing, she’s lived in a world of bottles and splints and bandages. +She’s never had a chance to realize either the value or the +worthlessness of things.” + +“And then,” Billy went on, “nobody’s ever used an ounce of +imagination in entertaining the poor child.” + +“Imagination!” “Buffalo” Westabrook growled. “What has imagination +to do with it?” + +Billy grinned. + +Next to her father and Granny Flynn, Maida loved Billy Potter better +than anybody in the world. He was so little that she could never +decide whether he was a boy or a man. His chubby, dimply face was +the pinkest she had ever seen. From it twinkled a pair of blue eyes +the merriest she had ever seen. And falling continually down into +his eyes was a great mass of flaxen hair, the most tousled she had +ever seen. + +Billy Potter lived in New York. He earned his living by writing for +newspapers and magazines. Whenever there was a fuss in Wall +Street—and the papers always blamed “Buffalo” Westabrook if this +happened—Billy Potter would have a talk with Maida’s father. Then he +wrote up what Mr. Westabrook said and it was printed somewhere. Men +who wrote for the newspapers were always trying to talk with Mr. +Westabrook. Few of them ever got the chance. But “Buffalo” +Westabrook never refused to talk with Billy Potter. Indeed, the two +men were great friends. + +“He’s one of the few reporters who can turn out a good story and +tell it straight as I give it to him,” Maida had once heard her +father say. Maida knew that Billy could turn out good stories—he had +turned out a great many for her. + +“What has imagination to do with it?” Mr. Westabrook repeated. + +“It would have a great deal to do with it, I fancy,” Billy Potter +answered, “if somebody would only imagine the right thing.” + +“Well, imagine it yourself,” Mr. Westabrook snarled. “Imagination +seems to be the chief stock-in-trade of you newspaper men.” + +Billy grinned. When Billy smiled, two things happened—one to you and +the other to him. Your spirits went up and his eyes seemed to +disappear. Maida said that Billy’s eyes “skrinkled up.” The effect +was so comic that she always laughed—not with him but at him. + +“All right,” Billy agreed pleasantly; “I’ll put the greatest +creative mind of the century to work on the job.” + +“You put it to work at once, young man,” Dr. Pierce said. “The thing +I’m trying to impress on you both is that you can’t wait too long.” + +“Buffalo” Westabrook stirred uneasily. His fierce, blue eyes +retreated behind the frown in his thick brows until all you could +see were two shining points. He watched Maida closely as she limped +back to the car. “What are you thinking of, Posie?” he asked. + +“Oh, nothing, father,” Maida said, smiling faintly. This was the +answer she gave most often to her father’s questions. “Is there +anything you want, Posie?” he was sure to ask every morning, or, +“What would you like me to get you to-day, little daughter?” The +answer was invariable, given always in the same soft, thin little +voice: “Nothing, father—thank you.” + +“Where are we now, Jerome?” Dr. Pierce asked suddenly. + +Mr. Westabrook looked about him. “Getting towards Revere.” + +“Let’s go home through Charlestown,” Dr. Pierce suggested. “How +would you like to see the house where I was born, Maida—that old +place on Warrington Street I told you about yesterday. I think you’d +like it, Pinkwink.” + +“Pinkwink” was Dr. Pierce’s pet-name for Maida. + +“Oh, I’d love to see it.” A little thrill of pleasure sparkled in +Maida’s flat tones. “I’d just love to.” + +Dr. Pierce gave some directions to the chauffeur. + +For fifteen minutes or more the men talked business. They had come +away from the sea and the streams of yellow and red and green trees. +Maida pillowed her head on the cushions and stared fixedly at the +passing streets. But her little face wore a dreamy, withdrawn look +as if she were seeing something very far away. Whenever “Buffalo” +Westabrook’s glance shot her way, his thick brows pulled together +into the frown that most people dreaded to face. + +“Now down the hill and then to the left,” Dr. Pierce instructed +Henri. + +Warrington Street was wide and old-fashioned. Big elms marching in a +double file between the fine old houses, met in an arch above their +roofs. At intervals along the curbstones were hitching-posts of +iron, most of them supporting the head of a horse with a ring in his +nose. One, the statue of a negro boy with his arms lifted above his +head, seemed to beg the honor of holding the reins. Beside these +hitching-posts were rectangular blocks of granite—stepping-stones +for horseback riders and carriage folk. + +“There, Pinkwink,” Dr. Pierce said; “that old house on the +corner—stop here, Henri, please—that’s where I was brought up. The +old swing used to hang from that tree and it was from that big bough +stretching over the fence that I fell and broke my arm.” + +Maida’s eyes brightened. “And there’s the garret window where the +squirrels used to come in,” she exclaimed. + +“The same!” Dr. Pierce laughed. “You don’t forget anything, do you? +My goodness me! How small the house looks and how narrow the street +has grown! Even the trees aren’t as tall as they should be.” + +Maida stared. The trees looked very high indeed to her. And she +thought the street quite wide enough for anybody, the houses very +stately. + +“Now show me the school,” she begged. + +“Just a block or two, Henri,” Dr. Pierce directed. + +The car stopped in front of a low, rambling wooden building with a +yard in front. + +“That’s where you covered the ceiling with spit-balls,” Maida asked. + +“The same!” Dr. Pierce laughed heartily at the remembrance. It +seemed to Maida that she had never seen his curls bob quite so +furiously before. + +“It’s one of the few wooden, primary buildings left in the city,” he +explained to the two men. “It can’t last many years now. It’s +nothing but a rat-trap but how I shall hate to see it go!” + +Opposite the school was a big, wide court. Shaded with beautiful +trees—maples beginning to flame, horse-chestnuts a little browned, +it was lined with wooden toy houses, set back of fenced-in yards and +veiled by climbing vines. Pigeons were flying about, alighting now +and then to peck at the ground or to preen their green and purple +necks. Boys were spinning tops. Girls were jumping rope. The dust +they kicked up had a sweet, earthy smell in Maida’s nostrils. As she +stared, charmed with the picture, a little girl in a scarlet cape +and a scarlet hat came climbing up over one of the fences. Quick, +active as a squirrel, she disappeared into the next yard. + +“Primrose Court!” Dr. Pierce exclaimed. “Well, well, well!” + +“Primrose Court,” Maida repeated. “Do primroses grow there?” + +“Bless your heart, no,” Dr. Pierce laughed; “it was named after a +man called Primrose who used to own a great deal of the +neighborhood.” + +But Maida was scarcely listening. “Oh, what a cunning little shop!” +she exclaimed. “There, opposite the court. What a perfectly darling +little place!” + +“Good Lord! that’s Connors’,” Dr. Pierce explained. “Many a reckless +penny I’ve squandered there, my dear. Connors was the funniest, old, +bent, dried-up man. I wonder who keeps it now.” + +As if in answer to his question, a wrinkled old lady came to the +window to take a paper-doll from the dusty display there. + +“What are those yellow things in that glass jar?” Maida asked. + +“Pickled limes,” Dr. Pierce responded promptly. “How I used to love +them!” + +“Oh, father, buy me a pickled lime,” Maida pleaded. “I never had one +in my life and I’ve been crazy to taste one ever since I read +‘Little Women.’” + +“All right,” Mr. Westabrook said. “Let’s come in and treat Maida to +a pickled lime.” + +A bell rang discordantly as they opened the door. Its prolonged +clangor finally brought the old lady from the room at the back. She +looked in surprise at the three men in their automobile coats and at +the little lame girl. + +Coming in from the bright sunshine, the shop seemed unpleasantly +dark to Maida. After a while she saw that its two windows gave it +light enough but that it was very confused, cluttery and dusty. + +Mr. Westabrook bought four pickled limes and everybody ate—three of +them with enjoyment, Billy with many wry faces and a decided, +“Stung!” after the first taste. + +“I like pickled limes,” Maida said after they had started for +Boston. “What a funny little place that was! Oh, how I would like to +keep a little shop just like it.” + +Billy Potter started. For a moment it seemed as if he were about to +speak. But instead, he stared hard at Maida, falling gradually into +a brown study. From time to time he came out of it long enough to +look sharply at her. The sparkle had all gone out of her face. She +was pale and dream-absorbed again. + +Her father studied her with increasing anxiety as they neared the +big house on Beacon Street. Dr. Pierce’s face was shadowed too. + +“Eureka! I’ve found it!” Billy exclaimed as they swept past the +State House. “I’ve got it, Mr. Westabrook.” + +“Got what?” + +Billy did not answer at once. The automobile had stopped in front of +a big red-brick house. Over the beautifully fluted columns that held +up the porch hung a brilliant red vine. Lavender-colored glass, here +and there in the windows, made purple patches on the lace of the +curtains. + +“Got what?” Mr. Westabrook repeated impatiently. + +“That little job of the imagination that you put me on a few moments +ago,” Billy answered mysteriously. “In a moment,” he added with a +significant look at Maida. “You stay too, Dr. Pierce. I want your +approval.” + +The door of the beautiful old house had opened and a man in livery +came out to assist Maida. On the threshold stood an old +silver-haired woman in a black-silk gown, a white cap and apron, a little +black shawl pinned about her shoulders. + +“How’s my lamb?” she asked tenderly of Maida. + +“Oh, pretty well,” Maida said dully. “Oh, Granny,” she added with a +sudden flare of enthusiasm, “I saw the cunningest little shop. I +think I’d rather tend shop than do anything else in the world.” + +Billy Potter smiled all over his pink face. He followed Mr. +Westabrook and Dr. Pierce into the drawing-room. + + ---------------------- + +Maida went upstairs with Granny Flynn. + +Granny Flynn had come straight to the Westabrook house from the boat +that brought her from Ireland years ago. She had come to America in +search of a runaway daughter but she had never found her. She had +helped to nurse Maida’s mother in the illness of which she died and +she had always taken such care of Maida herself that Maida loved her +dearly. Sometimes when they were alone, Maida would call her “Dame,” +because, she said, “Granny looks just like the ‘Dame’ who comes into +fairy-tales.” + +Granny Flynn was very little, very bent, very old. “A t’ousand and +noine, sure,” she always answered when Maida asked her how old. Her +skin had cracked into a hundred wrinkles and her long sharp nose and +her short sharp chin almost met. But the wrinkles surrounded a pair +of eyes that were a twinkling, youthful blue. And her down-turned +nose and up-growing chin could not conceal or mar the lovely +sweetness of her smile. + +Just before Maida went to bed that night, she was surprised by a +visit from her father. + +“Posie,” he said, sitting down on her bed, “did you really mean it +to-day when you said you would like to keep a little shop?” + +“Oh, yes, father! I’ve been thinking it over ever since I came home +from our ride this afternoon. A little shop, you know, just like the +one we saw to-day.” + +“Very well, dear, you shall keep a shop. You shall keep that very +one. I’m going to buy out the business for you and put you in charge +there. I’ve got to be in New York pretty steadily for the next three +months and I’ve decided that I’ll send you and Granny to live in the +rooms over the shop. I’ll fix the place all up for you, give you +plenty of money to stock it and then I expect you to run it and make +it pay.” + +Maida sat up in bed with a vigor that surprised her father. She +shook her hands—a gesture that, with her, meant great delight. She +laughed. It was the first time in months that a happy note had +pealed in her laughter. “Oh, father, dear, how good you are to me! +I’m just crazy to try it and I know I can make it pay—if hard work +helps.” + +“All right. That’s settled. But listen carefully to what I’m going +to say, Posie. I can’t have this getting into the papers, you know. +To prevent that, you’re to play a game while you’re working in the +shop—just as princesses in fairy-tales had to play games sometimes. +You’re going _in disguise_. Do you understand?” + +“Yes, father, I understand.” + +“You’re to pretend that you belong to Granny Flynn, that you’re her +grandchild. You won’t have to tell any lies about it. When the +children in the neighborhood hear you call her ‘Granny,’ they’ll +simply take it for granted that you’re her son’s child. + +“Or I can pretend I’m poor Granny’s lost daughter’s little girl,” +Maida suggested. + +“If you wish. Billy Potter’s going to stay here in Boston and help +you. You’re to call on him, Posie, if you get into any snarl. But I +hope you’ll try to settle all your own difficulties before turning +to anybody else. Do you understand?” + +“Yes, father. Father, dear, I’m so happy. Does Granny know?” + +“Yes.” + +Maida heaved an ecstatic sigh. “I’m afraid I shan’t get to sleep +to-night—just thinking of it.” + +But she did sleep and very hard—the best sleep she had known since +her operation. And she dreamed that she opened a shop—a big shop +this was—on the top of a huge white cloud. She dreamed that her +customers were all little boy and girl angels with floating, golden +curls and shining rainbow-colored wings. She dreamed that she sold +nothing but cake. She used to cut generous slices from an angel-cake +as big as the golden dome of the Boston state house. It was very +delicious—all honey and jelly and ice cream on the inside, and all +frosting, stuck with candies and nuts and fruits, on the outside. + + ---------------------- + +The people on Warrington Street were surprised to learn in the +course of a few days that old Mrs. Murdock had sold out her business +in the little corner store. For over a week, the little place was +shut up. The school children, pouring into the street twice a day, +had to go to Main Street for their candy and lead pencils. For a +long time all the curtains were kept down. Something was going on +inside, but what, could not be guessed from the outside. Wagons +deposited all kinds of things at the door, rolls of paper, tins of +paint, furniture, big wooden boxes whose contents nobody could +guess. Every day brought more and more workmen and the more there +were, the harder they worked. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, all +the work stopped. + +The next morning when the neighborhood waked up, a freshly-painted +sign had taken the place over the door of the dingy old black and +white one. The lettering was gilt, the background a skyey blue. It +read: + + MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP + + + + + + CHAPTER II: CLEANING UP + + +The next two weeks were the busiest Maida ever knew. + +In the first place she must see Mrs. Murdock and talk things over. +In the second place, she must examine all the stock that Mrs. +Murdock left. In the third place, she must order new stock from the +wholesale places. And in the fourth place, the rooms must be made +ready for her and Granny to live in. It was hard work, but it was +great fun. + +First, Mrs. Murdock called, at Billy’s request, at his rooms on +Mount Vernon Street. Granny and Maida were there to meet her. + +Mrs. Murdock was a tall, thin, erect old lady. Her bright black eyes +were piercing enough, but it seemed to Maida that the round-glassed +spectacles, through which she examined them all, were even more so. + +“I’ve made out a list of things for the shop that I’m all out of,” +she began briskly. “You’ll know what the rest is from what’s left on +the shelves. Now about buying—there’s a wagon comes round once a +month and I’ve told them to keep right on a-coming even though I +ain’t there. They’ll sell you your candy, pickles, pickled limes and +all sich stuff. You’ll have to buy your toys in Boston—your paper, +pens, pencils, rubbers and the like also, but not at the same places +where you git the toys. I’ve put all the addresses down on the list. +I don’t see how you can make any mistakes.” + +“How long will it take you to get out of the shop?” Billy asked. + +Maida knew that Billy enjoyed Mrs. Murdock, for often, when he +looked at that lady, his eyes “skrinkled up,” although there was not +a smile on his face. + +“A week is all I need,” Mrs. Murdock declared. “If it worn’t for +other folks who are keeping me waiting, I’d have that hull place +fixed as clean as a whistle in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Now I’ll +put a price on everything, so’s you won’t be bothered what to +charge. There’s some things I don’t ever git, because folks buy too +many of them and it’s sich an everlasting bother keeping them in +stock. But you’re young and spry, and maybe you won’t mind jumping +about for every Tom, Dick and Harry. But, remember,” she added in +parting, “don’t git expensive things. Folks in that neighborhood +ain’t got no money to fool away. Git as many things as you can for a +cent a-piece. Git some for five and less for ten and nothing for +over a quarter. But you must allus callulate to buy some things to +lose money on. I mean the truck you put in the window jess to make +folks look in. It gits dusty and fly-specked before you know it and +there’s an end on it. I allus send them to the Home for Little +Wanderers at Christmas time.” + +Early one morning, a week later, a party of three—Granny Flynn, +Billy and Maida—walked up Beacon Street and across the common to the +subway. Maida had never walked so far in her life. But her father +had told her that if she wanted to keep the shop, she must give up +her carriage and her automobile. That was not hard. She was willing +to give up anything that she owned for the little shop. + +They left the car at City Square in Charlestown and walked the rest +of the way. It was Saturday, a brilliant morning in a beautiful +autumn. All the children in the neighborhood were out playing. Maida +looked at each one of them as she passed. They seemed as wonderful +as fairy beings to her—for would they not all be her customers soon? +And yet, such was her excitement, she could not remember one face +after she had passed it. A single picture remained in her mind—a +picture of a little girl standing alone in the middle of the court. +Black-haired, black-eyed, a vivid spot of color in a scarlet cape +and a scarlet hat, the child was scattering bread-crumbs to a flock +of pigeons. The pigeons did not seem afraid of her. They flew close +to her feet. One even alighted on her shoulder. + +“It makes me think of St. Mark’s in Venice,” Maida said to Billy. + +But, little girl—scarlet cape—flocks of doves—St. Mark’s, all went +out of her head entirely when she unlocked the door of the little +shop. + +“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried, “how nice and clean it looks!” + +The shop seemed even larger than she remembered it. The confused, +dusty, cluttery look had gone. But with its dull paint and its +blackened ceiling, it still seemed dark and dingy. + +Maida ran behind the counter, peeped into the show cases, poked her +head into the window, drew out the drawers that lined the wall, +pulled covers from the boxes on the shelves. There is no knowing +where her investigations would have ended if Billy had not said: + +“See here, Miss Curiosity, we can’t put in the whole morning on the +shop. This is a preliminary tour of investigation. Come and see the +rest of it. This way to the living-room!” + +The living-room led from the shop—a big square room, empty now, of +course. Maida limped over to the window. “Oh, oh, oh!” she cried; +“did you ever see such a darling little yard?” + +“It surely is little,” Billy agreed, “not much bigger than a pocket +handkerchief, is it?” + +And yet, scrap of a place as the yard was, it had an air of +completeness, a pretty quaintness. Two tiny brick walks curved from +the door to the gate. On either side of these spread out microscopic +flower-beds, crowded tight with plants. Late-blooming dahlias and +asters made spots of starry color in the green. A vine, running over +the door to the second story, waved like a crimson banner dropped +from the window. + +“The old lady must have been fond of flowers,” Billy Potter said. He +squinted his near-sighted blue eyes and studied the bunches of +green. “Syringa bush in one corner. Lilac bush in the other. +Nasturtiums at the edges. Morning-glories running up the fence. +Sunflowers in between. My, won’t it be fun to see them all racing up +in the spring!” + +Maida jumped up and down at the thought. She could not jump like +other children. Indeed, this was the first time that she had ever +tried. It was as if her feet were like flat-irons. Granny Flynn +turned quickly away and Billy bit his lips. + +“I know just how I’m going to fix this room up for you, Petronilla,” +Billy said, nodding his head mysteriously. “Now let’s go into the +kitchen.” + +The kitchen led from the living-room. Billy exclaimed when he saw it +and Maida shook her hands, but it was Granny who actually screamed +with delight. + +Much bigger than the living-room, it had four windows with sunshine +pouring in through every one of them. But it was not the four +windows nor yet the sunshine that made the sensation—it was the +stone floor. + +“We’ll put a carpet on it if you think it’s too cold, Granny,” Billy +suggested immediately. + +“Oh, lave it be, Misther Billy,” Granny begged. “’Tis loike me ould +home in Oireland. Sure ’tis homesick Oi am this very minut looking +at ut.” + +“All right,” Billy agreed cheerfully. “What you say goes, Granny. +Now upstairs to the sleeping-rooms.” + +To get to the second floor they climbed a little stairway not more +than three feet wide, with steps very high, most of them triangular +in shape because the stairway had to turn so often. And +upstairs—after they got there—consisted of three rooms, two big and +square and light, and one smaller and darker. + +“The small room is to be made into a bathroom,” Billy explained, +“and these two big ones are to be your bedrooms. Which one will you +have, Maida?” + +Maida examined both rooms carefully. “Well, I don’t care for myself +which I have,” she said. “But it does seem as if there were a +teeny-weeny more sun in this one. I think Granny ought to have it, for +she loves the sunshine on her old bones. You know, Billy, Granny and I +have the greatest fun about our bones. Hers are all wrong because +they’re so old, and mine are all wrong because they’re so young.” + +“All right,” Billy agreed. “Sunshiny one for Granny, shady one for +you. That’s settled! I hope you realize, Miss Maida, Elizabeth, +Fairfax, Petronilla, Pinkwink, Posie Westabrook what perfectly bully +rooms these are! They’re as old as Noah.” + +“I’m glad they’re old,” Maida said. “But of course they must be. +This house was here when Dr. Pierce was a little boy. And that must +have been a long, long, long time ago.” + +“Just look at the floors,” Billy went on admiringly. “See how uneven +they are. You’ll have to walk straight here, Petronilla, to keep +from falling down. That old wooden wainscoting is simply charming. +That’s a nice old fireplace too. And these old doors are perfect.” + +Granny Flynn was working the latch of one of the old doors with her +wrinkled hands. “Manny’s the toime Oi’ve snibbed a latch loike that +in Oireland,” she said, and she smiled so hard that her very +wrinkles seemed to twinkle. + +“And look at the windows, Granny,” Billy said. “Sixteen panes of +glass each. I hope you’ll make Petronilla wash them.” + +“Oh, Granny, will you let me wash the windows?” Maida asked +ecstatically. + +“When you’re grand and sthrong,” Granny promised. + +“I know just how I’ll furnish the room,” Billy said half to himself. + +“Oh, Billy, tell me!” Maida begged. + +“Can’t,” he protested mischievously. “You’ve got to wait till it’s +all finished before you see hide or hair of it.” + +“I know I’ll die of curiosity,” Maida protested. “But then of course +I shall be very busy with my own business.” + +“Ah, yes,” Billy replied. “Now that you’ve embarked on a mercantile +career, Miss Westabrook, I think you’ll find that you’ll have less +and less time for the decorative side of life.” + +Billy spoke so seriously that most little girls would have been awed +by his manner. But Maida recognized the tone that he always employed +when he was joking her. Beside, his eyes were all “skrinkled up.” +She did not quite understand what the joke was, but she smiled back +at him. + +“Now can we look at the things downstairs?” she pleaded. + +“Yes,” Billy assented. “To-day is a very important day. Behind +locked doors and sealed windows, we’re going to take account of +stock.” + +Granny Flynn remained in the bedrooms to make all kinds of +mysterious measurements, to open and shut doors, to examine closets, +to try window-sashes, even to poke her head up the chimney. + +Downstairs, Billy and Maida opened boxes and boxes and boxes and +drawers and drawers and drawers. Every one of these had been +carefully gone over by the conscientious Mrs. Murdock. Two boxes +bulged with toys, too broken or soiled to be of any use. These they +threw into the ash-barrel at once. What was left they dumped on the +floor. Maida and Billy sat down beside the heap and examined the +things, one by one. Maida had never seen such toys in her life—so +cheap and yet so amusing. + +It was hard work to keep to business with such enchanting temptation +to play all about them. Billy insisted on spinning every top—he got +five going at once—on blowing every balloon—he produced such +dreadful wails of agony that Granny came running downstairs in great +alarm—on jumping with every jump-rope—the short ones tripped him up +and once he sprawled headlong—on playing jackstones—Maida beat him +easily at this—on playing marbles—with a piece of crayon he drew a +ring on the floor—on looking through all the books—he declared that +he was going to buy some little penny-pamphlet fairy-tales as soon +as he could save the money. But in spite of all this fooling, they +really accomplished a great deal. + +They found very few eatables—candy, fruit, or the like. Mrs. Murdock +had wisely sold out this perishable stock. One glass jar, however, +was crammed full of what Billy recognized to be “bulls-eyes”—round +lumps of candy as big as plums and as hard as stones. Billy said +that he loved bulls-eyes better than terrapin or broiled live +lobster, that he had not tasted one since he was “half-past ten.” +For the rest of the day, one of his cheeks stuck out as if he had +the toothache. + +They came across all kinds of odds and ends—lead pencils, +blank-books, an old slate pencil wrapped in gold paper which Billy +insisted on using to draw pictures on a slate—he made this squeak so +that Maida clapped her hands over her ears. They found single pieces +from sets of miniature furniture, a great many dolls, rag-dolls, +china dolls, celluloid dolls, the latest bisque beauties, and two +old-fashioned waxen darlings whose features had all run together +from being left in too great a heat. + +They went through all these things, sorting them into heaps which +they afterwards placed in boxes. At noon, Billy went out and bought +lunch. Still squatting on the floor, the three of them ate +sandwiches and drank milk. Granny said that Maida had never eaten so +much at one meal. + +All this happened on Saturday. Maida did not see the little shop +again until it was finished. + +By Monday the place was as busy as a beehive. Men were putting in a +furnace, putting in a telephone, putting in a bathroom, whitening +the plaster, painting the woodwork. + +Finally came two days of waiting for the paint to dry. “Will it +ever, _ever_, EVER dry?” Maida used to ask Billy in the most +despairing of voices. + +By Thursday, the rooms were ready for their second coat of paint. + +“Oh, Billy, do tell me what color it is—I can’t wait to see it,” +Maida begged. + +But, “Sky-blue-pink” was all she got from Billy. + +Saturday the furniture came. + +In the meantime, Maida had been going to all the principal wholesale +places in Boston picking out new stock. Granny Flynn accompanied her +or stayed at home, according to the way she felt, but Billy never +missed a trip. + +Maida enjoyed this tremendously, although often she had to go to bed +before dark. She said it was the responsibility that tired her. + +To Maida, these big wholesale places seemed like the storehouses of +Santa Claus. In reality they were great halls, lined with parallel +rows of counters. The counters were covered with boxes and the boxes +were filled with toys. Along the aisles between the counters moved +crowds of buyers, busily examining the display. + +It was particularly hard for Maida to choose, because she was +limited by price. She kept recalling Mrs. Murdock’s advice, “Get as +many things as you can for a cent a-piece.” The expensive toys +tempted her, but although she often stopped and looked them +wistfully over, she always ended by going to the cheaper counters. + +“You ought to be thinking how you’ll decorate the windows for your +first day’s sale,” Billy advised her. “You must make it look as +tempting as possible. I think, myself, it’s always a good plan to +display the toys that go with the season.” + +Maida thought of this a great deal after she went to bed at night. +By the end of the week, she could see in imagination just how her +windows were going to look. + +Saturday night, Billy told her that everything was ready, that she +should see the completed house Monday morning. It seemed to Maida +that the Sunday coming in between was the longest day that she had +ever known. + +When she unlocked the door to the shop, the next morning, she let +out a little squeal of joy. “Oh, I would never know it,” she +declared. “How much bigger it looks, and lighter and prettier!” + +Indeed, you would never have known the place yourself. The ceiling +had been whitened. The faded drab woodwork had been painted white. +The walls had been colored a beautiful soft yellow. Back of the +counter a series of shelves, glassed in by sliding doors, ran the +whole length of the wall and nearly to the ceiling. Behind the show +case stood a comfortable, cushioned swivel-chair. + +“The stuff you’ve been buying, Petronilla,” Billy said, pointing to +a big pile of boxes in the corner. “Now, while Granny and I are +putting some last touches to the rooms upstairs, you might be +arranging the window.” + +“That’s just what I planned to do,” Maida said, bubbling with +importance. “But you promise not to interrupt me till it’s all +done.” + +“All right,” Billy agreed, smiling peculiarly. He continued to smile +as he opened the boxes. + +It did not occur to Maida to ask them what they were going to do +upstairs. It did not occur to her even to go up there. From time to +time, she heard Granny and Billy laughing. “One of Billy’s jokes,” +she said to herself. Once she thought she heard the chirp of a bird, +but she would not leave her work to find out what it was. + +When the twelve o’clock whistle blew, she called to Granny and to +Billy to come to see the results of her morning’s labor. + +“I say!” Billy emitted a long loud whistle. + +“Oh, do you like it?” Maida asked anxiously. + +“It’s a grand piece of work, Petronilla,” Billy said heartily. + +The window certainly struck the key-note of the season. Tops of all +sizes and colors were arranged in pretty patterns in the middle. +Marbles of all kinds from the ten-for-a-cent “peeweezers” up to the +most beautiful, colored “agates” were displayed at the sides. +Jump-ropes of variegated colors with handles, brilliantly painted, were +festooned at the back. One of the window shelves had been furnished +like a tiny room. A whole family of dolls sat about on the tiny +sofas and chairs. On the other shelf lay neat piles of blank-books +and paper-blocks, with files of pens, pencils, and rubbers arranged +in a decorative pattern surrounding them all. + +In the show case, fresh candies had been laid out carefully on +saucers and platters of glass. On the counter was a big, flowered +bowl. + +“To-morrow, I’m going to fill that bowl with asters,” Maida +explained. + +“OI’m sure the choild has done foine,” Granny Flynn said, “Oi cudn’t +have done betther mesilf.” + +“Now come and look at your rooms, Petronilla,” Billy begged, his +eyes dancing. + +Maida opened the door leading into the living-room. Then she +squealed her delight, not once, but continuously, like a very happy +little pig. + +The room was as changed as if some good fairy had waved a magic wand +there. All the woodwork had turned a glistening white. The wall +paper blossomed with garlands of red roses, tied with snoods of red +ribbons. At each of the three windows waved sash curtains of a snowy +muslin. At each of the three sashes hung a golden cage with a pair +of golden canaries in it. Along each of the three sills marched pots +of brilliantly-blooming scarlet geraniums. A fire spluttered and +sparkled in the fireplace, and drawn up in front of it was a big +easy chair for Granny, and a small easy one for Maida. Familiar +things lay about, too. In one corner gleamed the cheerful face of +the tall old clock which marked the hours with so silvery a voice +and the moon-changes by such pretty pictures. In another corner +shone the polished surface of a spidery-legged little spinet. Maida +loved both these things almost as much as if they had been human +beings, for her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother +had loved them before her. Needed things caught her eyes everywhere. +Here was a little bookcase with all her favorite books. There was a +desk, stocked with business-like-looking blank-books. Even the +familiar table with Granny’s “Book of Saints” stood near the easy +chair. Granny’s spectacles lay on an open page, familiarly marking +the place. + +In the center of the room stood a table set for three. + +“It’s just the dearest place,” Maida said. “Billy, you’ve remembered +everything. I thought I heard a bird peep once, but I was too busy +to think about it.” + +“Want to go upstairs?” Billy asked. + +“I’d forgotten all about bedrooms.” Maida flew up the stairs as if +she had never known a crutch. + +The two bedrooms were very simple, all white—woodwork, furniture, +beds, even the fur rugs on the floor. But they were wonderfully gay +from the beautiful paper that Billy had selected. In Granny’s room, +the walls imitated a flowered chintz. But in Maida’s room every +panel was different. And they all helped to tell the same happy +story of a day’s hunting in the time when men wore long feathered +hats on their curls, when ladies dressed like pictures and all +carried falcons on their wrists. + +“Granny, Granny,” Maida called down to them, “Did you ever see any +place in all your life that felt so _homey_?” + +“I guess it will do,” Billy said in an undertone. + +That night, for the first time, Maida slept in the room over the +little shop. + + + + + + CHAPTER III: THE FIRST DAY + + +If you had gone into the little shop the next day, you would have +seen a very pretty picture. + +First of all, I think you would have noticed the little girl who sat +behind the counter—a little girl in a simple blue-serge dress and a +fresh white “tire”—a little girl with shining excited eyes and +masses of pale-gold hair, clinging in tendrilly rings about a thin, +heart-shaped face—a little girl who kept saying as she turned round +and round in her swivel-chair: + +“Oh, Granny, do you think _anybody’s_ going to buy _anything_ +to-day?” + +Next I think you would have noticed an old woman who kept coming to +the living-room door—an old woman in a black gown and a white apron +so stiffly starched that it rattled when it touched anything—an old +woman with twinkling blue eyes and hair, enclosing, as in a silver +frame, a little carved nut of a face—an old woman who kept soothing +the little girl with a cheery: + +“Now joost you be patient, my lamb, sure somebody’ll be here soon.” + +The shop was unchanged since yesterday, except for a big bowl of +asters, red, white and blue. + +“Three cheers for the red, white and blue,” Maida sang when she +arranged them. She had been singing at intervals ever since. +Suddenly the latch slipped. The bell rang. + +Maida jumped. Then she sat so still in her high chair that you would +have thought she had turned to stone. But her eyes, glued to the +moving door, had a look as if she did not know what to expect. + +The door swung wide. A young man entered. It was Billy Potter. + +He walked over to the show case, his hat in his hand. And all the +time he looked Maida straight in the eye. But you would have thought +he had never seen her before. + +“Please, mum,” he asked humbly, “do you sell fairy-tales here?” + +Maida saw at once that it was one of Billy’s games. She had to bite +her lips to keep from laughing. “Yes,” she said, when she had made +her mouth quite firm. “How much do you want to pay for them?” + +“Not more than a penny each, mum,” he replied. + +Maida took out of a drawer the pamphlet-tales that Billy had liked +so much. + +“Are these what you want?” she asked. But before he could answer, +she added in a condescending tone, “Do you know how to read, little +boy?” + +Billy’s face twitched suddenly and his eyes “skrinkled up.” Maida +saw with a mischievous delight that he, in his turn, was trying to +keep the laughter back. + +“Yes, mum,” he said, making his face quite serious again. “My +teacher says I’m the best reader in the room.” + +He took up the little books and looked them over. “‘The Three +Boars’—no,‘Bears,’” he corrected himself. “‘Puss-in-Boats’—no, +‘Boots’; ‘Jack-and-the-Bean-Scalp’—no,‘Stalk’; ‘Jack the +Joint-Cooler’—no, ‘Giant-Killer’; ‘Cinderella,’ ‘Bluebird’—no, +‘Bluebeard’; ‘Little Toody-Goo-Shoes’—no, ‘Little Goody-Two-Shoes’; +‘Tom Thumb,’ ‘The Sweeping Beauty,’—no, ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘The +Babes in the Wood.’ I guess I’ll take these ten, mum.” + +He felt in all his pockets, one after another. After a long time, he +brought out some pennies, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, +eight, nine, ten,” he counted slowly. + +He took the books, turned and left the shop. Maida watched him in +astonishment. Was he really going for good? + +In a few minutes the little bell tinkled a second time and there +stood Billy again. + +“Good morning, Petronilla,” he said pleasantly, as if he had not +seen her before that morning, “How’s business?” + +“Fine!” Maida responded promptly. “I’ve just sold ten fairy books to +the funniest little boy you ever saw.” + +“My stars and garters!” Billy exclaimed. “Business surely is brisk. +Keep that up and you can afford to have a cat. I’ve brought you +something.” + +He opened the bag he carried and took a box out from it. “Hold out +your two hands,—it’s heavy,” he warned. + +In spite of his preparation, the box nearly fell to the floor—it was +so much heavier than Maida expected. “What can be in it?” she cried +excitedly. She pulled the cover off—then murmured a little “oh!” of +delight. + +The box was full—cram-jam full—of pennies; pennies so new that they +looked like gold—pennies so many that they looked like a fortune. + +“Gracious, what pretty money!” Maida exclaimed. “There must be a +million here.” + +“Five hundred,” Billy corrected her. + +He put some tiny cylindrical rolls of paper on the counter. Maida +handled them curiously—they, too, were heavy. + +“Open them,” Billy commanded. + +Maida pulled the papers away from the tops. Bright new dimes fell +out of one, bright new nickels came from the other. + +“Oh, I’m so glad to have nice clean money,” Maida said in a +satisfied tone. She emptied the money drawer and filled its pockets +with the shining coins. “It was very kind of you to think of it, +Billy. I know it will please the children.” The thought made her +eyes sparkle. + +The bell rang again. Billy went out to talk with Granny, leaving +Maida alone to cope with her first strange customer. + +Again her heart began to jump into her throat. Her mouth felt dry on +the inside. She watched the door, fascinated. + +On the threshold two little girls were standing. They were exactly +of the same size, they were dressed in exactly the same way, their +faces were as alike as two peas in a pod. Maida saw at once that +they were twins. They had little round, chubby bodies, bulging out +of red sweaters; little round, chubby faces, emerging from tall, +peaky, red-worsted caps. They had big round eyes as expressionless +as glass beads and big round golden curls as stiff as candles. They +stared so hard at Maida that she began to wonder nervously if her +face were dirty. + +“Come in, little girls,” she called. + +The little girls pattered over to the show case and looked in. But +their big round eyes, instead of examining the candy, kept peering +up through the glass top at Maida. And Maida kept peering down +through it at them. + +“I want to buy some candy for a cent,” one of them whispered in a +timid little voice. + +“I want to buy some candy for a cent, too,” the other whispered in a +voice, even more timid. + +“All the cent candy is in this case,” Maida explained, smiling. + +“What are you going to have, Dorothy?” one of them asked. + +“I don’t know. What are you going to have, Mabel?” the other +answered. They discussed everything in the one-cent case. Always +they talked in whispers. And they continued to look more often at +Maida than at the candy. + +“Have you anything two-for-a-cent?” Mabel whispered finally. + +“Oh, yes—all the candy in this corner.” + +The two little girls studied the corner Maida indicated. For two or +three moments they whispered together. At one point, it looked as if +they would each buy a long stick of peppermint, at another, a paper +of lozenges. But they changed their minds a great many times. And in +the end, Dorothy bought two large pickles and Mabel bought two large +chocolates. Maida saw them swapping their purchases as they went +out. + +The two pennies which the twins handed her were still moist from the +hot little hands that had held them. Maida dropped them into an +empty pocket in the money drawer. She felt as if she wanted to keep +her first earnings forever. It seemed to her that she had never seen +such _precious-looking_ money. The gold eagles which her father had +given her at Christmas and on her birthday did not seem half so +valuable. + +But she did not have much time to think of all this. The bell rang +again. This time it was a boy—a big fellow of about fourteen, she +guessed, an untidy-looking boy with large, intent black eyes. A mass +of black hair, which surely had not been combed, fell about a face +that as certainly had not been washed that morning. + +“Give me one of those blue tops in the window,” he said gruffly. He +did not add these words but his manner seemed to say, “And be quick +about it!” He threw his money down on the counter so hard that one +of the pennies spun off into a corner. + +He did not offer to pick the penny up. He did not even apologize. +And he looked very carefully at the top Maida handed him as if he +expected her to cheat him. Then he walked out. + +It was getting towards school-time. Children seemed to spring up +everywhere as if they grew out of the ground. The quiet streets +began to ring with the cries of boys playing tag, leap frog and +prisoners’ base. The little girls, much more quiet, squatted in +groups on doorsteps or walked slowly up and down, arm-in-arm. But +Maida had little time to watch this picture. The bell was ringing +every minute now. Once there were six children in the little shop +together. + +“Do you need any help?” Granny called. + +“No, Granny, not yet,” Maida answered cheerfully. + +But just the same, she did have to hurry. The children asked her for +all kinds of things and sometimes she could not remember where she +had put them. When in answer to the school bell the long lines began +to form at the big doorways, two round red spots were glowing in +Maida’s cheeks. She drew an involuntary sigh of relief when she +realized that she was going to have a chance to rest. But first she +counted the money she had taken in. Thirty-seven cents! It seemed a +great deal to her. + +For an hour or more, nobody entered the shop. Billy left in a little +while for Boston. Granny, crooning an old Irish song, busied herself +upstairs in her bedroom. Maida sat back in her chair, dreaming +happily of her work. Suddenly the bell tinkled, rousing her with a +start. + +It seemed a long time after the bell rang before the door opened. +But at last Maida saw the reason of the delay. The little boy who +stood on the threshold was lame. Maida would have known that he was +sick even if she had not seen the crutches that held him up, or the +iron cage that confined one leg. + +His face was as colorless as if it had been made of melted wax. His +forehead was lined almost as if he were old. A tired expression in +his eyes showed that he did not sleep like other children. He must +often suffer, too—his mouth had a drawn look that Maida knew well. + +The little boy moved slowly over to the counter. It could hardly be +said that he walked. He seemed to swing between his crutches exactly +as a pendulum swings in a tall clock. Perhaps he saw the sympathy +that ran from Maida’s warm heart to her pale face, for before he +spoke he smiled. And when he smiled you could not possibly think of +him as sick or sad. The corners of his mouth and the corners of his +eyes seemed to fly up together. It made your spirits leap just to +look at him. + +“I’d like a sheet of red tissue paper,” he said briskly. + +Maida’s happy expression changed. It was the first time that anybody +had asked her for anything which she did not have. + +“I’m afraid I haven’t any,” she said regretfully. + +The boy looked disappointed. He started to go away. Then he turned +hopefully. “Mrs. Murdock always kept her tissue paper in that drawer +there,” he said, pointing. + +“Oh, yes, I do remember,” Maida exclaimed. She recalled now a few +sheets of tissue paper that she had left there, not knowing what to +do with them. She pulled the drawer open. There they were, neatly +folded, as she had left them. + +“What did Mrs. Murdock charge for it?” she inquired. + +“A cent a sheet.” + +Maida thought busily. “I’m selling out all the old stock,” she said. +“You can have all that’s left for a cent if you want it.” + +“Sure!” the boy exclaimed. “Jiminy crickets! That’s a stroke of luck +I wasn’t expecting.” + +He spread the half dozen sheets out on the counter and ran through +them. He looked up into Maida’s face as if he wanted to thank her +but did not know how to put it. Instead, he stared about the shop. +“Say,” he exclaimed, “you’ve made this store look grand. I’d never +know it for the same place. And your sign’s a crackajack.” + +The praise—the first she had had from outside—pleased Maida. It +emboldened her to go on with the conversation. + +“You don’t go to school,” she said. + +The moment she had spoken, she regretted it. It was plain to be +seen, she reproached herself inwardly, why he did not go to school. + +“No,” the boy said soberly. “I can’t go yet. Doc O’Brien says I can +go next year, he thinks. I’m wild to go. The other fellows hate +school but I love it. I s’pose it’s because I can’t go that I want +to. But, then, I want to learn to read. A fellow can have a good +time anywhere if he knows how to read. I can read some,” he added in +a shamed tone, “but not much. The trouble is I don’t have anybody to +listen and help with the hard words.” + +“Oh, let me help you!” Maida cried. “I can read as easy as +anything.” This was the second thing she regretted saying. For when +she came to think of it, she could not see where she was going to +have much time to herself. + +But the little lame boy shook his head. “Can’t,” he said decidedly. +“You see, I’m busy at home all day long and you’ll be busy here. My +mother works out and I have to do most of the housework and take +care of the baby. Pretty slow work on crutches, you know—although +it’s easy enough getting round after you get the hang of it. No, I +really don’t have any time to fool until evenings.” + +“Evenings!” Maida exclaimed electrically. “Why, that’s just the +right time! You see I’m pretty busy myself during the daytime—at my +business.” Her voice grew a little important on that last phrase. +“Granny! Granny!” she called. + +Granny Flynn appeared in the doorway. Her eyes grew soft with pity +when they fell on the little lame boy. “The poor little gossoon!” +she murmured. + +“Granny,” Maida explained, “this little boy can’t go to school +because his mother works all day and he has to do the housework and +take care of the baby, too, and he wants to learn to read because he +thinks he won’t be half so lonely with books, and you know, Granny, +that’s perfectly true, for I never suffered half so much with my +legs after I learned to read.” + +It had all poured out in an uninterrupted stream. She had to stop +here to get breath. + +“Now, Granny, what I want you to do is to let me hear him read +evenings until he learns how. You see his mother comes home then and +he can leave the baby with her. Oh, do let me do it, Granny! I’m +sure I could. And I really think you ought to. For, if you’ll excuse +me for saying so, Granny, I don’t think you can understand as well +as I do what a difference it will make.” She turned to the boy. +“Have you read ‘Little Men’ and ‘Little Women’?” + +“No—why, I’m only in the first reader.” + +“I’ll read them to you,” Maida said decisively, “and ‘Treasure +Island’ and ‘The Princes and the Goblins’ and ‘The Princess and +Curdie.’” She reeled off the long list of her favorites. + +In the meantime, Granny was considering the matter. Dr. Pierce had +said to her of Maida: “Let her do anything that she wants to do—as +long as it doesn’t interfere with her eating and sleeping. The main +thing to do is to get her _to want to do things_.” + +“What’s your name, my lad?” she asked. + +“Dicky Dore, ma’am,” the boy answered respectfully. + +“Well, Oi don’t see why you shouldn’t thry ut, acushla,” she said to +Maida. “A half an hour iv’ry avening after dinner. Sure, in a wake, +’twill be foine and grand we’ll be wid the little store running like +a clock.” + +“We’ll begin next week, Monday,” Maida said eagerly. “You come over +here right after dinner.” + +“All right.” The little lame boy looked very happy but, again, he +did not seem to know what to say. “Thank you, ma’am,” he brought out +finally. “And you, too,” turning to Maida. + +“My name’s Maida.” + +“Thank you, Maida,” the boy said with even a greater display of +bashfulness. He settled the crutches under his thin shoulders. + +“Oh, don’t go, yet,” Maida pleaded. “I want to ask you some +questions. Tell me the names of those dear little girls—the twins.” + +Dicky Dore smiled his radiant smile. “Their last name’s Clark. Say, +ain’t they the dead ringers for each other? I can’t tell Dorothy +from Mabel or Mabel from Dorothy.” + +“I can’t, either,” Maida laughed. “It must be fun to be a twin—to +have any kind of a sister or brother. Who’s that big boy—the one +with the hair all hanging down on his face?” + +“Oh, that’s Arthur Duncan.” Dicky’s whole face shone. “He’s a dandy. +He can lick any boy of his size in the neighborhood. I bet he could +lick any boy of his size in the world. I bet he could lick his +weight in wild-cats.” + +Maida’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t like him,” she said. “He’s not +polite.” + +“Well, I like him,” Dicky Dore maintained stoutly. “He’s the best +friend I’ve got anywhere. Arthur hasn’t any mother, and his father’s +gone all day. He takes care of himself. He comes over to my place a +lot. You’ll like him when you know him.” + +The bell tinkling on his departure did not ring again till noon. But +Maida did not mind. + +“Granny,” she said after Dicky left, “I think I’ve made a friend. +Not a friend somebody’s brought to me—but a friend of my very own. +Just think of that!” + +At twelve, Maida watched the children pour out of the little +schoolhouse and disappear in all directions. At two, she watched +them reappear from all directions and pour into it again. But +between those hours she was so busy that she did not have time to +eat her lunch until school began again. After that, she sat +undisturbed for an hour. + +In the middle of the afternoon, the bell rang with an +important-sounding tinkle. Immediately after, the door shut with an +important-sounding slam. The footsteps, clattering across the room to +the show case, had an important-sounding tap. And the little girl, who +looked inquisitively across the counter at Maida, had decidedly an +important manner. + +She was not a pretty child. Her skin was too pasty, her blue eyes +too full and staring. But she had beautiful braids of glossy brown +hair that came below her waist. And you would have noticed her at +once because of the air with which she wore her clothes and because +of a trick of holding her head very high. + +Maida could see that she was dressed very much more expensively than +the other children in the neighborhood. Her dark, blue coat was +elaborate with straps and bright buttons. Her pale-blue beaver hat +was covered with pale-blue feathers. She wore a gold ring with a +turquoise in it, a silver bracelet with a monogram on it, a little +gun-metal watch pinned to her coat with a gun-metal pin, and a long +string of blue beads from which dangled a locket. + +Maida noticed all this decoration with envy, for she herself was +never permitted to wear jewelry. Occasionally, Granny would let her +wear one string from a big box of bead necklaces which Maida had +bought in Venice. + +“How much is that candy?” the girl asked, pointing to one of the +trays. + +Maida told her. + +“Dear me, haven’t you anything better than that?” + +Maida gave her all her prices. + +“I’m afraid there’s nothing good enough here,” the little girl went +on disdainfully. “My mother won’t let me eat cheap candy. Generally, +she has a box sent over twice a week from Boston. But the one we +expected to-day didn’t come.” + +“The little girl likes to make people think that she has nicer +things than anybody else,” Maida thought. She started to speak. If +she had permitted herself to go on, she would have said: “The candy +in this shop is quite good enough for any little girl. But I won’t +sell it to you, anyway.” But, instead, she said as quietly as she +could: “No, I don’t believe there’s anything here that you’ll care +for. But I’m sure you’ll find lots of expensive candy on Main +Street.” + +The little girl evidently was not expecting that answer. She +lingered, still looking into the show case. “I guess I’ll take five +cents’ worth of peppermints,” she said finally. Some of the +importance had gone out of her voice. + +Maida put the candy into a bag and handed it to her without +speaking. The girl bustled towards the door. Half-way, she stopped +and came back. + +“My name is Laura Lathrop,” she said. “What’s yours?” + +“Maida.” + +“Maida?” the girl repeated questioningly. “Maida?—oh, yes, I +know—Maida Flynn. Where did you live before you came here?” + +“Oh, lots of places.” + +“But where?” Laura persisted. + +“Boston, New York, Newport, Pride’s Crossing, the Adirondacks, +Europe.” + +“Oh, my! Have you been to Europe?” Laura’s tone was a little +incredulous. + +“I lived abroad a year.” + +“Can you speak French?” + +“Oui, Mademoiselle, je parle Français un peu.” + +“Say some more,” Laura demanded. + +Maida smiled. “Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, +dix, onze, douze—” + +Laura looked impressed. “Do you speak any other language?” + +“Italian and German—a very little.” + +Laura stared hard at her and her look was full of question. But it +was evident that she decided to believe Maida. + +“I live in Primrose Court,” she said, and now there was not a shadow +of condescension left in her voice. “That large house at the back +with the big lawn about it. I’d like to have you come and play with +me some afternoon. I’m very busy most of the time, though. I take +music and fancy dancing and elocution. Next winter, I’m going to +take up French. I’ll send you word some afternoon when I have time +to play.” + +“Thank you,” Maida said in her most civil voice. “Come and play with +me sometime,” she added after a pause. + +“Oh, my mother doesn’t let me play in other children’s houses,” +Laura said airily. “Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye,” Maida answered. + +She waited until Laura had disappeared into the court. “Granny,” she +called impetuously, “a little girl’s been here who I think is the +hatefullest, horridest, disagreeablest thing I ever saw in my life.” + +“Why, what did the choild do?” Granny asked in surprise. + +“Do?” Maida repeated. “She did everything. Why, she—she—” She +interrupted herself to think hard a moment. “Well, it’s the queerest +thing. I can’t tell you a thing she did, Granny, and yet, all the +time she was here I wanted to slap her.” + +“There’s manny folks that-a-way,” said Granny. “The woisest way is +to take no notuce av ut.” + +“Take no notice of it!” Maida stormed. “It’s just like not taking +any notice of a bee when it’s stinging you.” + +Maida was so angry that she walked into the living-room without +limping. + +At four that afternoon, when the children came out of school, there +was another flurry of trade. Towards five, it slackened. Maida sat +in her swivel-chair and wistfully watched the scene in the court. +Little boys were playing top. Little girls were jumping rope. Once +she saw a little girl in a scarlet cape come out of one of the +yards. On one shoulder perched a fluffy kitten. Following her, +gamboled an Irish setter and a Skye terrier. Presently it grew dark +and the children began to go indoors. Maida lighted the gas and lost +herself in “Gulliver’s Travels.” + +The sound of voices attracted her attention after awhile. She turned +in her chair. Outside, staring into the window, stood a little boy +and girl—a ragged, dirty pair. Their noses pressed so hard against +the glass that they were flattened into round white circles. They +took no notice of Maida. Dropping her eyes to her book, she +pretended to read. + +“I boneys that red top, first,” said the little boy in a piping +voice. + +He was a round, brown, pop-eyed, big-mouthed little creature. Maida +could not decide which he looked most like—a frog or a brownie. She +christened him “the Bogle” at once. + +“I boneys that little pink doll with the curly hair, first,” said +the girl. + +She was a round, brown little creature, too—but pretty. She had +merry brown eyes and a merry little red and white smile. Maida +christened her “the Robin.” + +“I boneys that big agate, second,” said the Bogle. + +“I boneys that little table, second,” said the Robin. + +“I boneys that knife, third,” said the Bogle. + +“I boneys that little chair, third,” said the Robin. + +Maida could not imagine what kind of game they were playing. She +went to the door. “Come in, children,” she called. + +The children jumped and started to run away. But they stopped a +little way off, turned and stood as if they were not certain what to +do. Finally the Robin marched over to Maida’s side and the Bogle +followed. + +“Tell me about the game you were playing,” Maida said. “I never +heard of it before.” + +“’Tain’t any game,” the Bogle said. + +“We were just boneying,” the Robin explained. “Didn’t you ever boney +anything?” + +“No.” + +“Why, you boneys things in store windows,” the Robin went on. “You +always boney with somebody else. You choose one thing for yours and +they choose something else for theirs until everything in the window +is all chosen up. But of course they don’t really belong to you. You +only play they do.” + +“I see,” Maida said. + +She went to the window and took out the red top and the little pink +doll with curly hair. “Here, these are the things you boneyed first. +You may have them.” + +“Oh, thank you—thank you—thank you,” the Robin exclaimed. She kissed +the little pink doll ecstatically, stopping now and then to look +gratefully at Maida. + +“Thank you,” the Bogle echoed. He did not look at Maida but he began +at once to wind his top. + +“What is your name?” Maida asked. + +“Molly Doyle,” the Robin answered. “And this is my brother, Timmie +Doyle.” + +“My name’s Maida. Come and see me again, Molly, and you, too, +Timmie.” + +“Of course I’ll come,” Molly answered, “and I’m going to name my +doll ‘Maida.’” + +Molly ran all the way home, her doll tightly clutched to her breast. +But Timmie stopped to spin his top six times—Maida counted. + +No more customers came that evening. At six, Maida closed and locked +the shop. + +After dinner she thought she would read one of her new books. She +settled herself in her little easy chair by the fire and opened to a +story with a fascinating picture. But the moment her eyes fell on +the page—it was the strangest thing—a drowsiness, as deep as a +fairy’s enchantment, fell upon her. She struggled with it for +awhile, but she could not throw it off. The next thing she knew, +Granny was helping her up the stairs, was undressing her, had laid +her in her bed. The next thing she was saying dreamily, “I made one +dollar and eighty-seven cents to-day. If my papa ever gets into any +more trouble in Wall Street, he can borrow from me.” + +The next thing, she felt the pillow soft and cool under her cheek. +The next thing—bright sunlight was pouring through the window—it was +morning again. + + + + + + CHAPTER IV: THE SECOND DAY + + +It had rained all that night, but the second morning dawned the +twinklingest kind of day. It seemed to Maida that Mother Nature had +washed a million tiny, fleecy, white clouds and hung them out to dry +in the crisp blue air. Everything still dripped but the brilliant +sunshine put a sparkle on the whole world. Slates of old roofs +glistened, brasses of old doors glittered, silver of old name-plates +shone. Curbstones, sidewalks, doorsteps glimmered and gleamed. The +wet, ebony-black trunks of the maples smoked as if they were afire, +their thick-leaved, golden heads flared like burning torches. Maida +stood for a long time at the window listening to a parrot who called +at intervals from somewhere in the neighborhood. “Get up, you +sleepy-heads! Get up! Get up!” + +A huge puddle stretched across Primrose Court. When Maida took her +place in the swivel-chair, three children had begun already to float +shingles across its muddy expanse. Two of them were Molly and Tim +Doyle, the third a little girl whom Maida did not know. For a time +she watched them, fascinated. But, presently, the school children +crowding into the shop took all her attention. After the bell rang +and the neighborhood had become quiet again, she resumed her watch +of the mud-puddle fun. + +Now they were loading their shingles with leaves, twigs, pebbles, +anything that they could find in the gutters. By lashing the water +into waves, as they trotted in the wake of their frail craft, they +managed to sail them from one end of the puddle to the other. Maida +followed the progress of these merchant vessels as breathlessly as +their owners. Some capsized utterly. Others started to founder and +had to be dragged ashore. A few brought the cruise to a triumphant +finish. + +But Tim soon put an end to this fun. Unexpectedly, his foot caught +somewhere and he sprawled headlong in the tide. “Oh, Tim!” Molly +said. But she said it without surprise or anger. And Tim lay flat on +his stomach without moving, as if it were a common occurrence with +him. Molly waded out to him, picked him up and marched him into the +house. + +The other little girl had disappeared. Suddenly she came out of one +of the yards, clasping a Teddy-bear and a whole family of dolls in +her fat arms. She sat down at the puddle’s edge and began to undress +them. Maida idly watched the busy little fingers—one, two, three, +four, five—now there were six shivering babies. What was she going +to do with them? Maida wondered. + +“Granny,” Maida called, “do come and see this little girl! She’s—” +But Maida did not finish that sentence in words. It ended in a +scream. For suddenly the little girl threw the Teddy-bear and all +the six dolls into the puddle. Maida ran out the door. Half-way +across the court she met Dicky Dore swinging through the water. +Between them they fished all the dolls out. One was of celluloid and +another of rubber—they had floated into the middle of the pond. Two +china babies had sunk to the very bottom—their white faces smiled +placidly up through the water at their rescuers. A little rag-doll +lay close to the shore, water-logged. A pretty paper-doll had melted +to a pulp. And the biggest and prettiest of them, a lovely blonde +creature with a shapely-jointed body and a bisque head, covered with +golden curls, looked hopelessly bedraggled. + +“Oh, Betsy Hale!” Dicky said. “You naughty, naughty girl! How could +you drown your own children like that?” + +“I were divin’ them a baff,” Betsy explained. + +Betsy was a little, round butterball of a girl with great brown eyes +all tangled up in eyelashes and a little pink rosebud of a mouth, +folded over two rows of mice-teeth. She smiled deliciously up into +Maida’s face: + +“I aren’t naughty, is I?” she asked. + +“Naughty? You bunny-duck! Of course you are,” Maida said, giving her +a bear-hug. “I don’t see how anybody can scold her,” she whispered +to Dicky. + +“Scold her! You can’t,” Dicky said disgustedly. “She’s too cute. And +then if you did scold her it wouldn’t do any good. She’s the +naughtiest baby in the neighborhood—although,” he added with pride, +“I think Delia’s going to be pretty nearly as naughty when she gets +big enough. But Betsy Hale—why, the whole street has to keep an eye +on her. Come, pick up your dollies, Betsy,” he wheedled, “they’ll +get cold if you leave them out here.” + +The thought of danger to her darlings produced immediate activity on +Betsy’s part. She gathered the dolls under her cape, hugging them +close. “Her must put her dollies to bed,” she said wisely. + +“Calls herself _her_ half the time,” Dicky explained. He gathered up +the dresses and shooing Betsy ahead of him, followed her into the +yard. + +“She’s the greatest child I ever saw,” he said, rejoining Maida a +little later. “The things she thinks of to do! Why, the other day, +Miss Allison—the sister of the blind lady what sits in the window +and knits—the one what owns the parrot—well, Miss Allison painted +one of her old chairs red and put it out in the yard to dry. Then +she washed a whole lot of lace and put that out to dry. Next thing +she knew she looked out and there was Betsy washing all the red +paint off the chair with the lace. You’d have thought that would +have been enough for one day, wouldn’t you? Well, that afternoon she +turned the hose on Mr. Flanagan—that’s the policeman on the beat.” + +“What did he say?” Maida asked in alarm. She had a vague imaginary +picture of Betsy being dragged to the station-house. + +“Roared! But then Mr. Flanagan thinks Betsy’s all right. Always +calls her ’sophy Sparkles.’ Betsy runs away about twice a week. Mr. +Flanagan’s always finding her and lugging her home. I guess every +policeman in Charlestown knows her by this time. There, look at her +now! Did you ever see such a kid?” + +Betsy had come out of the yard again. She was carrying a huge +feather duster over her head as if it were a parasol. + +“The darling!” Maida said joyously. “I hope she’ll do something +naughty every day.” + +“Queer how you love a naughty child,” Dick said musingly. “They’re +an awful lot of trouble but you can’t help liking them. Has Tim +Doyle fallen into the puddle yet?” + +“Yes, just a little while ago.” + +“He’s always falling in mud puddles. I guess if Molly fishes him out +once after a rain, she does a half a dozen times.” + +“Do come and see me, Dicky, won’t you?” Maida asked when they got to +the shop door. “You know I shall be lonely when all the children are +in school and—then besides—you’re the first friend I’ve made.” + +At the word _friend_, Dicky’s beautiful smile shone bright. “Sure, +I’ll come,” he said heartily. “I’ll come often.” + +“Granny,” Maida exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen, “wait until +you hear about Betsy Hale.” She told the whole story. “Was I ever a +naughty little girl?” she concluded. + +“Naughty? Glory be, and what’s ailing you? ’Twas the best choild +this side of Heaven that you was. Always so sick and yet niver a +cross wurrud out of you.” + +A shadow fell over Maida’s face. “Oh, dear, dear,” she grieved. “I +wish I had been a naughty child—people love naughty children so. Are +you quite sure I was always good, Granny?” + +“Why, me blessid lamb, ’twas too sick that you was to be naughty. +You cud hardly lift one little hand from the bed.” + +“But, Granny, dear,” Maida persisted, “can’t you think of one +single, naughty thing I did? I’m sure you can if you try hard.” + +Maida’s face was touched with a kind of sad wistfulness. Granny +looked down at her, considerably puzzled. Then a light seemed to +break in her mind. It shone through her blue eyes and twinkled in +her smile. + +“Sure and Oi moind wance when Oi was joost afther giving you some +medicine and you was that mad for having to take the stuff that you +sat oop in bed and knocked iv’ry bottle off the table. Iv’ry wan! +Sure, we picked oop glass for a wake afther.” + +Maida’s wistful look vanished in a peal of silvery laughter. “Did I +really, Granny?” she asked in delight. “Did I break every bottle? +Are you sure? Every one?” + +“Iv’ry wan as sure as OI’m a living sinner,” said Granny. “Faith and +’twas the bad little gyurl that you was often—now that I sthop to +t’ink av ut.” + +Maida bounded back to the shop in high spirits. Granny heard her say +“Every bottle!” again and again in a whispering little voice. + +“Just think, Granny,” she called after a while. “I’ve made one, two, +three, four, five friends—Dicky, Molly, Tim, Betsy and Laura—though +I don’t call her quite a friend yet. Pretty good for so soon!” + +Maida was to make a sixth friend, although not quite so quickly. + +It began that noontime with a strange little scene that acted itself +out in front of Maida’s window. The children had begun to gather for +school, although it was still very quiet. Suddenly around the corner +came a wild hullaballoo—the shouts of small boys, the yelp of a dog, +the rattle and clang of tin dragged on the brick sidewalk. In +another instant appeared a dog, a small, yellow cur, collarless and +forlorn-looking, with a string of tin cans tied to his tail, a horde +of small boys yelling after him and pelting him with stones. + +Maida started up, but before she could get to the door, something +flashed like a scarlet comet from across the street. It was the +little girl whom Maida had seen twice before—the one who always wore +the scarlet cape. + +Even in the excitement, Maida noticed how handsome she was. She +seemed proud. She carried her slender, erect little body as if she +were a princess and her big eyes cast flashing glances about her. +Jet-black were her eyes and hair, milk-white were her teeth but in +the olive of her cheeks flamed a red such as could be matched only +in the deepest roses. Maida christened her Rose-Red at once. + +Rose-Red lifted the little dog into her arms with a single swoop of +her strong arm. She yanked the cans from its tail with a single +indignant jerk. Fondling the trembling creature against her cheek, +she talked first to him, then to his abashed persecutors. + +“You sweet, little, darling puppy, you! Did they tie the wicked cans +to his poor little tail!” and then—“if ever I catch one of you boys +treating a poor, helpless animal like this again, I’ll shake the +breath out of your body—was he the beautifullest dog that ever was? +And if that isn’t enough, Arthur Duncan will lick you all, won’t +you, Arthur?” She turned pleadingly to Arthur. + +Arthur nodded. + +“Nobody’s going to hurt helpless creatures while I’m about! He was a +sweet little, precious little, pretty little puppy, so he was.” + +Rose-Red marched into the court with the puppy, opened a gate and +dropped him inside. + +“That pup belongs to me, now,” she said marching back. + +The school bell ringing at this moment ended the scene. + +“Who’s that little girl who wears the scarlet cape?” Maida asked +Dorothy and Mabel Clark when they came in together at four. + +“Rosie Brine,” they answered in chorus. + +“She’s a dreffle naughty girl,” Mabel said in a whisper, and “My +mommer won’t let me play with her,” Dorothy added. + +“Why not?” Maida asked. + +“She’s a tom-boy,” Mabel informed her. + +“What’s a tom-boy?” Maida asked Billy that night at dinner. + +“A tom-boy?” Billy repeated. “Why, a tom-boy is a girl who acts like +a boy.” + +“How can a girl be a boy?” Maida queried after a few moments of +thought. “Why don’t they call her a tom-girl?” + +“Why, indeed?” Billy answered, taking up the dictionary. + +Certainly Rosie Brine acted like a boy—Maida proved that to herself +in the next few days when she watched Rose-Red again and again. But +if she were a tom-boy, she was also, Maida decided, the most +beautiful and the most wonderful little girl in the world. And, +indeed, Rosie was so full of energy that it seemed to spurt out in +the continual sparkle of her face and the continual movement of her +body. She never walked. She always crossed the street in a series of +flying jumps. She never went through a gate if she could go over the +fence, never climbed the fence if she could vault it. The scarlet +cape was always flashing up trees, over sheds, sometimes to the very +roofs of the houses. Her principal diversion seemed to be climbing +lamp-posts. Maida watched this proceeding with envy. One athletic +leap and Rose-Red was clasping the iron column half-way up—a few +more and she was swinging from the bars under the lantern. But she +was accomplished in other ways. She could spin tops, play “cat” and +“shinney” as well as any of the boys. And as for jumping rope—if two +little girls would swing for her, Rosie could actually waltz in the +rope. + +The strangest thing about Rosie was that she did not always go to +school like the other children. The incident of the dog happened on +Thursday. Friday morning, when the children filed into the +schoolhouse, Rosie did not follow them. Instead, she hid herself in +a doorway until after the bell rang. A little later she sneaked out +of her hiding place, joined Arthur Duncan at the corner, and +disappeared into the distance. Just before twelve they both came +back. For a few moments, they kept well concealed on a side street, +out of sight of Primrose Court. But, at intervals, Rosie or Arthur +would dart out to a spot where, without being seen, they could get a +glimpse of the church clock. When the children came out of school at +twelve, they joined the crowd and sauntered home. + +Monday morning Maida saw them repeat these maneuvers. She was +completely mystified by them and yet she had an uncomfortable +feeling. They were so stealthy that she could not help guessing that +something underhand was going on. + +“Do you know Rosie Brine?” Maida asked Dicky Dore one evening when +they were reading together. + +“Sure!” Dicky’s face lighted up. “Isn’t she a peach?” + +“They say she is a tom-boy,” Maida objected. “Is she?” + +“Surest thing you know,” Dicky said cheerfully. “She won’t take a +dare. You ought to see her playing stumps. There’s nothing a boy can +do that she won’t do. And have you noticed how she can spin a +top—the best I ever saw for a girl.” + +Then boys liked girls to be tom-boys. This was a great surprise. + +“How does it happen that she doesn’t go to school often?” + +Dicky grinned. “Hooking jack!” + +“Hooking jack?” Maida repeated in a puzzled tone. + +“Hooking jack—playing hookey—playing truant.” Dicky watched Maida’s +face but her expression was still puzzled. “Pretending to go to +school and not going,” he said at last. + +“Oh,” Maida said. “I understand now.” + +“She just hates school,” Dicky went on. “They can’t make her go. Old +Stoopendale, the truant officer, is always after her. Little she +cares for old Stoopy though. She gets fierce beatings for it at +home, too. Funny thing about Rosie—she won’t tell a lie. And when +her mother asks her about it, she always tells the truth. Sometimes +her mother will go to the schoolhouse door with her every morning +and afternoon for a week. But the moment she stops, Rosie begins to +hook jack again.” + +“Mercy me!” Maida said. In all her short life she had never heard +anything like this. She was convinced that Rosie Brine was a very +naughty little girl. And yet, underneath this conviction, burned an +ardent admiration for her. + +“She must be very brave,” she said soberly. + +“Brave! Well, I guess you’d think so! Arthur Duncan says she’s +braver than a lot of boys he knows. Arthur and she hook jack +together sometimes. And, oh cracky, don’t they have the good times! +They go down to the Navy Yard and over to the Monument Grounds. +Sometimes they go over to Boston Common and the Public Garden. Once +they walked all the way to Franklin Park. And in the summer they +often walk down to Crescent Beach. They say when I get well, I can +go with them.” + +Dicky spoke in the wistful tone with which he always related the +deeds of stronger children. Maida knew exactly how he felt—she had +been torn by the same hopes and despairs. + +“Oh, wouldn’t it be grand to be able to do just anything?” she said. +“I’m just beginning to feel as if I could do some of the things I’ve +always wanted to do.” + +“I’m going to do them all, sometime,” Dicky prophesied. “Doc O’Brien +says so.” + +“I think Rosie the beautifullest little girl,” Maida said. “I wish +she’d come into the shop so that I could get acquainted with her.” + +“Oh, she’ll come in sometime. You see the W.M.N.T. is meeting now +and we’re all pretty busy. She’s the only girl in it.” + +“The W.M.N.T.,” Maida repeated. “What does that mean?” + +“I can’t tell?” Dicky said regretfully. “It’s the name of our club. +Rosie and Arthur and I are the only ones who belong.” + +After that talk, Maida watched Rosie Brine closer than ever. If she +caught a glimpse of the scarlet cape in the distance, it was hard to +go on working. She noticed that Rosie seemed very fond of all +helpless things. She was always wheeling out the babies in the +neighborhood, always feeding the doves and carrying her kitten about +on her shoulder, always winning the hearts of other people’s dogs +and then trying to induce them not to follow her. + +“It seems strange that she never comes into the shop,” Maida said +mournfully to Dicky one day. + +“You see she never has any money to spend,” Dicky explained. “That’s +the way her mother punishes her. But sometimes she earns it on the +sly taking care of babies. She loves babies and babies always love +her. Delia’ll go to her from my mother any time and as for Betsy +Hale—Rosie’s the only one who can do anything with her.” + +But a whole week passed. And then one day, to Maida’s great delight, +the tinkle of the bell preceded the entrance of Rose-Red. + +“Let me look at your tops, please,” Rosie said, marching to the +counter with the usual proud swing of her body. + +Seen closer, she was even prettier than at a distance. Her smooth +olive skin glistened like satin. Her lips showed roses even more +brilliant than those that bloomed in her cheeks. A frown between her +eyebrows gave her face almost a sullen look. But to offset this, her +white teeth turned her smile into a flash of light. Maida lifted all +the tops from the window and placed them on the counter. + +“Mind if I try them?” Rosie asked. + +“Oh, do.” + +Rosie wound one of them with an expert hand. Then with a quick dash +forward of her whole arm, she threw the top to the floor. It danced +there, humming like a whole hiveful of bees. + +“Oh, how lovely!” Maida exclaimed. Then in fervent admiration: “What +a wonderful girl you are!” + +Rosie smiled. “Easy as pie if you know how. Want to learn?” + +“Oh, will you teach me?” + +“Sure! Begin now.” + +Maida limped from behind the counter. Rosie watched her. Rosie’s +face softened with the same pity that had shone on the frightened +little dog. + +“She’s sorry for me,” Maida thought. “How sweet she looks!” + +But Rosie said nothing about Maida’s limp. She explained the process +of top-spinning from end to end, step by step, making Maida copy +everything that she did. At first Maida was too eager—her hands +actually trembled. But gradually she gained in confidence. At last +she succeeded in making one top spin feebly. + +“Now you’ve got the hang of it,” Rosie encouraged her, “You’ll soon +learn. All you want to do is to practice. I’ll come to-morrow and +see how you’re getting on.” + +“Oh, do,” Maida begged, “and come to see me in the evening sometime. +Come this evening if your mother’ll let you.” + +Rosie laughed scornfully. “I guess nobody’s got anything to say +about _letting me_, if I make up my mind to come. Well, goodbye!” + +She whirled out of the shop and soon the scarlet cape was a +brilliant spot in the distance. + +But about seven that evening the bell rang. When Maida opened the +door there stood Rosie. + +“Oh, Rosie,” Maida said joyfully, throwing her arms about her guest, +“how glad I am to see you!” She hurried her into the living-room +where Billy Potter was talking with Granny. “This is Rosie Brine, +Billy,” she said, her voice full of pride in her new friend. “And +this is Billy Potter, Rosie.” + +Billy shook hands gravely with the little girl. And Rosie looked at +him in open wonder. Maida knew exactly what she was thinking. Rosie +was trying to make up her mind whether he was a boy or a man. The +problem seemed to grow more perplexing as the evening went on. For +part of the time Billy played with them, sitting on the floor like a +boy, and part of the time he talked with Granny, sitting in a chair +like a man. + +Maida showed Rosie her books, her Venetian beads, all her cherished +possessions. Rosie liked the canaries better than anything. “Just +think of having six!” she said. Then, sitting upstairs in Maida’s +bedroom, the two little girls had a long confidential talk. + +“I’ve been just crazy to know you, Maida,” Rosie confessed. “But +there was no way of getting acquainted, for you always stayed in the +store. I had to wait until I could tease mother to buy me a top.” + +“That’s funny,” Maida said, “for I was just wild to know you. I kept +hoping that you’d come in. I hope you’ll come often, Rosie, for I +don’t know any other little girl of my own age.” + +“You know Laura Lathrop, don’t you?” Rosie asked with a sideways +look. + +“Yes, but I don’t like her.” + +“Nobody likes her,” Rosie said. “She’s too much of a smarty-cat. She +loves to get people over there and then show off before them. And +then she puts on so many airs. I won’t have anything to do with +her.” + +From the open window came the shrill scream of Miss Allison’s +parrot. “What do you think of that?” it called over and over again. + +“Isn’t that a clever bird?” Rosie asked admiringly. “His name is +Tony. I have lots of fun with him. Did you ever see a parrot that +could talk, before?” + +“Oh, yes, we have several at Pride’s.” + +“Pride’s?” + +“Pride’s Crossing. That’s where we go summers.” + +“And what do your parrots say?” + +“One talked in French. He used to say ‘Taisez-vous’ so much that +sometimes we would have to put a cover over the cage to stop him.” + +“And did you have other animals besides parrots?” Rosie asked. “I +love animals.” + +“Oh, yes, we had horses and dogs and cats and rabbits and dancing +mice and marmosets and macaws and parokets and—I guess I’ve +forgotten some of them. But if you like animals, you ought to go to +our place in the Adirondacks—there are deer preserves there and +pheasants and peacocks.” + +“Who do they belong to?” + +“My father.” + +Rosie considered this. “Does he keep a bird-place?” she asked in a +puzzled tone. + +“No.” Maida’s tone was a little puzzled too. She did not know what a +bird-place was. + +“Well, did he sell them?” + +“I don’t think he ever sold any. He gave a great many away, though.” + +When Rosie went home, Maida walked as far as her gate with her. + +“Want to know a secret, Maida?” Rosie asked suddenly, her eyes +dancing with mischief. + +“Oh, yes. I love secrets.” + +“Cross your throat then.” + +Maida did not know how to cross her throat but Rosie taught her. + +“Well, then,” Rosie whispered, “my mother doesn’t know that I went +to your house. She sent me to bed for being naughty. And I got up +and dressed and climbed out my window on to the shed without anybody +knowing it. She’ll never know the difference.” + +“Oh, Rosie,” Maida said in a horrified tone, “Please never do it +again.” In spite of herself, Maida’s eyes twinkled. + +But Rosie only laughed. Maida watched her steal into her yard, +watched her climb over the shed, watched her disappear through the +window. + +But she grieved over the matter as she walked home. Perhaps it was +because she was thinking so deeply that she did not notice how quiet +they all were in the living-room. But as she crossed the threshold, +a pair of arms seized her and swung her into the air. + +“Oh, papa, papa,” she whispered, cuddling her face against his, “how +glad I am to see you.” + +He marched with her over to the light. + +“Well, little shop-keeper,” he said after a long pause in which he +studied her keenly, “you’re beginning to look like a real live +girl.” He dropped her gently to her feet. “Now show me your shop.” + + + + + + CHAPTER V: PRIMROSE COURT + + +But during that first two weeks a continual rush of business made +long days for Maida. All the children in the neighborhood were +curious to see the place. It had been dark and dingy as long as they +could remember. Now it was always bright and pretty—always sweet +with the perfume of flowers, always gay with the music of birds. But +more, the children wanted to see the lame little girl who “tended +store,” who seemed to try so hard to please her customers and who +was so affectionate and respectful with the old, old lady whom she +called “Granny.” + +At noon and night the bell sounded a continuous tinkle. + +For a week Maida kept rather close to the shop. She wanted to get +acquainted with all her customers. Moreover, she wanted to find out +which of the things she had bought sold quickly and which were +unpopular. + +After a day or two her life fell into a regular programme. + +Early in the morning she would put the shop to rights for the day’s +sale, dusting, replacing the things she had sold, rearranging them +often according to some pretty new scheme. + +About eight o’clock the bell would call her into the shop and it +would be brisk work until nine. Then would come a rest of three +hours, broken only by an occasional customer. In this interval she +often worked in the yard, raking up the leaves that fell from vine +and bush, picking the bravely-blooming dahlias, gathering sprays of +woodbine for the vases, scattering crumbs to the birds. + +At twelve the children would begin to flood the shop again and Maida +would be on her feet constantly until two. Between two and four came +another long rest. After school trade started up again. Often it +lasted until six, when she locked the door for the night. + +In her leisure moments she used to watch the people coming and going +in Primrose Court. With Rosie’s and Dicky’s help, she soon knew +everybody by name. She discovered by degrees that on the right side +of the court lived the Hales, the Clarks, the Doyles and the Dores; +on the left side, the Duncans, the Brines and the Allisons. In the +big house at the back lived the Lathrops. + +Betsy was a great delight to Maida, for the neighborhood brimmed +with stories of her mischief. She had buried her best doll in the +ash-barrel, thrown her mother’s pocketbook down the cesspool, put +all the clean laundry into a tub of water and painted the parlor +fireplace with tomato catsup. In a single afternoon, having become +secretly possessed of a pair of scissors, she cut all the fringe off +the parlor furniture, cut great scallops in the parlor curtains, cut +great patches of fur off the cat’s back. When her mother found her, +she was busy cutting her own hair. + +Often Granny would hear the door slam on Maida’s hurried rush from +the shop. Hobbling to the window, she would see the child leading +Betsy by the hand. “Running away again,” was all Maida would say. +Occasionally Maida would call in a vexed tone, “Now _how_ did she +creep past the window without my seeing her?” And outside would be +rosy-cheeked, brass-buttoned Mr. Flanagan, carrying Betsy home. Once +Billy arrived at the shop, bearing Betsy in his arms. “She was +almost to the bridge,” he said, “when I caught sight of her from the +car window. The little tramp!” + +Betsy never seemed to mind being caught. For an instant the little +rosebud that was her mouth would part over the tiny pearls that were +her teeth. This roguish smile seemed to say: “You wait until the +next time. You won’t catch me then.” + +Sometimes Betsy would come into the shop for an hour’s play. Maida +loved to have her there but it was like entertaining a whirlwind. +Betsy had a strong curiosity to see what the drawers and boxes +contained. Everything had to be put back in its place when she left. + +Next to the Hales lived the Clarks. By the end of the first week +Maida was the chief adoration of the Clark twins. Dorothy and Mabel +were just as good as Betsy was naughty. When they came over to see +Maida, they played quietly with whatever she chose to give them. It +was an hour, ordinarily, before they could be made to talk above a +whisper. If they saw Maida coming into the court, they would run to +her side, slipping a hot little hand into each of hers. Attended +always by this roly-poly bodyguard, Maida would limp from group to +group of the playing children. Nobody in Primrose Court could tell +the Clark twins apart. Maida soon learned the difference although +she could never explain it to anybody else. “It’s something you have +to feel,” she said. + +Billy Potter enjoyed the twins as much as Maida did. “Good morning, +Dorothy-Mabel,” he always said when he met one of them; “is this you +or your sister?” And he always answered their whispered remarks with +whispers so much softer than theirs that he finally succeeded in +forcing them to raise their shy little voices. + +The Doyles and the Dores lived in one house next to the Clarks, +Molly and Tim on the first floor, Dicky and Delia above. Maida +became very fond of the Doyle children. Like Betsy, they were too +young to go to school and she saw a good deal of them in the lonely +school hours. The puddle was an endless source of amusement to them. +As long as it remained, they entertained themselves playing along +its shores. + +“There’s that choild in the water again,” Granny would cry from the +living-room. + +Looking out, Maida would see Tim spread out on all fours. Like an +obstinate little pig, he would lie still until Molly picked him up. +She would take him home and in a few moments he would reappear in +fresh, clean clothes again. + +“Hello, Tim,” Billy Potter would say whenever they met. “Fallen into +a pud-muddle lately?” + +The word _pud-muddle_ always sent Tim off into peals of laughter. It +was the only thing Maida had discovered that could make him laugh, +for he was as serious as Molly was merry. Molly certainly was the +jolliest little girl in the court—Maida had never seen her with +anything but a smiling face. + +Dicky’s mother went to work so early and came back so late that +Maida had never seen her. But Dicky soon became an intimate. Maida +had begun the reading lessons and Dicky was so eager to get on that +they were progressing famously. + +The Lathrops lived in the big house at the back of the court. Granny +learned from the Misses Allison that, formerly, the whole +neighborhood had belonged to the Lathrop family. But they had sold +all their land, piece by piece, except the one big lot on which the +house stood. Perhaps it was because they had once been so important +that Mrs. Lathrop seemed to feel herself a little better than the +rest of the people in Primrose Court. At any rate, although she +spoke with all, the Misses Allison were the only ones on whom she +condescended to call. Maida caught a glimpse of her occasionally on +the piazza—a tall, thin woman, white-haired and sharp-featured, who +always wore a worsted shawl. + +The house was a big, bulky building, a mass of piazzas and +bay-windows, with a hexagonal cupola on the top. It was painted white +with green blinds and trimmed with a great deal of wooden lace. The +wide lawn was well-kept and plots of flowers, here and there, gave +it a gay air. + +Laura had a brother named Harold, who was short and fat. Harold +seemed to do nothing all day long but ride a wheel at a tearing pace +over the asphalt paths, and regularly, for two hours every morning, +to draw a shrieking bow across a tortured violin. + +The more Maida watched Laura the less she liked her. She could see +that what Rosie said was perfectly true—Laura put on airs. Every +afternoon Laura played on the lawn. Her appearance was the signal +for all the small fry of the neighborhood to gather about the gate. +First would come the Doyles, then Betsy, then, one by one, the +strange children who wandered into the court, until there would be a +row of wistful little faces stuck between the bars of the fence. +They would follow every move that Laura made as she played with the +toys spread in profusion upon the grass. + +Laura often pretended not to see them. She would lift her large +family of dolls, one after another, from cradle to bed and from bed +to tiny chair and sofa. She would parade up and down the walk, using +first one doll-carriage, then the other. She would even play a game +of croquet against herself. Occasionally she would call in a +condescending tone, “You may come in for awhile if you wish, little +children.” And when the delighted little throng had scampered to her +side, she would show them all her toy treasures on condition that +they did not touch them. + +When the proceedings reached this stage, Maida would be so angry +that she could look no longer. Very often, after Laura had sent the +children away, Maida would call them into the shop. She would let +them play all the rest of the afternoon with anything her stock +afforded. + +On the right side of the court lived Arthur Duncan, the Misses +Allison and Rosie Brine. The more Maida saw of Arthur, the more she +disliked him. In fact, she hated to have him come into the shop. It +seemed to her that he went out of his way to be impolite to her, +that he looked at her with a decided expression of contempt in his +big dark eyes. But Rosie and Dicky seemed very fond of him. Billy +Potter had once told her that one good way of judging people was by +the friends they made. If that were true, she had to acknowledge +that there must be something fine about Arthur that she had not +discovered. + +Maida guessed that the W.M.N.T.’s met three or four times a week. +Certainly there were very busy doings at Dicky’s or at Arthur’s +house every other day. What it was all about, Maida did not know. +But she fancied that it had much to do with Dicky’s frequent +purchases of colored tissue paper. + +The Misses Allison had become great friends with Granny. Matilda, +the blind sister, was very slender and sweet-faced. She sat all day +in the window, crocheting the beautiful, fleecy shawls by which she +helped support the household. + +Jemima, the older, short, fat and with snapping black eyes, did the +housework, attended to the parrot and waited by inches on her +afflicted sister. Occasionally in the evening they would come to +call on Granny. Billy Potter was very nice to them both. He was +always telling the sisters the long amusing stories of his +adventures. Miss Matilda’s gentle face used positively to beam at +these times, and Miss Jemima laughed so hard that, according to her +own story, his talk put her “in stitches.” + +Maida did not see Rosie’s mother often. To tell the truth, she was a +little afraid of her. She was a tall, handsome, black-browed woman—a +grown-up Rosie—with an appearance of great strength and of even +greater temper. “Ah, that choild’s the limb,” Granny would say, when +Maida brought her some new tale of Rosie’s disobedience. And yet, in +the curious way in which Maida divined things that were not told +her, she knew that, next to Dicky, Rosie was Granny’s favorite of +all the children in the neighborhood. + +With all these little people to act upon its stage, it is not +surprising that Primrose Court seemed to Maida to be a little +theater of fun—a stage to which her window was the royal box. +Something was going on there from morning to night. Here would be a +little group of little girls playing “house” with numerous families +of dolls. There, it would be boys, gathered in an excited ring, +playing marbles or top. Just before school, games like leap-frog, or +tag or prisoners’ base would prevail. But, later, when there was +more time, hoist-the-sail would fill the air with its strange cries, +or hide-and-seek would make the place boil with excitement. Maida +used to watch these games wistfully, for Granny had decided that +they were all too rough for her. She would not even let Maida play +“London-Bridge-is-falling-down” or “drop the handkerchief”—anything, +in fact, in which she would have to run or pull. + +But Granny had no objections to the gentler fun of “Miss +Jennie-I-Jones,” “ring-a-ring-a-rounder,” “water, water wildflower,” +“the farmer in the dell,” “go in and out the windows.” Maida used to +try to pick out the airs of these games on the spinet—she never could +decide which was the sweetest. + +Maida soon learned how to play jackstones and, at the end of the +second week, she was almost as proficient as Rosie with the top. The +thing she most wanted to learn, however, was jump-rope. Every little +girl in Primrose Court could jump-rope—even the twins, who were +especially nimble at “pepper.” Maida tried it one night—all alone in +the shop. But suddenly her weak leg gave way under her and she fell +to the floor. Granny, rushing in from the other room, scolded her +violently. She ended by forbidding her to jump again without special +permission. But Maida made up her mind that she was going to learn +sometime, even, as she said with a roguish smile, “if it took a +leg.” She talked it over with Rosie. + +“You let her jump just one jump every morning and night, Granny,” +Rosie advised, “and I’m sure it will be all right. That won’t hurt +her any and, after awhile, she’ll find she can jump two, then three +and so on. That’s the way I learned.” + +Granny agreed to this. Maida practiced constantly, one jump in her +nightgown, just before going to bed, and another, all dressed, just +after she got up. + +“I jumped three jumps this morning without failing, Granny,” she +said one morning at breakfast. Within a few days the record climbed +to five, then to seven, then, at a leap, to ten. + +Dr. Pierce called early one morning. His eyes opened wide when they +fell upon her. “Well, well, Pinkwink,” he said. “What do you mean by +bringing me way over here! I thought you were supposed to be a sick +young person. Where’d you get that color?” + +A flush like that of a pink sweet-pea blossom had begun to show in +Maida’s cheek. It was faint but it was permanent. + +“Why, you’re the worst fraud on my list. If you keep on like this, +young woman, I shan’t have any excuse for calling. You’ve done fine, +Granny.” + +Granny looked, as Dr. Pierce afterwards said, “as tickled as Punch.” + +“How do you like shop-keeping?” Dr. Pierce went on. + +“Like it!” Maida plunged into praise so swift and enthusiastic that +Dr. Pierce told her to go more slowly or he would put a bit in her +mouth. But he listened attentively. “Well, I see you’re not tired of +it,” he commented. + +“Tired!” Maida’s indignation was so intense that Dr. Pierce shook +until every curl bobbed. + +“And I get so hungry,” she went on. “You see I have to wait until +two o’clock sometimes before I can get my lunch, because from twelve +to two are my busy hours. Those days it seems as if the school bell +would never ring.” + +“Sure, tis a foine little pig OI’m growing now,” Granny said. + +“And as for sleeping—” Maida stopped as if there were no words +anywhere to describe her condition. + +Granny finished it for her. “The choild sleeps like a top.” + +Billy Potter came at least every day and sometimes oftener. Every +child in Primrose Court knew him by the end of the first week and +every child loved him by the end of the second. And they all called +him Billy. He would not let them call him Mr. Potter or even Uncle +Billy because, he said, he was a child when he was with them and he +wanted to be treated like a child. He played all their games with a +skill that they thought no mere grown-up could possess. Like Rosie, +he seemed to be bubbling over with life and spirits. He was always +running, leaping, jumping, climbing, turning cartwheels and +somersaults, vaulting fences and “chinning” himself unexpectedly +whenever he came to a doorway. + +“Oh, Masther Billy, ’tis the choild that you are!” Granny would say, +twinkling. + +“Yes, ma’am,” Billy would answer. + +At the end of the first fortnight, the neighborhood had accepted +Granny and Maida as the mother-in-law and daughter of a “traveling +man.” From the beginning Granny had seemed one of them, but Maida +was a puzzle. The children could not understand how a little girl +could be grown-up and babyish at the same time. And if you stop to +think it over, perhaps you can understand how they felt. + +Here was a child who had never played, +“London-Bridge-is-falling-down” or jackstones or jump-rope or +hop-scotch. Yet she talked familiarly of automobiles, yachts and horses. +She knew nothing about geography and yet, her conversation was full of +such phrases as “The spring we were in Paris” or “The winter we spent +in Rome.” She knew nothing about nouns and verbs but she talked Italian +fluently with the hand-organ man who came every week and many of her books +were in French. She knew nothing about fractions or decimals, yet she +referred familiarly to “drawing checks,” to gold eagles and to Wall +Street. Her writing was so bad that the children made fun of it, yet +she could spin off a letter of eight pages in a flash. And she told +the most wonderful fairy-tales that had ever been heard in Primrose +Court. + +Because of all these things the children had a kind of contempt for +her mingled with a curious awe. + +She was so polite with grown people that it was fairly embarrassing. +She always arose from her chair when they entered the room, always +picked up the things they dropped and never interrupted. And yet she +could carry on a long conversation with them. She never said, “Yes, +ma’am,” or “No, ma’am.” Instead, she said, “Yes, Mrs. Brine,” or +“No, Miss Allison,” and she looked whomever she was talking with +straight in the eye. + +She would play with the little children as willingly as with the +bigger ones. Often when the older girls and boys were in school, she +would bring out a lapful of toys and spend the whole morning with +the little ones. When Granny called her, she would give all the toys +away, dividing them with a careful justice. And, yet, whenever +children bought things of her in the shop, she always expected them +to pay the whole price. You can see how the neighborhood would +fairly buzz with talk about her. + +As for Maida—with all this newness of friend-making and out-of-doors +games, it is not to be wondered that her head was a jumble at the +end of each day. In that delicious, dozy interval before she fell +asleep at night, all kinds of pretty pictures seemed to paint +themselves on her eyelids. + +Now it was Rose-Red swaying like a great overgrown scarlet flower +from the bars of a lamp-post. Now it was Dicky hoisting himself +along on his crutches, his face alight with his radiant smile. Now +it was a line of laughing, rosy-cheeked children, as long as the +tail of a kite, pelting to goal at the magic cry “Liberty poles are +bending!” Or it was a group of little girls, setting out rows and +rows of bright-colored paper-dolls among the shadows of one of the +deep old doorways. But always in a few moments came the sweetest +kind of sleep. And always through her dreams flowed the plaintive +music of “Go in and out the windows.” Often she seemed to wake in +the morning to the Clarion cry, “Hoist the sail!” + +It did not seem to Maida that the days were long enough to do all +the things she wanted to do. + + + + + + CHAPTER VI: TWO CALLS + + +One morning, Laura Lathrop came bustling importantly into the shop. +“Good morning, Maida,” she said; “you may come over to my house this +afternoon and play with me if you’d like.” + +“Thank you, Laura,” Maida answered. To anybody else, she would have +added, “I shall be delighted to come.” But to Laura, she only said, +“It is kind of you to ask me.” + +“From about two until four,” Laura went on in her most superior +tone. “I suppose you can’t get off for much longer than that.” + +“Granny is always willing to wait on customers if I want to play,” +Maida explained, “but I think she would not want me to stay longer +than that, anyway.” + +“Very well, then. Shall we say at two?” Laura said this with a very +grown-up air. Maida knew that she was imitating her mother. + +Laura had scarcely left when Dicky appeared, swinging between his +crutches. “Maida,” he said, “I want you to come over to-morrow +afternoon and see my place. You’ve not seen Delia yet and there’s a +whole lot of things I want to show you. I’m going to clean house +to-day so’s I’ll be all ready for you to-morrow.” + +“Oh, thank you,” Maida said. The sparkle that always meant delight +came into her face. “I shall be delighted. I’ve always wanted to go +over and see you ever since I first knew you. But Granny said to +wait until you invited me. And I really have never seen Delia except +when Rosie’s had her in the carriage. And then she’s always been +asleep.” + +“You have to see Delia in the house to know what a naughty baby she +is,” Dicky said. He spoke as if that were the finest tribute that he +could pay his little sister. + +“Granny,” Maida said that noon at lunch, “Laura Lathrop came here +and invited me to come to see her this afternoon and I just hate the +thought of going—I don’t know why. Then Dicky came and invited me to +come and see him to-morrow afternoon and I just love the thought of +going. Isn’t it strange?” + +“Very,” Granny said, smiling. “But you be sure to be a noice choild +this afternoon, no matter what that wan says to you.” + +Granny always referred to Laura as “that wan.” + +“Oh, yes, I’ll be good, Granny. Isn’t it funny,” Maida went on. The +tone of her voice showed that she was thinking hard. “Laura makes me +mad—oh, just hopping mad,”—“hopping mad” was one of Rosie’s +expressions—“and yet it seems to me I’d die before I’d let her know +it.” + +Laura was waiting for her on the piazza when Maida presented herself +at the Lathrop door. “Won’t you come in and take your things off, +first?” she said. “I thought we’d play in the house for awhile.” + +She took Maida immediately upstairs to her bedroom—a large room all +furnished in blue—blue paper, blue bureau scarf covered with lace, +blue bed-spread covered with lace, a big, round, blue roller where +the pillows should be. + +“How do you like my room, Maida?” + +“It’s very pretty.” + +“This is my toilet-set.” Laura pointed to the glittering articles on +the bureau. “Papa’s given them to me, one piece at a time. It’s all +of silver and every thing has my initials on it. What is your set +of?” + +Laura paused before she asked this last question and darted one of +her sideways looks at Maida. “She thinks I haven’t any toilet-set +and she wants to make me say so,” Maida thought. “Ivory,” she said +aloud. + +“Ivory! I shouldn’t think that would be very pretty.” + +Laura opened her bureau drawers, one at a time, and showed Maida the +pretty clothes packed in neat piles there. She opened the large +closet and displayed elaborately-made frocks, suspended on hangers. +And all the time, with little sharp, sideways glances, she was +studying the effect on Maida. But Maida’s face betrayed none of the +wonder and envy that Laura evidently expected. Maida was very polite +but it was evident that she was not much interested. + +Next they went upstairs to a big playroom which covered the whole +top of the house. Shelves covered with books and toys lined the +walls. A fire, burning in the big fireplace, made it very cheerful. + +“Oh, what a darling doll-house,” Maida exclaimed, pausing before the +miniature mansion, very elegantly furnished. + +“Oh, do you like it?” Laura beamed with pride. + +“I just love it! Particularly because it’s so little.” + +“Little!” Laura bristled. “I don’t think it’s so very little. It’s +the biggest doll-house I ever saw. Did you ever see a bigger one?” + +Maida looked embarrassed. “Only one.” + +“Whose was it?” + +“It was the one my father had built for me at Pride’s. It was too +big to be a doll’s house. It was really a small cottage. There were +four rooms—two upstairs and two downstairs and a staircase that you +could really walk up. But I don’t like it half so well as this one,” +Maida went on truthfully. “I think it’s very queer but, somehow, the +smaller things are the better I like them. I guess it’s because I’ve +seen so many big things.” + +Laura looked impressed and puzzled at the same time. “And you really +could walk up the stairs? Let’s go up in the cupola,” she suggested, +after an uncertain interval in which she seemed to think of nothing +else to show. + +The stairs at the end of the playroom led into the cupola. Maida +exclaimed with delight over the view which she saw from the windows. +On one side was the river with the draw-bridge, the Navy Yard and +the monument on Bunker Hill. On the other stretched the smoky +expanse of Boston with the golden dome of the state house gleaming +in the midst of a huge, red-brick huddle. + +“Did you have a cupola at Pride’s Crossing?” Laura asked +triumphantly. + +“Oh, no—how I wish I had!” + +Laura beamed again. + +“Laura likes to have things other people haven’t,” Maida thought. + +Her hostess now conducted her back over the two flights of stairs to +the lower floor. They went into the dining-room, which was all +shining oak and glittering cut-glass; into the parlor, which was +filled with gold furniture, puffily upholstered in blue brocade; +into the libraries, which Maida liked best of all, because there +were so many books and— + +“Oh, oh, oh!” she exclaimed, stopping before one of the pictures; +“that’s Santa Maria in Cosmedin. I haven’t seen that since I left +Rome.” + +“How long did you stay in Rome, little girl?” a voice asked back of +her. Maida turned. Mrs. Lathrop had come into the room. + +Maida arose immediately from her chair. “We stayed in Rome two +months,” she said. + +“Indeed. And where else did you go?” + +“London, Paris, Florence and Venice.” + +“Do you know these other pictures?” Mrs. Lathrop asked. “I’ve been +collecting photographs of Italian churches.” + +Maida went about identifying the places with little cries of joy. +“Ara Coeli—I saw in there the little wooden bambino who cures sick +people. It’s so covered with bracelets and rings and lockets and +pins and chains that grateful people have given it that it looks as +if it were dressed in jewels. The bambino’s such a darling little +thing with such a sweet look in its face. That’s St. Agnes outside +the wall—I saw two dear little baby lambs blessed on the altar there +on St. Agnes’s day. One was all covered with red garlands and the +other with green. Oh, they were such sweethearts! They were going to +use the fleece to make some garment for the pope. That’s Santa Maria +della Salute—they call it Santa Maria della _Volute_ instead of +_Salute_ because it’s all covered with volutes.” Maida smiled +sunnily into Mrs. Lathrop’s face as if expecting sympathy with this +architectural joke. + +But Mrs. Lathrop did not smile. She looked a little staggered. She +studied Maida for a long time out of her shrewd, light eyes. + +“Whose family did you travel with?” she asked at last. + +Maida felt a little embarrassed. If Mrs. Lathrop asked her certain +questions, it would place her in a very uncomfortable position. On +the one hand, Maida could not tell a lie. On the other, her father +had told her to tell nobody that she was his daughter. + +“The family of Mr. Jerome Westabrook,” she said at last. + +“Oh!” It was the “oh” of a person who is much impressed. “‘Buffalo’ +Westabrook?” Mrs. Lathrop asked. + +“Yes.” + +“Did your grandmother, Mrs. Flynn, go with you?” + +“Yes.” + +Mrs. Lathrop continued to look very hard at Maida. Her eyes wandered +over the little blue frock—simple but of the best materials—over the +white “tire” of a delicate plaided nainsook, trimmed with +Valenciennes lace, the string of blue Venetian beads, the soft, +carefully-fitted shoes. + +“Mr. Westabrook has a little girl, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Lathrop said. + +Maida felt extremely uncomfortable now. But she looked Mrs. Lathrop +straight in the eye. “Yes,” she answered. + +“About your age?” + +“Yes.” + +“She is an invalid, isn’t she?” + +“She _was_,” Maida said with emphasis. + +Mrs. Lathrop did not ask any more questions. She went presently into +the back library. An old gentleman sat there, reading. + +“That little girl who keeps the store at the corner is in there, +playing with Laura, father,” she said. “I guess her grandmother was +a servant in ‘Buffalo’ Westabrook’s family, for they traveled abroad +a year with the Westabrook family. Evidently, they give her all the +little Westabrook girl’s clothes—she’s dressed quite out of keeping +with her station in life. Curious how refinement rubs off—the child +has really a good deal of manner. I don’t know that I quite like to +have Laura playing with her, though.” + +The two little girls returned after awhile to the playroom. + +“How would you like to have me dance for you?” Laura asked abruptly. +“You know I take fancy dancing.” + +“Oh, Laura,” Maida said delightedly “will you?” + +“Of course I will,” Laura said with her most beaming expression. +“You wait here while I go downstairs and get into my costume. Watch +that door, for I shall make my entrance there.” + +Maida waited what seemed a long time to her. Then suddenly Laura +came whirling into the room. She had put on a little frock of +pale-blue liberty silk that lay, skirt, bodice and tiny sleeves, in +many little pleats—“accordion-pleated,” Laura afterwards described it. +Laura’s neck and arms were bare. She wore blue silk stockings and +little blue-kid slippers, heelless and tied across the ankles with +ribbons. Her hair hung in a crimpy torrent to below her waist. + +“Oh, Laura, how lovely you do look!” Maida said, “I think you’re +perfectly beautiful!” + +Laura smiled. Lifting both arms above her head, she floated about +the room, dancing on the very tips of her toes. Turning and smiling +over her shoulder, she bent and swayed and attitudinized. Maida +could have watched her forever. + +In a few moments she disappeared again. This time she came back in a +red-silk frock with a little bolero jacket of black velvet, hung +with many tinkling coins. Whenever her fingers moved, a little +pretty clapping sound came from them—Maida discovered that she +carried tiny wooden clappers. Whenever her heels came together, a +pretty musical clink came from them—Maida discovered that on her +shoes were tiny metal plates. + +Once again Laura went out. This time, she returned dressed like a +little sailor boy. She danced a gay little hornpipe. + +“I never saw anything so marvelous in my life,” Maida said, her eyes +shining with enjoyment. “Oh, Laura how I wish I could dance like +that. How did you ever learn? Do you practice all the time?” + +“Oh, it’s not so very hard—for me,” Laura returned. “Of course, +everybody couldn’t learn. And I suppose you, being lame, could never +do anything at all.” + +This was the first allusion that had been made in Primrose Court to +Maida’s lameness. Her face shadowed a little. “No, I’m afraid I +couldn’t,” she said regretfully. “But—oh—think what a lovely dancer +Rosie would make.” + +“I’m afraid Rosie’s too rough,” Laura said. She unfolded a little +fan and began fanning herself languidly. “It’s a great bother +sometimes,” she went on in a bored tone of voice. “Everybody is +always asking me to dance at their parties. I danced at a beautiful +May party last year. Did you ever see a May-pole?” + +“Oh, yes,” Maida said. “My birthday comes on May Day and last year +father gave me a party. He had a May-pole set up on the lawn and all +the children danced about it.” + +“My birthday comes in the summer, too. I always have a party on our +place in Marblehead,” Laura said. “I had fifty children at my party +last year. How many did you have?” + +“We sent out over five hundred invitations, I believe. But not quite +four hundred accepted.” + +“Four hundred,” Laura repeated. “Goodness, what could so many +children do?” + +“Oh, there were all sorts of things for them to do,” Maida answered. +“There was archery and diabolo and croquet and fishing-ponds and a +merry-go-round and Punch and Judy on the lawn and a play in my +little theater—I can’t remember everything.” + +Laura’s eyes had grown very big. “Didn’t you have a perfectly +splendiferous time?” she asked. + +“No, not particularly,” Maida said. “Not half such a good time as +I’ve had playing in Primrose Court. I wasn’t very well and then, +somehow, I didn’t care for those children the way I care for Dicky +and Rosie and the court children.” + +“Goodness!” was all Laura could say for a moment. But finally she +added, “I don’t believe that, Maida!” + +Maida stared at her and started to speak. “Oh, there’s the clock +striking four?” was all she said though. “I must go. Thank you for +dancing for me.” + +She flew into her coat and hat. She could not seem to get away quick +enough. Nobody had ever doubted her word before. She could not +exactly explain it to herself but she felt if she talked with Laura +another moment, she would fly out of her skin. + + ---------------------- + +“Mother,” Laura said, after Maida had gone, “Maida Flynn told me +that her father gave her a birthday party last year and invited five +hundred children to it and they had a theater and a Punch and Judy +show and all sorts of things. Do you think it’s true?” + +Mrs. Lathrop set her lips firmly. “No, I think it is probably not +true. I think you’d better not play with the little Flynn girl any +more.” + + ---------------------- + +The next afternoon, Maida went, as she had promised, to see Dicky. + +She could see at a glance that Mrs. Dore was having a hard struggle +to support her little family. In the size and comfort of its +furnishings, the place was the exact opposite of the Lathrop home. +But, somehow, there was a wonderful feeling of home there. + +“Dicky, how do you manage to keep so clean here?” Maida asked in +genuine wonder. + +And indeed, hard work showed everywhere. The oilcloth shone like +glass. The stove was as clean as a newly-polished shoe. The rows of +pans on the wall fairly twinkled. Delicious smells were filling the +air. Maida guessed that Dicky was making one of the Irish stews that +were his specialty. + +“See that little truck over there?” Dicky said. “That helps a lot. +Arthur Duncan made that for me. You see we have to keep our coal in +that closet, way across the room. I used to get awful tired filling +the coal-hod and lugging it over to the stove. But now you see I +fill that truck at the closet, wheel it over to the stove and I +don’t have to think of coal for three days.” + +“Arthur must be a very clever boy,” Maida said thoughtfully. + +“You bet he is. See that tin can in the sink? Well, I wanted a +soap-shaker but couldn’t afford to get one. Arthur took that can and +punched the bottom full of holes. I keep it filled up with all the +odds and ends of soap. When I wash the dishes, I just let the +boiling water from the kettle flow through it. It makes water grand +and soapy. Arthur made me that iron dish-rag and that dish-mop.” + +A sleepy cry came from the corner. Dicky swung across the room. +Balancing himself against the cradle there, he lifted the baby to +the floor. “She can’t walk yet but you watch her go,” he said +proudly. + +Go! The baby crept across the room so fast that Maida had to run to +keep up with her. “Oh, the love!” she said, taking Delia into her +arms. “Think of having a whole baby to yourself.” + +“Can’t leave a thing round where she is,” Dicky said proudly, as if +this were the best thing he could say about her. “Have to put _my_ +work away the moment she wakes up. Isn’t she a buster, though?” + +“I should say she was!” And indeed, the baby was as fat as a little +partridge. Maida wondered how Dicky could lift her. Also Delia was +as healthy-looking as Dicky was sickly. Her cheeks showed a pink +that was almost purple and her head looked like a mop, so thickly +was it overgrown with tangled, red-gold curls. + +“Is she named after your mother?” Maida asked. + +“No—after my grandmother in Ireland. But of course we don’t call her +anything but ‘baby’ yet. My, but she’s a case! If I didn’t watch her +all the time, every pan in this room would be on the floor in a +jiffy. And she tears everything she puts her hands on.” + +“Granny must see her sometime—Granny’s name is Delia.” + +“Hi, stop that!” Dicky called. For Delia had discovered the little +bundle that Maida had placed on a chair, and was busy trying to tear +it open. + +“Let her open it,” Maida said, “I brought it for her.” + +They watched. + +It took a long time, but Delia sat down, giving her whole attention +to it. Finally her busy fingers pulled off so much paper that a pair +of tiny rubber dolls dropped into her lap. + +“Say ‘Thank you, Maida,’” Dicky prompted. + +Delia said something and Dicky assured her that the baby had obeyed +him. It sounded like, “Sank-oo-Maysa.” + +While Delia occupied herself with the dolls, Maida listened to +Dicky’s reading lesson. He was getting on beautifully now. At least +he could puzzle out by himself some of the stories that Maida lent +him. When they had finished that day’s fairy-tale, Dicky said: + +“Did you ever see a peacock, Maida?” + +“Oh, yes—a great many.” + +“Where?” + +“I saw ever so many in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and then my +father has some in his camp in the Adirondacks.” + +“Has he many?” + +“A dozen.” + +“I’m just wild to see one. Are they as beautiful as that picture in +the fairy-tale?” + +“They’re as beautiful as—as—” Maida groped about in her mind to find +something to compare them to “—as angels,” she said at last. + +“And do they really open their tails like a fan?” + +“That is the most wonderful sight, Dicky, that you ever saw.” +Maida’s manner was almost solemn. “When they unfurl the whole fan +and the sun shines on all the green and blue eyes and on all the +little gold feathers, it’s so beautiful. Well, it makes you ache. I +_cried_ the first time I saw one. And when their fans are down, they +carry them so daintily, straight out, not a single feather trailing +on the ground. There are two white peacocks on the Adirondacks +place.” + +“_White_ peacocks! I never heard of white ones.” + +“They’re not common.” + +“Think of seeing a dozen peacocks every day!” Dicky exclaimed. +“Jiminy crickets! Why, Maida, your life must have been just like a +fairy-tale when you lived there.” + +“It seems more like a fairy-tale here.” + +They laughed at this difference of opinion. + +“Dicky,” Maida asked suddenly, “do you know that Rosie steals out of +her window at night sometimes when her mother doesn’t know it?” + +“Sure—I know that. You see,” he went on to explain, “it’s like this. +Rosie is an awful bad girl in some ways—there’s no doubt about that. +But my mother says Rosie isn’t as bad as she seems. My mother says +Rosie’s mother has never learned how to manage her. She whips Rosie +an awful lot. And the more she whips Rosie, the naughtier she gets. +Rosie says she’s going to run away some day, and by George, I bet +she’ll do it. She always does what she says she’ll do.” + +“Isn’t it dreadful?” Maida said in a frightened tone. “Run away! I +never heard of such a thing. Think of having a mother and then not +getting along with her. Suppose she died sometime, as my mother +did.” + +“I don’t know what I’d do without my mother,” Dicky said +thoughtfully. “But then I’ve got the best mother that ever was. I +wish she didn’t have to work so hard. But you wait until I get on my +feet. Then you’ll see how I’m going to earn money for her.” + +When Maida got home that night, Billy Potter sat with Granny in the +living-room. Maida came in so quietly that they took no notice of +her. Granny was talking. Maida could see that the tears were +coursing down the wrinkles in her cheeks. + +“And after that, the poor choild ran away to America and I niver +have seen her since. Her father died repenting av his anger aginst +her. But ut was too late. At last, in me old age, Oi came over to +America, hoping Oi cud foind her. But, glory be, Oi had no idea +’twas such a big place! And Oi’ve hunted and Oi’ve hunted and Oi’ve +hunted. But niver a track of her cud Oi foind—me little Annie!” + +Billy’s face was all screwed up, but it was not with laughter. “Did +you ever speak to Mr. Westabrook about it?” + +“Oh, Misther Westabruk done iv’ry t’ing he cud—the foine man that he +is. Adver_tise_ments and _de_tayktives, but wid all his money, he +cudn’t foind out a t’ing. If ut wasn’t for my blissed lamb, I’d pray +to the saints to let me die.” + +Maida knew what they were talking about—Granny had often told her +the sad story of her lost daughter. + +“What town in Ireland did you live in, Granny?” Billy asked. + +“Aldigarey, County Sligo.” “Now don’t you get discouraged, Granny,” +Billy said, “I’m going to find your daughter for you.” + +He jumped to his feet and walked about the room. “I’m something of a +detective myself, and you’ll see I’ll make good on this job if it +takes twenty years.” + +“Oh, Billy, do—please do,” Maida burst in. “It will make Granny so +happy.” + +Granny seemed happier already. She dried her tears. + +“’Tis the good b’y ye are, Misther Billy,” she said gratefully. + +“Yes, m’m,” said Billy. + + + + + + CHAPTER VII: TROUBLE + + +The next week was a week of trouble for Maida. Everything seemed to +go wrong from the first tinkle of the bell, Monday morning, to the +last tinkle Saturday night. + +It began with a conversation. + +Rosie came marching in early Monday, head up, eyes flaming. + +“Maida,” she began at once, in her quickest, briskest tone, “I’ve +got something to tell you. Laura Lathrop came over to Dicky’s house +the other day while the W.M.N.T.’s were meeting and she told us the +greatest mess of stuff about you. I told her I was coming right over +and tell you about it and she said, ‘All right, you can.’ Laura said +that you said that last summer you had a birthday party that you +invited five hundred children to. She said that you said that you +had a May-pole at this party and a fish pond and a Punch and Judy +show and all sorts of things. She said that you said that you had a +big doll-house and a little theater all your own. I said that I +didn’t believe that you told her all that. Did you?” + +“Oh, yes, I told her that—and more,” Maida answered directly. + +“Laura said it was all a pack of lies, but I don’t believe that. Is +it all true?” + +“It’s all true,” Maida said. + +Rosie looked at her hard. “You know, Maida,” she went on after +awhile, “you told me about a lot of birds and animals that your +father had. I thought he kept a bird-place. But Dicky says you told +him that your father had twelve peacocks, not in a store, but in a +place where he lives.” She paused and looked inquiringly at Maida. + +Maida answered the look. “Yes, I told him that.” + +“And it’s all true?” Rosie asked again. + +“Yes, it’s all true,” Maida repeated. + +Rosie hesitated a moment. “Harold Lathrop says that you’re daffy.” + +Maida said nothing. + +“Arthur Duncan says,” Rosie went on more timidly, “that you probably +dreamed those things.” + +Still Maida said nothing. + +“Do you think you did dream them, Maida?” + +Maida smiled. “No, I didn’t dream them.” + +“Well, I thought of another thing,” Rosie went on eagerly. “Miss +Allison told mother that Granny told her that you’d been sick for a +long time. And I thought, maybe you were out of your head and +imagined those things. Oh, Maida,” Rosie’s voice actually coaxed her +to favor this theory, “don’t you think you imagined them?” + +Maida laughed. “No, Rosie,” she said in her quietest voice, “I did +not imagine them.” + +For a moment neither of the two little girls spoke. But they stared, +a little defiantly, into each other’s eyes. + +“What did Dicky say?” Maida asked after awhile. + +“Oh, Dicky said he would believe anything you told him, no matter +what it was. Dicky says he believes you’re a princess in +disguise—like in fairy-tales.” + +“Dear, dear Dicky!” Maida said. “He was the first friend I made in +Primrose Court and I guess he’s the best one.” + +“Well, I guess I’m your friend,” Rosie said, firing up; “I told that +little smarty-cat of a Laura if she ever said one word against you, +I’d slap her good and hard. Only—only—it seems strange that a little +girl who’s just like the rest of us should have story-book things +happening to her all the time. If it’s true—then fairy-tales are +true.” She paused and looked Maida straight in the eye. “I can’t +believe it, Maida. But I know you believe it. And that’s all there +is to it. But you’d better believe I’m your friend.” + +Saying which she marched out. + +Maida’s second trouble began that night. + +It had grown dark. Suddenly, without any warning, the door of the +shop flew open. For an instant three or four voices filled the place +with their yells. Then the door shut. Nothing was heard but the +sound of running feet. + +Granny and Maida rushed to the door. Nobody was in sight. + +“Who was it? What does it mean, Granny?” Maida asked in +bewilderment. “Only naughty b’ys, taysing you,” Granny explained. + +Maida had hardly seated herself when the performance was repeated. +Again she rushed to the door. Again she saw nobody. The third time +she did not stir from her chair. + +Tuesday night the same thing happened. Who the boys were Maida could +not find out. Why they bothered her, she could not guess. + +“Take no notuce av ut, my lamb,” Granny counselled. “When they foind +you pay no attintion to ut, they’ll be afther stopping.” + +Maida followed Granny’s advice. But the annoyance did not cease and +she began to dread the twilight. She made up her mind that she must +put an end to it soon. She knew she could stop it at once by +appealing to Billy Potter. And, yet, somehow, she did not want to +ask for outside help. She had a feeling of pride about handling her +own troubles. + +One afternoon Laura came into the shop. It was the first time that +Maida had seen her since the afternoon of her call and Maida did not +speak. She felt that she could not have anything to do with Laura +after what had happened. But she looked straight at Laura and +waited. + +Laura did not speak either. She looked at Maida as if she had never +seen her before. She carried her head at its highest and she moved +across the room with her most important air. As she stood a moment +gazing at the things in the show case, she had never seemed more +patronizing. + +“A cent’s worth of dulse, please,” she said airily. + +“Dulse?” Maida repeated questioningly; “I guess I haven’t any. What +is dulse?” + +“Haven’t any dulse?” Laura repeated with an appearance of being +greatly shocked. “Do you mean to say you haven’t any dulse?” + +Maida did not answer—she put her lips tight together. + +“This is a healthy shop,” Laura went on in a sneering tone, “no +mollolligobs, no apple-on-the-stick, no tamarinds, no pop-corn +balls, no dulse. Why don’t you sell the things we want? Half the +children in the neighborhood are going down to Main Street to get +them now.” + +She bustled out of the shop. Maida stared after her with wide, +alarmed eyes. For a moment she did not stir. Then she ran into the +living-room and buried her face in Granny’s lap, bursting into +tears. + +“Oh, Granny,” she sobbed, “Laura Lathrop says that half the children +don’t like my shop and they’re going down to Main Street to buy +things. What shall I do? What shall I do?” + +“There, there, acushla,” Granny said soothingly, taking the +trembling little girl on to her lap. “Don’t worry about anny t’ing +that wan says. ’Tis a foine little shop you have, as all the grown +folks says.” + +“But, Granny,” Maida protested passionately, “I don’t want to please +the grown people, I want to please the children. And papa said I +must make the store pay. And now I’m afraid I never will. Oh, what +shall I do?” + +She got no further. A tinkle of the bell, followed by pattering +footsteps, interrupted. In an instant, Rosie, brilliant in her +scarlet cape and scarlet hat, with cheeks and lips the color of +cherries, stood at her side. + +“I saw that hateful Laura come out of here,” she said. “I just knew +she’d come in to make trouble. What did she say to you?” + +Maida told her slowly between her sobs. + +“Horrid little smarty-cat!” was Rosie’s comment and she scowled +until her face looked like a thunder-cloud. + +“I shall never speak to her again,” Maida declared fervently. “But +what shall I do about it, Rosie?—it may be true what she said.” + +“Now don’t you get discouraged, Maida,” Rosie said. “Because I can +tell you just how to get or make those things Laura spoke of.” + +“Oh, can you, Rosie. What would I do without you? I’ll put +everything down in a book so that I shan’t forget them.” + +She limped over to the desk. There the black head bent over the +golden one. + +“What is dulse?” Maida demanded first. + +“Don’t you know what dulse is?” Rosie asked incredulously. “Maida, +you are the queerest child. The commonest things you don’t know +anything about. And yet I suppose if I asked you if you’d seen a +flying-machine, you’d say you had.” + +“I have,” Maida answered instantly, “in Paris.” + +Rosie’s face wrinkled into its most perplexed look. She changed the +subject at once. “Well, dulse is a purple stuff—when you see a lot +of it together, it looks as if a million toy-balloons had burst. +It’s all wrinkled up and tastes salty.” + +Maida thought hard for a moment. Then she burst into laughter, +although the big round tear-drops were still hanging from the tips +of her lashes. “There was a whole drawerful here when I first came. +I remember now I thought it was waste stuff and threw it all away.” + +Rosie laughed too. “The tamarinds you can get from the man who comes +round with the wagon. Mrs. Murdock used to make her own +apples-on-the-stick, mollolligobs and corn-balls. I’ve helped her many a +time. Now I’ll write you a list of stuff to order from the grocer. I’ll +come round after school and we’ll make a batch of all those things. +To-night you get Billy to print a sign, ‘_apples on the stick and +mollolligobs to-day_.’ You put that in the window to-morrow morning +and by to-morrow night, you’ll be all sold out.” + +“Oh, Rosie,” Maida said happily, “I shall be so much obliged to +you!” + +Rosie was as good as her word. She appeared that afternoon wearing a +long-sleeved apron under the scarlet cape. It seemed to Maida that +she worked like lightning, for she made batch after batch of candy, +moving as capably about the stove as an experienced cook. In the +meantime, Maida was popping corn at the fireplace. They mounted +fifty apples on skewers and dipped them, one at a time, into the +boiling candy. They made thirty corn-balls and twenty-five +mollolligobs, which turned out to be round chunks of candy, stuck on +the end of sticks. + +“I never did see such clever children anywhere as there are in +Primrose Court,” Maida said that night with a sigh to Granny. “Rosie +told me that she could make six kinds of candy. And Dicky can cook +as well as his mother. They make me feel so useless. Why, Granny, I +can’t do a single thing that’s any good to anybody.” + +The next day the shop was crowded. By night there was not an apple, +a corn-ball or a mollolligob left. + +“I shall have a sale like this once a week in the future,” Maida +said. “Why, Granny, lots and lots of children came here who’d never +been in the shop before.” + +And so what looked like serious trouble ended very happily. + +Trouble number three was a great deal more serious and it did not, +at first, promise to end well at all. It had to do with Arthur +Duncan. It had been going on for a week before Maida mentioned it to +anybody. But it haunted her very dreams. + +Early Monday morning, Arthur came into the shop. In his usual gruff +voice and with his usual surly manner, he said, “Show me some of +those rubbers in the window.” + +Maida took out a handful of the rubbers—five, she thought—and put +them on the counter. While Arthur looked them over, she turned to +replace a paper-doll which she had knocked down. + +“Guess I won’t take one to-day,” Arthur said, while her back was +still turned, and walked out. + +When Maida put the rubbers back, she discovered that there were only +four. She made up her mind that she had not counted right and +thought no more of the incident. + +Two days later, Arthur Duncan came in again. Maida had just been +selling some pencils—pretty striped ones with a blue stone in the +end. Three of them were left lying out on the counter. Arthur asked +her to show him some penholders. Maida took three from the shelves +back of her. He bought one of these. After he had gone, she +discovered that there were only two pencils left on the counter. + +“One of them must have rolled off,” Maida thought. But although she +looked everywhere, she could not find it. The incident of the rubber +occurred to her. She felt a little troubled but she resolved to put +both circumstances out of her mind. + +A day or two later, Arthur Duncan came in for the third time. It +happened that Granny was out marketing. + +Piled on the counter was a stack of blank-books—pretty books they +were, with a child’s head in color on the cover. Arthur asked for +letter-paper. Maida turned back to the shelf. With her hand on the +sliding door, she stopped, half-stunned. + +_Reflected in the glass she saw Arthur Duncan stow one of the blank +books away in his pocket._ + +Maida felt sick all over. She did not know what to do. She did not +know what to say. + +She fumbled with trembling hands among the things on the shelf. She +dreaded to turn for fear her face would express what she had seen. + +“Perhaps he’ll pay for it,” she thought; “I hope he will.” + +But Arthur made no offer to pay. He looked over the letter-paper +that Maida, with downcast eyes, put before him, decided that he did +not want any after all, and walked coolly from the shop. + +Granny, coming in a few moments later, was surprised to find Maida +leaning on the counter, her face buried in her hands. + +“What’s the matter with my lamb?” the old lady asked cheerfully. + +“Nothing, Granny,” Maida said. But she did not meet Granny’s eye and +during dinner she was quiet and serious. + +That night Billy Potter called. “Well, how goes the _Bon Marché of_ +Charlestown?” he asked cheerfully. + +“Billy,” Maida said gravely, “if you found that a little boy—I can’t +say what his name is—was stealing from you, what would you do?” + +Billy considered the question as gravely as she had asked it. “Tell +the policeman on the beat and get him to throw a scare into him,” he +said at last. + +“I guess that’s what I’ll have to do.” But Maida’s tone was +mournful. + +But Granny interrupted. + +“Don’t you do ut, my lamb—don’t you do ut!” She turned to them +both—they had never seen her blue eyes so fiery before. “Suppose you +was one av these poor little chilthren that lives round here that’s +always had harrd wurruds for their meals and hunger for their +pillow, wudn’t you be afther staling yersilf if ut came aisy-loike +and nobody was luking?” + +Neither Billy nor Maida spoke for a moment. + +“I guess Granny’s right,” Billy said finally. + +“I guess she is,” Maida said with a sigh. + +It was three days before Arthur Duncan came into the shop again. But +in the meantime, Maida went one afternoon to play with Dicky. Dicky +was drawing at a table when Maida came in. She glanced at his work. +He was using a striped pencil with a blue stone in its end, a +blank-book with the picture of a little girl on the cover, a rubber of +a kind very familiar to her. Maida knew certainly that Dicky had +bought none of these things from her. She knew as certainly that +they were the things Arthur Duncan had stolen. What was the +explanation of the mystery? She went to bed that night miserably +unhappy. + +Her heart beat pit-a-pat the next time she saw Arthur open the door. +She folded her hands close together so that he should not see that +she was trembling. She began to wish that she had followed Billy’s +advice. Sitting in the shop all alone—Granny, it happened again, was +out—it occurred to her that it was, perhaps, too serious a situation +for a little girl to deal with. + +She had made up her mind that when Arthur was in the shop, she would +not turn her back to him. She was determined not to give him the +chance to fall into temptation. But he asked for pencil-sharpeners +and pencil-sharpeners were kept in the lower drawer. There was +nothing for her to do but to get down on the floor. She remembered +with a sense of relief that she had left no stock out on the +counter. She knelt upright on the floor, seeking for the box. +Suddenly, reflected in the glass door, she saw another terrifying +picture. + +_Arthur Duncan’s arm was just closing the money drawer._ + +For an instant Maida felt so sick at heart that she wanted to run +back into the living-room, throw herself into Granny’s big chair and +cry her eyes out. Then suddenly all this weakness went. A feeling, +such as she had never known, came into its place. She was still +angry but she was singularly cool. She felt no more afraid of Arthur +Duncan than of the bowl of dahlias, blooming on the counter. + +She whirled around in a flash and looked him straight in the eye. + +“If there is anything in this shop that you want so much that you +are willing to steal, tell me what it is and I’ll give it to you,” +she said. + +“Aw, what are you talking about?” Arthur demanded. He attempted to +out-stare her. + +But Maida kept her eyes steadily on his. “You know what I’m talking +about well enough,” she said quietly. “In the last week you’ve +stolen a rubber and a pencil and a blank-book from me and just now +you tried to take some money from the money-drawer.” + +Arthur sneered. “How are you going to prove it?” he asked +impudently. + +Maida was thoroughly angry. But something inside warned her that she +must not give way to temper. For all her life, she had been +accustomed to think before she spoke. Indeed, she herself had never +been driven or scolded. Her father had always reasoned with her. +Doctors and nurses had always reasoned with her. Even Granny had +always reasoned with her. So, now, she thought very carefully before +she spoke again. But she kept her eyes fixed on Arthur. His eyes did +not move from hers but, in some curious way, she knew that he was +uneasy. + +“I can’t prove it,” she said at last, “and I hadn’t any idea of +trying to. I’m only warning you that you must not come in here if +you’re not to be trusted. And I told you the truth when I said I +would rather give you anything in the shop than have you steal it. +For I think you must need those things very badly to be willing to +get them that way. I don’t believe anybody _wants_ to steal. Now +when you want anything so bad as that, come to me and I’ll see if I +can get it for you.” + +Arthur stared at her as if he had not a word on his tongue. “If you +think you can frighten me,—” he said. Then, without ending his +sentence, he swaggered out of the shop. But to Maida his swagger +seemed like something put on to conceal another feeling. + +Maida suddenly felt very tired. She wished that Granny Flynn would +come back. She wanted Granny to take her into her lap, to cuddle +her, to tell her some merry little tale of the Irish fairies. But, +instead, the bell rang and another customer came in. While she was +waiting on her, Maida noticed somebody come stealthily up to the +window, look in and then duck down. She wondered if it might be +Billy playing one of his games on her. + +The customer went out. In a few moments the bell tinkled again. +Maida had been leaning against the counter, her tired head on her +outstretched arms. She looked up. It was Arthur Duncan. + +He strode straight over to her. + +“Here’s three cents for your rubber,” he said, “and five for your +pencil, five for the blank book and there’s two dimes I took out of +the money-drawer.” + +Maida did not know what to say. The tears came to her eyes and +rolled down her cheeks. Arthur shifted his weight from one foot to +the other in intense embarrassment. + +“I didn’t know it would make you feel as bad as that,” he said. + +“I don’t feel bad,” Maida sobbed—and to prove it she smiled while +the tears ran down her cheeks—“I feel glad.” + +What he would have answered to this she never knew. For at that +moment the door flew open. The little rowdy boys who had been +troubling her so much lately, let out a series of blood-curdling +yells. + +“What’s that?” Arthur asked. + +“I don’t know who they are,” Maida said wearily, “but they do that +three or four times every night. I don’t know what to do about it.” + +“Well, I do,” Arthur said. “You wait!” + +He went over to the door and waited, flattening himself against the +wall. After a long silence, they could hear footsteps tip-toeing on +the bricks outside. The door flew open. Arthur Duncan leaped like a +cat through the opening. There came back to Maida the sound of +running, then a pause, then another sound very much as if two or +three naughty little heads were being vigorously knocked together. +She heard Arthur say: + +“Let me catch one of you doing that again and I’ll lick you till you +can’t stand up. And remember I’ll be watching for you every night +now.” + +Maida did not see him again then. But just before dinner the bell +rang. When Maida opened the door there stood Arthur. + +“I had this kitten and I thought you might like him,” he said +awkwardly, holding out a little bundle of gray fluff. + +“Want it!” Maida said. She seized it eagerly. “Oh, thank you, +Arthur, ever so much. Oh, Granny, look at this darling kit-kat. What +a ball of fluff he is! I’ll call him Fluff. And he isn’t an Angora +or a prize kitty of any kind—just a beautiful plain everyday cat—the +kind I’ve always wanted!” + +Even this was not all. After dinner the shop bell rang again. This +time it was Arthur and Rosie. Rosie’s lips were very tight as if she +had made up her mind to some bold deed but her flashing eyes showed +her excitement. + +“Can we see you alone for a moment, Maida?” she asked in her most +business-like tones. + +Wondering, Maida shut the door to the living-room and came back to +them. + +“Maida,” Rosie began, “Arthur told me all about the rubber and the +pencil and the blank book and the dimes. Of course, I felt pretty +bad when I heard about it. But I wanted Arthur to come right over +here and explain the whole thing to you. You see Arthur took those +things to give away to Dicky because Dicky has such a hard time +getting anything he wants.” + +“Yes, I saw them over at Dicky’s,” Maida said. + +“And then, there was a great deal more to it that Arthur’s just told +me and I thought you ought to know it at once. You see Arthur’s +father belongs to a club that meets once a month and Arthur goes +there a lot with him. And those men think that plenty of people have +things that they have no right to—oh, like automobiles—I mean, +things that they haven’t earned. And the men in Mr. Duncan’s club +say that it’s perfectly right to take things away from people who +have too much and give them to people who have too little. But I say +that may be all right for grown people but when children do it, it’s +just plain _stealing_. And that’s all there is to it! But I wanted +you to know that Arthur thought it was right—well sort of right, you +understand—when he took those things. You don’t think so now, do +you, after the talking-to I’ve given you?” She turned severely on +Arthur. + +Arthur shuffled and looked embarrassed. “No,” he said sheepishly, +“not until you’re grown up.” + +“But what I wanted to say next, Maida,” Rosie continued, “is, please +not to tell Dicky. He would be so surprised—and then he wouldn’t +keep the things that Arthur gave him. And of course now that Arthur +has paid for them—they’re all right for him to have.” + +“Of course I wouldn’t tell anybody,” Maida said in a shocked voice, +“not even Granny or Billy—not even my father.” + +“Then that’s settled,” Rosie said with a sigh. “Good night.” + +The next day the following note reached Maida: + + + You are cordully invited to join the W.M.N.T. Club which meets + three times a week at the house of Miss Rosie Brine, or Mr. + Richard Dore or Mr. Arthur Duncan. + + P.S. The name means, WE MUST NEVER TELL. + + +Maida dreamed nothing but happy dreams that night. + + + + + + CHAPTER VIII: A RAINY DAY + + +The next day it rained dismally. Maida had been running the shop for +three weeks but this was her first experience with stormy weather. +Because she, herself, had never been allowed to set her foot +outdoors when the weather was damp, she expected that she would see +no children that day. But long before the bell rang they crowded in +wet streaming groups into the shop. And at nine the lines +disappearing into the big school doorways seemed as long as ever. + +Even the Clark twins in rubber boots, long rain-capes and a baby +umbrella came in to spend their daily pennies. + +“I guess it’ll be one session, Maida,” Dorothy whispered. + +“Oh goody, Dorothy!” Mabel lisped. “Don’t you love one session, +Maida?” + +Maida was ashamed to confess to two such tiny girls that she did not +know what “one session” meant. But she puzzled over it the whole +morning. If Rosie and Arthur had come in she would have asked them. +But neither of them appeared. Indeed, they were not anywhere in the +lines—Maida looked very carefully. + +At twelve o’clock the school bell did not ring. In surprise, Maida +craned out of the window to consult the big church clock. It agreed +exactly with the tall grandfather’s clock in the living-room. Both +pointed to twelve, then to five minutes after and ten and +fifteen—still no bell. + +A little later Dicky came swinging along, the sides of his old rusty +raincoat flapping like the wings of some great bird. + +“It’s one-session, Maida,” he said jubilantly, “did you hear the +bell?” + +“What’s one session, Dicky?” Maida asked. + +“Why, when it’s too stormy for the children to go to school in the +afternoon the fire-bells ring twenty-two at quarter to twelve. They +keep all the classes in until one o’clock though.” + +“Oh, that’s why they don’t come out,” Maida said. + +At one o’clock the umbrellas began to file out of the school door. +The street looked as if it had grown a monster crop of shiny black +toad-stools. But it was the only sign of life that the neighborhood +showed for the rest of the day. The storm was too violent for even +the big boys and girls to brave. A very long afternoon went by. Not +a customer came into the shop. Maida felt very lonely. She wandered +from shop to living-room and from living-room to chamber. She tried +to read. She sewed a little. She even popped corn for a lonesome +fifteen minutes. But it seemed as if the long dark day would never +go. + +As they were sitting down to dinner that night, Billy bounced in—his +face pink and wet, his eyes sparkling like diamonds from his +conflict with the winds. + +“Oh, Billy, how glad I am to see you,” Maida said. “It’s been the +lonesomest day.” + +“Sure, the sight av ye’s grand for sore eyes,” said Granny. + +Maida had noticed that Billy’s appearance always made the greatest +difference in everything. Before he came, the noise of the wind +howling about the store made Maida sad. Now it seemed the jolliest +of sounds. And when at seven, Rosie appeared, Maida’s cup of +happiness brimmed over. + +While Billy talked with Granny, the two little girls rearranged the +stock. + +“My mother was awful mad with me just before supper,” Rosie began at +once. “It seems as if she was so cross lately that there’s no living +with her. She picks on me all the time. That’s why I’m here. She +sent me to bed. But I made up my mind I wouldn’t go to bed. I +climbed out my bedroom window and came over here.” + +“Oh, Rosie, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Maida said. “Oh, do run +right home! Think how worried your mother would be if she went up +into your room and found you gone. She wouldn’t know what had become +of you.” + +“Well, then, what makes her so strict with me?” Rosie cried. Her +eyes had grown as black as thunder clouds. The scowl that made her +face so sullen had come deep between her eyebrows. + +“Oh, how I wish I had a mother,” Maida said longingly. “I guess I +wouldn’t say a word to her, no matter how strict she was.” + +“I guess you don’t know what you’d do until you tried it,” Rosie +said. + +Granny and Billy had been curiously quiet in the other room. +Suddenly Billy Potter stepped to the door. + +“I’ve just thought of a great game, children,” he said. “But we’ve +got to play it in the kitchen. Bring some crayons, Maida.” + +The children raced after him. “What is it?” they asked in chorus. + +Billy did not answer. He lifted Granny’s easy-chair with Granny, +knitting and all, and placed it in front of the kitchen stove. Then +he began to draw a huge rectangle on the clean, stone floor. + +“Guess,” he said. + +“Sure and Oi know what ut’s going to be,” smiled Granny. + +Maida and Rosie watched him closely. Suddenly they both shouted +together: + +“Hopscotch! Hopscotch!” + +“Right you are!” Billy approved. He searched among the coals in the +hod until he found a hard piece of slate. + +“All ready now!” he said briskly. “Your turn, first, Rosie, because +you’re company.” + +Rosie failed on “fivesy.” Maida’s turn came next and she failed on +“threesy.” Billy followed Maida but he hopped on the line on +“twosy.” + +“Oi belave Oi cud play that game, ould as Oi am,” Granny said +suddenly. + +“I bet you could,” Billy said. + +“Sure, ’twas a foine player Oi was when Oi was a little colleen.” + +“Come on, Granny,” Billy said. + +The two little girls jumped up and down, clapping their hands and +shrieking, “Granny’s going to play!” “Granny’s going to play!” They +made so much noise finally, that Billy had to threaten to stand them +on their heads in a corner. + +Granny took her turn after Billy. She hopped about like a very +active and a very benevolent old fairy. + +“Oh, doesn’t she look like the Dame in fairy tales?” Maida said. + +They played for a half an hour. And who do you suppose won? Not +Maida with all her new-found strength, not Rosie with all her +nervous energy, not Billy with all his athletic training. + +“Mrs. Delia Flynn, champion of America and Ireland,” Billy greeted +the victor. “Granny, we’ll have to enter you in the next Olympic +games.” + +They returned after this breathless work to the living-room. + +“Now I’m going to tell you a story,” Billy announced. + +“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Maida squealed. “Do! Billy tells the most wonderful +stories, Rosie—stories he’s heard and stories he’s read. But the +most wonderful ones are those that he makes up as he goes along.” + +The two little girls settled themselves on the hearth-rug at Billy’s +feet. Granny sat, not far off, working with double speed at her +neglected knitting. + +“Once upon a time,” Billy said, “there lived a little girl named +Klara. And Klara was the naughtiest little girl in the world. She +was a pretty child and a clever child and everybody would have loved +her if she had only given them a chance. But how can you love a +child who is doing naughty things all the time? Particularly was she +a great trial to her mother. That poor lady was not well and needed +care and attention, herself. But instead of giving her these, Klara +gave her only hard words and disobedient acts. The mother used +sometimes to punish her little daughter but it seemed as if this +only made her worse. Both father and mother were in despair about +her. Klara seemed to be growing steadily worse and worse. And, +indeed, lately, she had added to her naughtiness by threatening to +run away. + +“One night, it happened, Klara had been so bad that her mother had +put her to bed early. The moment her mother left the room, Klara +whipped over to the window. ‘I’m going to dress myself and climb out +the window and run away and never come back, she said to herself.’ + +“The house in which Klara lived was built on the side of a cliff, +overlooking the sea. As Klara stood there in her nightgown the moon +began to rise and come up out of the water. Now the moonrise is +always a beautiful sight and Klara stopped for a moment to watch it, +fascinated. + +“It seemed to her that she had never seen the moon look so big +before. And certainly she had never seen it such a color—a soft deep +orange. In fact, it might have been an immense orange—or better, a +monster pumpkin stuck on the horizon-line. + +“The strange thing about the moon, though, was that it grew larger +instead of smaller. It rose higher and higher, growing bigger and +bigger, until it was half-way up the curve of the sky. Then it +stopped short. Klara watched it, her eyes bulging out of her head. +In all her experience she had never seen such a surprising thing. +And while she watched, another remarkable thing happened. A great +door in the moon opened suddenly and there on the threshold stood a +little old lady. A strange little old lady she was—a little old lady +with short red skirts and high, gayly-flowered draperies at her +waist, a little old lady with a tall black, sugar-loaf hat, a great +white ruff around her neck and little red shoes with bright silver +buckles on them—a little old lady who carried a black cat perched on +one shoulder and a broomstick in one hand. + +“The little old lady stooped down and lifted something over the +threshold. Klara strained her eyes to see what it was. It looked +like a great roll of golden carpeting. With a sudden deft movement +the little old lady threw it out of the door. It flew straight +across the ocean, unrolling as swiftly as a ball of twine that +you’ve flung across the room. It came nearer and nearer. The farther +it got from the moon, the faster it unrolled. After a while it +struck against the shore right under Klara’s window and Klara saw +that it was the wake of the moon. She watched. + +“The little old lady had disappeared from the doorway in the moon +but the door did not close. And, suddenly, still another wonderful +thing happened. The golden wake lifted itself gradually from the +water until it was on a level with Klara’s window. Bending down she +touched it with both her soft little hands. It was as firm and hard +as if it had been woven from strands of gold. + +“‘Now’s my time to run away from my cross mother,’ Klara said to +herself. ‘I guess that nice old lady in the moon wants me to come +and be her little girl. Well, I’ll go. I guess they’ll be sorry in +this house to-morrow when they wake up and find they’re never going +to see me again.’ + +“Opening the window gently that nobody might hear her, she stepped +on to the Wake of Gold. It felt cool and hard to her little bare +feet. It inclined gently from her window. She ran down the slope +until she reached the edge of the sea. There she hesitated. For a +moment it seemed a daring thing to walk straight out to the moon +with nothing between her and the water but a path of gold. Then she +recalled how her mother had sent her to bed and her heart hardened. +She started briskly out. + +“From Klara’s window it had looked as though it would take her only +a few moments to get to the moon. But the farther she went, the +farther from her the doorway seemed to go. But she did not mind that +the walk was so long because it was so pretty. Looking over the edge +of the Wake of Gold, deep down in the water, she could see all kinds +of strange sights. + +“At one place a school of little fish swam up to the surface of the +water. Klara knelt down and watched their pretty, graceful motions. +The longer she gazed the more fish she saw and the more beautiful +they seemed. Pale-blue fishes with silver spots. Pale-pink ones with +golden stripes. Gorgeous red ones with jewelled black horns. +Brilliant yellow and green ones that shone like phosphorus. And here +and there, gliding among them, were what seemed little angel-fish +like living rainbows, whose filmy wing-like fins changed color when +they swam. + +“Klara reached into the water and tried to catch some of these +marvelous beings. + +“But at her first motion—bing! The water looked as if it were +streaked with rainbow lightning. Swish! It was dull and clear again, +with nothing between her and the quiet, seaweed-covered bottom. + +“A little farther along Klara came across a wonderful sea-grotto. +Again she knelt down on the Wake of Gold and watched. At the bottom +the sand was so white and shiny that it might have been made of +star-dust. Growing up from it were beds of marvelous seaflowers, +opening and shutting delicate petals, beautiful seafans that waved +with every ripple, high, thick shrubs and towering trees in which +the fishes had built their nests. In and out among all this +undergrowth, frisked tiny sea-horses, ridden by mischievous +sea-urchins. They leaped and trotted and galloped as if they were so +happy that they did not know what to do. Klara felt that she must +play with them. She put one little foot into the water to attract +their attention. Bing! The water seemed alive with scuttling things. +Swish! The grotto was so quiet that she could not believe that there +was anything living in it. + +“A little farther on, Klara came upon a sight even more wonderful +than this—a village of mer-people. It was set so far down in the +water that it seemed a million miles away. And yet the water was so +clear that she felt she could touch the housetops. + +“The mer-houses seemed to be made of a beautiful, sparkling white +coral with big, wide-open windows through which the tide drifted. +The mer-streets seemed to be cobbled in pearl, the sidewalks to be +paved in gold. At their sides grew mer-trees, the highest she had +ever seen, with all kinds of beautiful singing fish roosting in +their branches. Little mer-boats of carved pink coral with purple +seaweed sails or of mother-of-pearl with rosy, mer-flower-petal +sails, were floating through the streets. In some, sat little +mer-maidens, the sunlight flashing on their pretty green scales, on +their long, golden tresses, on the bright mirrors they held in their +hands. Other boats held little mer-boys who made beautiful music on +the harps they carried. + +“At one end of the mer-village Klara could see one palace, bigger +and more beautiful than all the others. Through an open window she +caught a glimpse of the mer-king—a jolly old fellow with a fat red +face and a long white beard sitting on a throne of gold. At his side +reclined the mer-queen—a very beautiful lady with a skin as white as +milk and eyes as green as emeralds. Little mer-princes and little +mer-princesses were playing on the floor with tiny mer-kittens and +tinier mer-puppies. One sweet little mer-baby was tiptailing towards +the window with a pearl that she had stolen from her sister’s +coronet. + +“It seemed to Klara that this mer-village was the most enchanting +place that she had ever seen in her life. Oh, how she wanted to live +there! + +“‘Oh, good mer-king,’ she called entreatingly, ‘and good mer-queen, +please let me come to live in your palace.’ + +“Bing! The water rustled and roiled as if all the birds of paradise +that the world contained had taken flight. Swish! It was perfectly +quiet again. The mer-village was as deserted as a graveyard. + +“‘Well, if they don’t want me, they shan’t get me, Klara said. And +she walked on twice as proud.’ + +“By this time she was getting closer and closer to the moon. The +nearer she came the bigger it grew. Now it filled the entire sky. +The door had remained open all this time. Through it she could see a +garden—a garden more beautiful than any fairy-tale garden that she +had ever read about. From the doorway silvery paths stretched +between hedges as high as a giant’s head. Sometimes these paths +ended in fountains whose spray twisted into all kinds of fairy-like +shapes. Sometimes these paths seemed to stop flush against the +clouds. Nearer stretched flower-beds so brilliant that you would +have thought a kaleidoscope had broken on the ground. Birds, like +living jewels, flew in and out through the tree-branches. They sang +so hard that it seemed to Klara they must burst their little +throats. From the branches hung all kinds of precious stones, all +kinds of delicious-looking fruits and candies. + +“Klara could not scramble through the door quickly enough. + +“But as she put one foot on the threshold the little old lady +appeared. She looked as if she had stepped out of a fairy-tale. And +yet Klara had a strange feeling of discomfort when she looked at +her. It seemed to Klara that the old lady’s mouth was cruel and her +eyes hard. + +“‘Are you the little girl who’s run away?’ the old lady asked. + +“‘Yes,’ Klara faltered. + +“‘And you want to live in the Kingdom of the Moon?’ + +“‘Yes.’ + +“‘Enter then.’ + +“The old lady stepped aside and Klara marched across the threshold. +She felt the door swinging to behind her. She heard a bang as it +closed, shutting her out of the world and into the moon. + +“And then—and then—what do you think happened?” + +Billy stopped for a moment. Rosie and Maida rose to their knees. + +“What happened?” they asked breathlessly. + +“The garden vanished as utterly as if it were a broken soap-bubble. +Gone were the trees and the flowers; gone were the fountains and the +birds; gone, too, were the jewels, the candies and the fruits. + +“The place had become a huge, dreary waste, stretching as far as +Klara could see into the distance. It seemed to her as if all the +trash that the world had outgrown had been dumped here—it was so +covered with heaps of old rubbish. + +“Klara turned to the old lady. She had not changed except that her +cruel mouth sneered. + +“Klara burst into tears. ‘I want to go home,’ she screamed. ‘Let me +go back to my mother.’ + +“The old lady only smiled. ‘You open that door and let me go back to +my mother,’ Klara cried passionately. + +“‘But I can’t open it,’ the old lady said. ‘It’s locked. I have no +keys.’ + +“‘Where are the keys?’ Klara asked. + +“The old lady pointed to the endless heaps of rubbish. ‘There, +somewhere,’ she said. + +“‘I’ll find them,’ Klara screamed, ‘and open that door and run back +to my home. You shan’t keep me from my own dear mother, you wicked +woman.’ + +“‘Nobody wants to keep you,’ the old lady said. ‘You came of your +own accord. Find the keys if you want to go back.’ + +“That was true and Klara wisely did not answer. But you can fancy +how she regretted coming. She began to search among the dump-heaps. +She could find no keys. But the longer she hunted the more +determined she grew. It seemed to her that she searched for weeks +and weeks. + +“It was very discouraging, very dirty and very fatiguing work. She +moved always in a cloud of dust. At times it seemed as if her back +would break from bending so much. Often she had to bite her lips to +keep from screaming with rage after she had gone through a +rubbish-pile as high as her head and, still, no keys. All kinds of +venomous insects stung her. All kinds of vines and brambles scratched +her. All kinds of stickers and thistles pricked her. Her little feet +and hands bled all the time. But still she kept at it. After that first +conversation, Klara never spoke with the old lady again. After a few +days Klara left her in the distance. At the end of a week, the +moon-door was no longer in sight when Klara looked back. + +“But during all those weeks of weary work Klara had a chance to +think. She saw for the first time what a naughty little girl she had +been and how she had worried the kindest mother in the world. Her +longing for her mother grew so great at times that she had to sit +down and cry. But after a while she would dry her eyes and go at the +hunt with fresh determination. + +“One day she caught a glint of something shining from a clump of +bushes. She had to dig and dig to get at it for about these bushes +the ashes were packed down hard. But finally she uncovered a pair of +iron keys. On one was printed in letters of gold, ‘I’M SORRY,’ on +the other, ‘I’LL NEVER DO SO AGAIN.’ + +“Klara seized the keys joyfully and ran all the long way back to the +great door. It had two locks. She put one key in the upper lock, +turned it—a great bolt jarred. She put the other key into the second +lock, turned it—a great bolt jarred. The door swung open. + +“‘I’m sorry,’ Klara whispered to herself. ‘I’ll never do so again.’ + +“She had a feeling that as long as she said those magic words, +everything would go well with her. + +“Extending out from the door was the Wake of Gold. Klara bounded +through the opening and ran. She turned back after a few moments and +there was the old lady with her cat and her broomstick standing in +the doorway. But the old lady’s face had grown very gentle and kind. + +“Klara did not look long. She ran as fast as she could pelt across +the golden path, whispering, ‘I’m sorry. I will never do so again. +I’m sorry. I will never do so again. I’m sorry. I will never do so +again.’ + +“And as she ran all the little mer-people came to the surface of the +water to encourage her. The little mer-maidens flashed their mirrors +at her. The little mer-boys played wonderful music on their harps. +The mer-king gave her a jolly smile and the mer-queen blew her a +kiss. All the little mer-princesses and all the little mer-princes +held up their pets to her. Even the mer-baby clapped her dimpled +hands. + +“And farther on all the little sea horses with the sea urchins on +their backs assembled in bobbing groups. And farther on all the +little rainbow fishes gathered in shining files. As she ran all the +scratches and gashes in her flesh healed up. + +“After a while she reached her own window. Opening it, she jumped +in. Turning to pull it down she saw the old lady disappear from the +doorway of the moon, saw the door close upon her, saw the Wake of +Gold melt and fall into the sea where it lay in a million gleaming +spangles, saw the moon float up into the sky, growing smaller and +smaller and paler and paler until it was no larger than a silver +plate. And now it was the moon no longer—it was the sun. Its rays +were shining hot on her face. She was back in her little bed. Her +mother’s arms were about her and Klara was saying, ‘I’m SORRY. I +WILL NEVER DO SO AGAIN.’” + + ---------------------- + +For a long time after Billy finished the room was very quiet. Then +suddenly Rosie jumped to her feet. “That was a lovely story, Billy,” +she said. “But I guess I don’t want to hear any more now. I think +I’ll go home.” + + + + + + CHAPTER IX: WORK + + +It was still raining when Maida got up the next day. It rained all +the morning. She listened carefully at a quarter to twelve for the +one-session bell but it did not ring. Just before school began in +the afternoon Rosie came into the shop. Maida saw at once that +something had happened to her. Rosie’s face looked strange and she +dragged across the room instead of pattering with her usual quick, +light step. + +“What do you think’s happened, Maida?” Rosie asked. + +“I don’t know. Oh, what?” Maida asked affrighted. + +“When I came home from school this noon mother wasn’t there. But +Aunt Theresa was there—she’d cooked the dinner. She said that mother +had gone away for a visit and that she wouldn’t be back for some +time. She said she was going to keep house for father and me while +mother was gone. I feel dreadfully homesick and lonesome without +mother.” + +“Oh Rosie, I am sorry,” Maida said. “But perhaps your mother won’t +stay long. Do you like your Aunt Theresa?” + +“Oh, yes, I like her. But of course she isn’t mother.” + +“No, of course. Nobody is like your mother.” + +“Oh, yes; there’s something else I had to tell you. The W.M.N.T.’s +are going to meet at Dicky’s after school this afternoon. Be sure to +come, Maida.” + +“Of course I’ll come.” Maida’s whole face sparkled. “That is, if +Granny doesn’t think it’s too wet.” + +Rosie lingered for a few moments but she did not seem like her usual +happy-go-lucky self. And when she left, Maida noticed that instead +of running across the street she actually walked. + +All the morning long Maida talked of nothing to Granny but the +prospective meeting of the W.M.N.T.’s. “Just think, Granny, I never +belonged to a club before,” she said again and again. + +Very early she had put out on her bed the clothes that she intended +to wear—a tanbrown serge of which she was particularly fond, and her +favorite “tire” of a delicate, soft lawn. She kept rushing to the +window to study the sky. It continued to look like the inside of a +dull tin cup. She would not have eaten any lunch at all if Granny +had not told her that she must. And her heart sank steadily all the +afternoon for the rain continued to come down. + +“I don’t suppose I can go, Granny,” she faltered when the clock +struck four. + +“Sure an you _can_,” Granny responded briskly. + +But she wrapped Maida up, as Maida herself said: “As if I was one of +papa’s carved crystals come all the way from China.” + +First Granny put on a sweater, then a coat, then over all a +raincoat. She put a hood on her head and a veil over that. She made +her wear rubber boots and take an umbrella. Maida got into a gale of +laughter during the dressing. + +“I ought to be wrapped in excelsior now,” she said. “If I fall down +in the puddle in the court, Granny,” she threatened merrily, “I +never can pick myself up. I’ll either have to roll and roll and roll +until I get on to dry land or I’ll have to wait until somebody comes +and shovels me out.” + +But she did not fall into the puddle. She walked carefully along the +edge and then ran as swiftly as her clothes and lameness would +permit. She arrived in Dicky’s garret, red-cheeked and breathless. + +Arthur and Rosie had already come. Rosie was playing on the floor +with Delia and the puppy that she had rescued from the tin-can +persecution. Rosie was growling, the dog was yelping and Delia was +squealing—but all three with delight. + +Arthur and Dicky sat opposite each other, working at the round +table. + +“What do you think of that dog now, Maida?” Rosie asked proudly. +“His name is ‘Tag.’ You wouldn’t know him for the same dog, would +you? Isn’t he a nice-looking little puppy?” + +Tag did look like another dog. He wore a collar and his yellowy coat +shone like satin. His whole manner had changed. He came running over +to Maida and stood looking at her with the most spirited air in the +world, his head on one side, one paw up and one ear cocked +inquisitively. His tail wriggled so fast that Delia thinking it some +wonderful new toy, kept trying to catch it and hold it in her little +fingers. + +“He’s a lovely doggie,” Maida said. “I wish I’d brought Fluff.” + +“And did you ever see such a dear baby,” Rosie went on, hugging +Delia. “Oh, if I only had a baby brother or sister!” + +“She’s a darling,” Maida agreed heartily. “Babies are so much more +fun than dolls, don’t you think so, Rosie?” + +“Dolls!” No words can express the contempt that was in Miss Brine’s +accent. + +“What are you doing, Dicky?” Maida asked, limping over to the table. + +“Making things,” Dicky said cheerfully. + +On the table were piles of mysterious-looking objects made entirely +of paper. Some were of white paper and others of brown, but they +were all decorated with trimmings of colored tissue. + +“What are they?” Maida asked. “Aren’t they lovely? I never saw +anything like them in my life.” + +Dicky blushed all over his face at this compliment but it was +evident that he was delighted. “Well, those are paper-boxes,” he +said, pointing to the different piles of things, “and those are +steamships. Those are the old-fashioned kind with double +smokestacks. Those are double-boats, jackets, pants, badges, +nose-pinchers, lamp-lighters, firemen’s caps and soldier caps.” + +“Oh, that’s why you buy all that colored paper,” Maida said in a +tone of great satisfaction. “I’ve often wondered.” She examined +Dicky’s work carefully. She could see that it was done with +remarkable precision and skill. “Oh, what fun to do things like +that. I do wish you’d show me how to make them, Dicky. I’m such a +useless girl. I can’t make a single thing.” + +“I’ll show you, sure,” Dicky offered generously. + +“What are you making so many for?” Maida queried. + +“Well, you see it’s this way,” Dicky began in a business-like air. +“Arthur and Rosie and I are going to have a fair. We’ve had a fair +every spring and every fall for the last three years. That’s how we +get our money for Christmas and the Fourth of July. Arthur whittles +things out of wood—he’ll show you what he can do in a minute—he’s a +crackajack. Rosie makes candy. And I make these paper things.” + +“And do you make much money?” Maida asked, deeply interested. + +“Don’t make any money at all,” Dicky said. “The children pay us in +nails. I charge them ten nails a-piece for the easy things and twenty +nails for the hardest. Arthur can get more for his stuff because +it’s harder to do.” + +“But what do you want nails for?” Maida asked in bewilderment. + +“Why, nails are junk.” + +“And what’s junk?” + +The three children stared at her. “Don’t you know what _junk_ is, +Maida?” Rosie asked in despair. + +“No.” + +“Junk’s old iron,” Dicky explained. “And you sell it to the junkman. +Once we made forty cents out of one of these fairs. One reason we’re +beginning so early this year, I’ve got something very particular I +want to buy my mother for a Christmas present. Can you keep a +secret, Maida?” + +Maida nodded. + +“Well, it’s a fur collar for her neck. They have them down in a +store on Main street every winter—two dollars and ninetyeight cents. +It seems an awful lot but I’ve got over a dollar saved up. And I +guess I can do it if I work hard.” + +“How much have you made ordinarily?” Maida asked thoughtfully. + +“Once we made forty cents a-piece but that’s the most.” + +“I tell you what you do,” Maida burst out impetuously after a moment +of silence in which she considered this statement. “When the time +comes for you to hold your fair, I’ll lend you my shop for a day. +I’ll take all the things out of the window and I’ll clean all the +shelves off and you boys can put your things there. I’ll clear out +the showcases for Rosie’s candy. Won’t that be lovely?” She smiled +happily. + +“It would be grand business for us,” Dicky said soberly, “but +somehow it doesn’t seem quite fair to you.” + +“Oh, please don’t think of that,” Maida said. “I’d just love to do +it. And you must teach me how to make things so that I can help you. +You will take the shop, Dicky?” she pleaded. “And you, Rosie? And +Arthur?” She looked from one to the other with all her heart in her +eyes. + +But nobody spoke for a moment. “It seems somehow as if we oughtn’t +to,” Dicky said awkwardly at last. + +Maida’s lip trembled. At first she could not understand. Here she +was aching to do a kindness to these three friends of hers. And +they, for some unknown reason, would not permit it. It was not that +they disliked her, she knew. What was it? She tried to put herself +in their place. Suddenly it came to her what the difficulty was. +They did not want to be so much in her debt. How could she prevent +that? She must let them do something for her that would lessen that +debt. But what? She thought very hard. In a flash it came to her—a +plan by which she could make it all right. + +“You see,” she began eagerly, “I wanted to ask you three to help me +in something, but I can’t do it unless you let me help you. +Listen—the next holiday is Halloween. I want to decorate my shop +with a lot of real jack-o’-lanterns cut from pumpkins. It will be +hard work and a lot of it and I was hoping that perhaps you’d help +me with this.” + +The three faces lighted up. + +“Of course we will,” Dicky said heartily. + +“Gee, I bet Dicky and I could make some great lanterns,” Arthur said +reflectively. + +“And I’ll help you fix up the store,” Rosie said with enthusiasm. “I +just love to make things look pretty.” + +“It’s a bargain then,” Maida said. “And now you must teach me how to +help you this very afternoon, Dicky.” + +They fell to work with a vim. At least three of them did. Rosie +continued to frisk with Delia and Tag on the floor. Dicky started +Maida on the caps first. He said that those were the easiest. And, +indeed she had very little trouble with anything until she came to +the boxes. She had to do her first box over and over again before it +would come right. But Dicky was very patient with her. He kept +telling her that she did better than most beginners or she would +have given it up. When she made her first good box, her face beamed +with satisfaction. + +“Do you mind if I take it home, Dicky?” she asked. “I’d like to show +it to my father when he comes. It’s the first thing I ever made in +my life.” + +“Of course,” Dicky said. + +“Don’t the other children ever try to copy your things?” Maida +asked. + +“They try to,” Arthur answered, “but they never do so well as +Dicky.” + +“You ought to see their nose-pinchers,” Rosie laughed. “They can’t +stand up straight. And their boxes and steamships are the wobbliest +things.” + +“I’m going to get all kinds of stuff for things we make for the +fair,” Maida said reflectively. “Gold and silver paper and colored +stars and pretty fancy pictures for trimmings. You see if you’re +going to charge real money you must make them more beautiful than +those for which you only charged nails.” + +“That’s right,” Dicky said. “By George, that will be great! You go +ahead and buy whatever you think is right, Maida, and I’ll pay you +for it from what we take in at the fair.” + +“That’s settled. What do you whittle, Arthur?” + +“Oh, all kinds of things—things I made up myself and things I +learned how to do in sloyd in school. I make bread-boards and +rolling pins and shinny sticks and cats and little baskets out of +cherry-stones.” + +“Jiminy crickets, he’s forgetting the boats,” Dicky burst in +enthusiastically. “He makes the dandiest boats you ever saw in your +life.” + +Maida looked at Arthur in awe. “I never heard anything like it! Can +you make anything for girls?” + +“Made me a set of the darlingest dolls’ furniture you ever saw in +your life,” Rosie put in from the floor. + +“Say, did you get into any trouble last night?” Arthur turned +suddenly to Rosie. “I forgot to ask you.” + +“Arthur and Rosie hooked jack yesterday, in all that rain,” Dicky +explained to Maida. “They knew a place where they could get a whole +lot of old iron and they were afraid if they waited, it would be +gone.” + +“I should say I did,” Rosie answered Arthur’s question. “Somebody +went and tattled to my mother. Of course, I was wet through to the +skin and that gave the whole thing away, anyway. I got the worst +scolding and mother sent me to bed without my supper. But I climbed +out the window and went over to see Maida. I don’t mind! I hate +school and as long as I live I shall never go except when I want +to—never, never, never! I guess I’m not going to be shut up studying +when I’d rather be out in the open air. Wouldn’t you hook jack if +you wanted to, Maida?” + +Maida did not reply for an instant. She hated to have Rosie ask this +question, point-blank for she did not want to answer it. If she said +exactly what she thought there might be trouble. And it seemed to +her that she would do almost anything rather than lose Rosie’s +friendship. But Maida had been taught to believe that the truth is +the most precious thing in the world. And so she told the truth +after a while but it was with a great effort. + +“No, I wouldn’t,” she said. + +“Oh, that’s all right for _you_ to say,” Rosie said firing up. “You +don’t have to go to school. You live the easiest life that anybody +can—just sitting in a chair and tending shop all day. What do you +know about it, anyway?” + +Maida’s lips quivered. “It is true I don’t go to school, Rosie,” she +said. “But it isn’t because I don’t want to. I’d give anything on +earth if I could go. I watch that line of children every morning and +afternoon of my life and wish and _wish_ and WISH I was in it. And +when the windows are opened and I hear the singing and reading, it +seems as if I just couldn’t stand it.” + +“Oh, well,” Rosie’s tone was still scornful. “I don’t believe, even +if you did go to school, that you’d ever do anything bad. You’d +never be anything but a fraid-cat and teacher’s pet.” + +“I guess I’d be so glad to be there, I’d do anything the teacher +asked,” Maida said dejectedly. “I do a lot of things that bother +Granny but I guess I never have been a very naughty girl. You can’t +be very naughty with your leg all crooked under you.” Maida’s voice +had grown bitter. The children looked at her in amazement. “But +what’s the use of talking to you two,” she went on. “You could never +understand. I guess Dicky knows what I mean, though.” + +To their great surprise, Maida put her head down on the table and +cried. + +For a moment the room was perfectly silent. The fire snapped and +Dicky went over to look at it. He stood with his back turned to the +other children but a suspicious snuffle came from his direction. +Arthur Duncan walked to the window and stood looking out. Rosie sat +still, her eyes downcast, her little white teeth biting her red +lips. Then suddenly she jumped to her feet, ran like a whirlwind to +Maida’s side. She put her arms about the bowed figure. + +“Oh, do excuse me, Maida,” she begged. “I know I’m the worst girl in +the world. Everybody says so and I guess it’s true. But I do love +you and I wouldn’t have hurt your feelings for anything. I don’t +believe you’d be a fraid-cat or teacher’s pet—I truly don’t. Please +excuse me.” + +Maida wiped her tears away. “Of course I’ll excuse you! But just the +same, Rosie, I hope you won’t hook jack any more for someday you’ll +be sorry.” + +“I’m going to make some candy now,” Rosie said, adroitly changing +the subject. “I brought some molasses and butter and everything I +need.” She began to bustle about the stove. Soon they were all +laughing again. + +Maida had never pulled candy before and she thought it the most +enchanting fun in the world. It was hard to keep at work, though, +when it was such a temptation to stop and eat it. But she persevered +and succeeded in pulling hers whiter than anybody’s. She laughed and +talked so busily that, when she started to put on her things, all +traces of tears had disappeared. + +The rain had stopped. The puddle was of monster size after so long a +storm. They came out just in time to help Molly fish Tim out of the +water and to prevent Betsy from giving a stray kitten a bath. +Following Rosie and Arthur, Maida waded through it from one end to +the other—it seemed the most perilous of adventures to her. + +After that meeting, the W.M.N.T.’s were busier than they had ever +been. Every other afternoon, and always when it was bad weather, +they worked at Maida’s house. Granny gave Maida a closet all to +herself and as fast as the things were finished they were put in +boxes and stowed away on its capacious shelves. + +Arthur whittled and carved industriously. His work went slower than +Dicky’s of course but, still, it went with remarkable quickness. +Maida often stopped her own work on the paper things to watch +Arthur’s. It was a constant marvel to her that such big, +awkward-looking hands could perform feats of such delicacy. Her +own fingers, small and delicate as they were, bungled surprisingly +at times. + +“And as for the paste,” Maida said in disgust to Rosie one day, +“you’d think that I fell into the paste-pot every day. I wash it off +my hands and face. I pick it off of my clothes and sometimes Granny +combs it out of my hair.” + +Often after dinner, the W.M.N.T.’s would call in a body on Maida. +Then would follow long hours of such fun that Maida hated to hear +the clock strike nine. Always there would be molasses-candy making +by the capable Rosie at the kitchen stove and corn-popping by the +vigorous Arthur on the living-room hearth. After the candy had +cooled and the pop corn had been flooded in melted butter, they +would gather about the hearth to roast apples and chestnuts and to +listen to the fairy-tales that Maida would read. + +The one thing which she could do and they could not was to read with +the ease and expression of a grown person. As many of her books were +in French as in English and it was the wonder of the other +W.M.N.T.’s that she could read a French story, translating as she +went. Her books were a delight to Arthur and Dicky and she lent them +freely. Rosie liked to listen to stories but she did not care to +read. + +Maida was very happy nowadays. Laura was the only person in the +Court who had caused her any uneasiness. Since the day that Laura +had made herself so disagreeable, Maida had avoided her steadily. +Best of all, perhaps, Maida’s health had improved so much that even +her limp was slowly disappearing. + +In the course of time, the children taught Maida the secret language +of the W.M.N.T.’s. They could hold long conversations that were +unintelligible to anybody else. When at first they used it in fun +before Maida, she could not understand a word. After they had +explained it to her, she wondered that she had ever been puzzled. + +“It’s as easy as anything,” Rosy said. “You take off the first sound +of a word and put it on the end with an _ay_ added to it like +MAN—an-may. BOY—oy-bay. GIRL—irl-gay. When a word is just one sound +like I or O, or when it begins with a vowel like EEL or US or OUT, +you add _way_, like I—I-way. O—O-way. EEL—eel-way. US—us-way. +OUT—out-way.” + +Thus Maida could say to Rosie: + +“Are-way ou-yay oing-gay o-tay ool-schay o-tay ay-day?” and mean +simply, “Are you going to school to-day?” + +And sometimes to Maida’s grief, Rosie would reply roguishly: + +“O-nay I-way am-way oing-gay o-tay ook-hay ack-jay ith-way +Arthur-way.” + +Billy Potter was finally invited to join the W.M.N.T.’s too. He +never missed a meeting if he could possibly help it. + +“Why do you call Maida, ‘Petronilla’?” Dicky asked him curiously one +day when Maida had run home for more paper. + +“Petronilla is the name of a little girl in a fairy-tale that I read +when I was a little boy,” Billy answered. + +“And was she like Maida?” Arthur asked. + +“Very.” + +“How?” Rosie inquired. + +“Petronilla had a gold star set in her forehead by a fairy when she +was a baby,” Billy explained. “It was a magic star. Nobody but +fairies could see it but it was always there. Anybody who came +within the light of Petronilla’s star, no matter how wicked or +hopeless or unhappy he was, was made better and hopefuller and +happier.” + +Nobody spoke for an instant. + +Then, “I guess Maida’s got the star all right,” Dicky said. + +Billy was very interested in the secret language. At first when they +talked this gibberish before him, he listened mystified. But to +their great surprise he never asked a question. They went right on +talking as if he were not present. In an interval of silence, Billy +said softly: + +“I-way onder-way if-way I-way ought-bay a-way uart-quay of-way +ice-way-eam-cray, ese-thay ildren-chay ould-way eat-way it-way.” + +For a moment nobody could speak. Then a deafening, “es-yay!” was +shouted at the top of four pairs of lungs. + + + + + + CHAPTER X: PLAY + + +But although the W.M.N.T.’s worked very hard, you must not suppose +that they left no time to play. Indeed, the weather was so fine that +it was hard to stay in the house. The beautiful Indian summer had +come and each new day dawned more perfect than the last. The trees +had become so gorgeous that it was as if the streets were lined with +burning torches. Whenever a breeze came, they seemed to flicker and +flame and flare. Maida and Rosie used to shuffle along the gutters +gathering pocketsful of glossy horse-chestnuts and handfuls of +gorgeous leaves. + +Sometimes it seemed to Maida that she did not need to play, that +there was fun enough in just being out-of-doors. But she did play a +great deal for she was well enough to join in all the fun now and it +seemed to her that she never could get enough of any one game. + +She would play house and paper-dolls and ring-games with the little +children in the morning when the older ones were in school. She +would play jackstones with the bigger girls in the afternoon. She +would play running games with the crowd of girls and boys, of whom +the W.M.N.T.’s were the leaders, towards night. Then sometimes she +would grumble to Granny because the days were so short. + +Of all the games, Hoist-the-Sail was her favorite. She often served +as captain on her side. But whether she called or awaited the cry, +“Liberty poles are bending—hoist the sail!” a thrill ran through her +that made her blood dance. + +“It’s no use in talking, Granny,” Maida said joyfully one day. “My +leg is getting stronger. I jumped twenty jumps to-day without +stopping.” + +After that her progress was rapid. She learned to jump in the rope +with Rosie. + +They were a pretty sight. People passing often gave them more than +one glance—Rosie so vivid and sparkling, in the scarlet cape and hat +all velvety jet-blacks, satiny olives and brilliant crimsons—Maida +slim, delicate, fairy-like in her long squirrel-coat and cap, her +airy ringlets streaming in the breeze and the eyes that had once +been so wistful now shining with happiness. + +“Do you know what you look like, Maida?” Rosie said once. Before +Maida could answer, she went on. “You look like that little mermaid +princess in Anderson’s fairy tales—the one who had to suffer so to +get legs like mortals.” + +“Do I?” Maida laughed. “Now isn’t it strange I have always thought +that you look like somebody in a fairy tale, too. You’re like +Rose-Red in ‘Rose-Red and Snow-White.’ I think,” she added, flushing, +for she was a little afraid that it was not polite to say things like +this, “that you are the beautifulest girl I ever saw.” + +“Why, that’s just what I think of you,” Rosie said in surprise. + +“I just love black hair,” Maida said. + +“And I just adore golden hair,” Rosie said. “Now, isn’t that +strange?” + +“I guess,” Maida announced after a moment of thought, “people like +what they haven’t got.” + +After a while, Rosie taught Maida to jump in the big rope with a +half a dozen children at once. Maida never tired of this. When she +heard the rope swishing through the air, a kind of excitement came +over her. She was proud to think that she had caught the trick—that +something inside would warn her when to jump—that she could be sure +that this warning would not come an instant too soon or too late. +The consciousness of a new strength and a new power made a different +child of her. It made her eyes sparkle like gray diamonds. It made +her cheeks glow like pink peonies. + +By this time she could spin tops with the best of them—sometimes she +had five tops going at once. This was a sport of which the +W.M.N.T.’s never tired. They kept it up long into the twilight. +Sometimes Granny would have to ring the dinner-bell a half a dozen +times before Maida appeared. Maida did not mean to be disobedient. +She simply did not hear the bell. Granny’s scoldings for this +carelessness were very gentle—Maida’s face was too radiant with her +triumph in this new skill. + +There was something about Primrose Court—the rows of trees welded +into a yellow arch high over their heads, the sky showing through in +diamond-shaped glints of blue, the tiny trim houses and their +tinier, trimmer yards, the doves pink-toeing everywhere, their +throats bubbling color as wonderful as the old Venetian glass in the +Beacon Street house, the children running and shouting, the very +smell of the dust which their pattering feet threw up—something in +the look of all this made Maida’s spirits leap. + +“I’m happy, _happy_, HAPPY,” Maida said one day. The next—Rosie came +rushing into the shop with a frightened face. + +“Oh, Maida,” she panted, “a terrible thing has happened. Laura +Lathrop’s got diphtheria—they say she’s going to die.” + +“Oh, Rosie, how dreadful! Who told you so?” + +“Annie the cook told Aunt Theresa. Dr. Ames went there three times +yesterday. Annie says Mrs. Lathrop looks something awful.” + +“The poor, poor woman,” Granny murmured compassionately. + +“Oh, I’m so sorry I was cross to Laura,” Maida said, +conscience-stricken. “Oh, I do hope she won’t die.” + +“It must be dreadful for Laura,” Rosie continued, “Harold can’t go +near her. Nobody goes into the room but her mother and the nurse.” + +The news cast a deep gloom over the Court. The little +children—Betsy, Molly and Tim played as usual for they could not +understand the situation. But the noisy fun of the older children +ceased entirely. They gathered on the corner and talked in low +voices, watching with dread any movement in the Lathrop house. For a +week or more Primrose Court was the quietest spot in the +neighborhood. + +“They say she’s sinking,” Rosie said that first night. + +The thought of it colored Maida’s dreams. + +“She’s got through the night all right,” Rosie reported in the +morning, her face shining with hope. “And they think she’s a little +better.” But late the next afternoon, Rosie appeared again, her face +dark with dread, “Laura’s worse again.” + +Two or three days passed. Sometimes Laura was better. Oftener she +was worse. Dr. Ames’s carriage seemed always to be driving into the +Court. + +“Annie says she’s dying,” Rosie retailed despairingly. “They don’t +think she’ll live through the night. Oh, won’t it be dreadful to +wake up to-morrow and find the crape on the door.” + +The thought of what she might see in the morning kept Maida awake a +long time that night. When she arose her first glance was for the +Lathrop door. There was no crape. + +“No better,” Rosie dropped in to say on her way to school “but,” she +added hopefully, “she’s no worse.” + +Maida watched the Lathrop house all day, dreading to see the +undertaker’s wagon drive up. But it did not come—not that day, nor +the next, nor the next. + +“They think she’s getting better,” Rosie reported joyfully one day. + +And gradually Laura did get better. But it was many days before she +was well enough to sit up. + +“Mrs. Lathrop says,” Rosie burst in one day with an excited face, +“that if we all gather in front of the house to-morrow at one +o’clock, she’ll lift Laura up to the window so that we can see her. +She says Laura is crazy to see us all.” + +“Oh, Rosie, I’m so glad!” Maida exclaimed, delighted. Seizing each +other by the waist, the two little girls danced about the room. + +“Oh, I’m going to be so good to Laura when she gets well,” Maida +said. + +“So am I,” Rosie declared with equal fervor. “The last thing I ever +said to her was that she was ‘a hateful little smarty-cat.’” + +Five minutes before one, the next day, all the children in Primrose +Court gathered on the lawn in front of Laura’s window. Maida led +Molly by one hand and Tim by the other. Rosie led Betsy and Delia. +Dorothy Clark held Fluff and Mabel held Tag. Promptly at one +o’clock, Mrs. Lathrop appeared at the window, carrying a little, +thin, white wisp of a girl, all muffled up in a big shawl. + +The children broke into shouts of joy. The boys waved their hats and +the girls their handkerchiefs. Tag barked madly and Rosie declared +afterwards that even Fluff looked excited. But Maida stood still +with the tears streaming down her cheeks—Laura’s face looked so +tiny, her eyes so big and sad. From her own experience, Maida could +guess how weak Laura felt. + +Laura stayed only an instant at the window. One feeble wave of her +claw-like hand and she was gone. + +“Annie says Mrs. Lathrop is worn to a shadow trying to find things +to entertain Laura,” Rosie said one night to Maida and Billy Potter. +“She’s read all her books to her and played all her games with her +and Laura keeps saying she wished she had something new.” + +“Oh, I do wish we could think of something to do for her,” Maida +said wistfully. “I know just how she feels. If I could only think of +a new toy—but Laura has everything. And then the trouble with toys +is that after you’ve played with them once, there’s no more fun in +them. I know what that is. If we all had telephones, we could talk +to her once in a while. But even that would tire her, I guess.” + +Billy jumped. “I know what we can do for Laura,” he said. “I’ll have +to have Mrs. Lathrop’s permission though.” He seized his hat and +made for the door. “I’d better see her about it to-night.” The door +slammed. + +It had all happened so suddenly that the children gazed after him +with wide-open mouths and eyes. + +“What do you suppose it’s going to be, Maida?” Rosie asked finally. + +“I don’t know,” Maida answered. “I haven’t the least idea. But if +Billy makes it, you may be sure it will be wonderful.” + +When Billy came back, they asked him a hundred questions. But they +could not get a word out of him in regard to the new toy. + +He appeared at the shop early the next morning with a suit-case full +of bundles. Then followed doings that, for a long time, were a +mystery to everybody. A crowd of excited children followed him +about, asking him dozens of questions and chattering frantically +among themselves. + +First, he opened one of the bundles—out dropped eight little +pulleys. Second, he went up into Maida’s bedroom and fastened one of +the little pulleys on the sill outside her window. Third, he did the +same thing in Rosie’s house, in Arthur’s and in Dicky’s. Fourth, he +fastened four of the little pulleys at the playroom window in the +Lathrop house. + +“Oh, what is he doing?” “I can’t think of anything.” “Oh, I wish +he’d tell us,” came from the children who watched these manœuvres +from the street. + +Fifth, Billy opened another bundle—this time, out came four coils of +a thin rope. + +“I know now,” Arthur called up to him, “but I won’t tell.” + +Billy grinned. + +And, sure enough, “You watch him,” was all Arthur would say to the +entreaties of his friends. + +Sixth, Billy ran a double line of rope between Maida’s and Laura’s +window, a second between Rosie’s and Laura’s, a third between +Arthur’s and Laura’s, a fourth between Dicky’s and Laura’s. + +Last, Billy opened another bundle. Out dropped four square tin +boxes, each with a cover and a handle. + +“I’ve guessed it! I’ve guessed it!” Maida and Rosie screamed +together. “It’s a telephone.” + +“That’s the answer,” Billy confessed. He went from house to house +fastening a box to the lower rope. + +“Now when you want to say anything to Laura,” he said on his return, +“just write a note, put it in the box, pull on the upper string and +it will sail over to her window. Suppose you all run home and write +something now. I’ll go over to Laura’s to see how it works.” + +The children scattered. In a few moments, four excited little faces +appeared at as many windows. The telephone worked perfectly. Billy +handed Mrs. Lathrop the notes to deliver to Laura. + +“Oh, Mr. Potter,” Mrs. Lathrop said suddenly, “there’s a matter that +I wished to speak to you about. That little Flynn girl has lived in +the family of Mr. Jerome Westabrook, hasn’t she?” + +Billy’s eyes “skrinkled up.” “Yes, Mrs. Lathrop,” he admitted, “she +lived in the Westabrook family for several years.” + +“So I guessed,” Mrs. Lathrop said. “She’s a very sweet little girl,” +she went on earnestly for she had been touched by the sight of +Maida’s grief the day that she held Laura to the window. “I hope Mr. +Westabrook’s own little girl is as sweet.” + +“She is, Mrs. Lathrop, I assure you she is,” Billy said gravely. + +“What is the name of the Westabrook child?” + +“Elizabeth Fairfax Westabrook.” + +“What is she like?” + +“She’s a good deal like Maida,” Billy said, his eyes beginning to +“skrinkle up” again. “They could easily pass for sisters.” + +“I suppose that’s why the Westabrooks have been so good to the +little Flynn girl,” Mrs. Lathrop went on, “for they certainly are +very good to her. It is quite evident that Maida’s clothes belonged +once to the little Westabrook girl.” + +“You are quite right, Mrs. Lathrop. They were made for the little +Westabrook girl.” + +Mrs. Lathrop always declared afterwards that it was the telephone +that really cured Laura. Certainly, it proved to be the most +exciting of toys to the little invalid. There was always something +waiting for her when she waked up in the morning and the tin boxes +kept bobbing from window to window until long after dark. The girls +kept her informed of what was going on in the neighborhood and the +boys sent her jokes and conundrums and puzzle pictures cut from the +newspapers. Gifts came to her at all hours. Sometimes it would be a +bit of wood-carving—a grotesque face, perhaps—that Arthur had done. +Sometimes it was a bit of Dicky’s pretty paper-work. Rosie sent her +specimens of her cooking from candy to hot roasted potatoes, and +Maida sent her daily translations of an exciting fairy tale which +she was reading in French for the first time. + +Pretty soon Laura was well enough to answer the notes herself. She +wrote each of her correspondents a long, grateful and affectionate +letter. By and by, she was able to sit in a chair at the window and +watch the games. The children remembered every few moments to look +and wave to her and she always waved back. At last came the morning +when a very thin, pale Laura was wheeled out into the sunshine. +After that she grew well by leaps and bounds. In a day or two, she +could stand in the ring-games with the little children. By the end +of a week, she seemed quite herself. + +One morning every child in Primrose Court received a letter in the +mail. It was written on gay-tinted paper with a pretty picture at +the top. It read: + + “You are cordially invited to a Halloween party to be given by + Miss Laura Lathrop at 29 Primrose Court on Saturday evening, + October 31, at a half after seven.” + + ---------------------- + +But as Maida ceased gradually to worry about Laura, she began to be +troubled about Rosie. For Rosie was not the same child. Much of the +time she was silent, moody and listless. + +One afternoon she came over to the shop, bringing the Clark twins +with her. For awhile she and Maida played “house” with the little +girls. Suddenly, Rosie tired of this game and sent the children +home. Then for a time, she frolicked with Fluff while Maida read +aloud. As suddenly as she had stopped playing “house” she +interrupted Maida. + +“Don’t read any more,” she commanded, “I want to talk with you.” + +Maida had felt the whole afternoon that there was something on +Rosie’s mind for whenever the scowl came between Rosie’s eyebrows, +it meant trouble. Maida closed her book and sat waiting. + +“Maida,” Rosie asked, “do you remember your mother?” + +“Oh, yes,” Maida answered, “perfectly. She was very beautiful. I +could not forget her any more than a wonderful picture. She used to +come and kiss me every night before she went to dinner with papa. +She always smelled so sweet—whenever I see any flowers, I think of +her. And she wore such beautiful dresses and jewels. She loved +sparkly things, I guess—sometimes she looked like a fairy queen. +Once she had a new lace gown all made of roses of lace and she had a +diamond fastened in every rose to make it look like dew. When her +hair was down, it came to her knees. She let me brush it sometimes +with her gold brush.” + +“A gold brush,” Rosie said in an awed tone. + +“Yes, it was gold with her initials in diamonds on it. Papa gave her +a whole set one birthday.” + +“How old were you when she died?” Rosie asked after a pause in which +her scowl grew deeper. + +“Eight.” + +“What did she die of?” + +“I don’t know,” Maida answered. “You see I was so little that I +didn’t understand about dying. I had never heard of it. They told me +one day that my mother had gone away. I used to ask every day when +she was coming back and they’d say ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ and +‘next week’ until one day I got so impatient that I cried. Then they +told me that my mother was living far away in a beautiful country +and she would never come back. They said that I must not cry for she +still loved me and was always watching over me. It was a great +comfort to know that and of course I never cried after that for fear +of worrying her. But at first it was very lonely. Why, Rosie—” She +stopped terrified. “What’s the matter?” + +Rosie had thrown herself on the couch, and was crying bitterly. “Oh, +Maida,” she sobbed, “that’s exactly what they say to me when I ask +them—‘next week’ and ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ until I’m sick of +it. My mother is dead and I know it.” + +“Oh, Rosie!” Maida protested. “Oh no, no, no—your mother is not +dead. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” + +“She is,” Rosie persisted. “I know she is. Oh, what shall I do? +Think how naughty I was! What shall I do?” She sobbed so +convulsively that Maida was frightened. + +“Listen, Rosie,” she said. “You don’t _know_ your mother is dead. +And I for one don’t believe that she is.” + +“But they said the same thing to you,” Rosie protested passionately. + +“I think it was because I was sick,” Maida said after a moment in +which she thought the matter out. “They were afraid that I might die +if they told me the truth. But whether your mother is alive or dead, +the only way you can make up for being naughty is to be as good to +your Aunt Theresa as you can. Oh, Rosie, please go to school every +day.” + +“Do you suppose I could ever hook jack again?” Rosie asked bitterly. +She dried her eyes. “I guess I’ll go home now,” she said, “and see +if I can help Aunt Theresa with the supper. And I’m going to get her +to teach me how to cook everything so that I can help mother—if she +ever comes home.” + +The next day Rosie came into the shop with the happiest look that +she had worn for a long time. + +“I peeled the potatoes for Aunt Theresa, last night,” she announced, +“and set the table and wiped the dishes. She was real surprised. She +asked me what had got into me?” + +“I’m glad,” Maida approved. + +“I asked her when mother was coming back and she said the same +thing, ‘Next week, I think.’” Rosie’s lip quivered. + +“I think she’ll come back, Rosie,” Maida insisted. “And now let’s +not talk any more about it. Let’s come out to play.” + +Mindful of her own lecture on obedience to Rosie, Maida skipped home +the first time Granny rang the bell. + +Granny met her at the door. Her eyes were shining with mischief. +“You’ve got a visitor,” she said. Maida could see that she was +trying to keep her lips prim at the corners. She wondered who it +was. Could it be— + +She ran into the living-room. Her father jumped up from the +easy-chair to meet her. + +“Well, well, well, Miss Rosy-Cheeks. No need to ask how you are!” he +said kissing her. + +“Oh papa, papa, I never was so happy in all my life. If you could +only be here with me all the time, there wouldn’t be another thing +in the world that I wanted. Don’t you think you could give up Wall +Street and come to live in this Court? You might open a shop too. +Papa, I know you’d make a good shop-keeper although it isn’t so easy +as a lot of people think. But I’d teach you all I know—and, then, +it’s such fun. You could have a big shop for I know just how you +like big things—just as I like little ones.” + +“Buffalo” Westabrook laughed. “I may have to come to it yet but it +doesn’t look like it this moment. My gracious, Posie, how you have +improved! I never would know you for the same child. Where did you +get those dimples? I never saw them in your face before. Your mother +had them, though.” + +The shadow, that the mention of her mother’s name always brought, +darkened his face. “How you are growing to look like her!” he said. + +Maida knew that she must not let him stay sad. “Dimples!” she +squealed. “Really, papa?” She ran over to the mirror, climbed up on +a chair and peeked in. Her face fell. “I don’t see any,” she said +mournfully. + +“And you’re losing your limp,” Mr. Westabrook said. Then catching +sight of her woe-begone face, he laughed. “That’s because you’ve +stopped smiling, you little goose,” he said. “Grin and you’ll see +them.” + +Obedient, Maida grinned so hard that it hurt. But the grin softened +to a smile of perfect happiness. For, sure enough, pricking through +the round of her soft, pink cheeks, were a pair of tiny hollows. + + + + + + CHAPTER XI: HALLOWEEN + + +Halloween fell on Saturday that year. That made Friday a very busy +time for Maida and the other members of the W.M.N.T. In the +afternoon, they all worked like beavers making jack-o’-lanterns of +the dozen pumpkins that Granny had ordered. Maida and Rosie and +Dicky hollowed and scraped them. Arthur did all the hard work—the +cutting out of the features, the putting-in of candle-holders. These +pumpkin lanterns were for decoration. But Maida had ordered many +paper jack-o’-lanterns for sale. The W.M.N.T.’s spent the evening +rearranging the shop. Maida went to bed so tired that she could +hardly drag one foot after the other. Granny had to undress her. + +But when the school-children came flocking in the next morning, she +felt more than repaid for her work. The shop resounded with the “Oh +mys,” and “Oh looks,” of their surprise and delight. + +Indeed, the room seemed full of twinkling yellow faces. Lines of +them grinned in the doorway. Rows of them smirked from the shelves. +A frieze, close-set as peas in a pod, grimaced from the molding. The +jolly-looking pumpkin jacks, that Arthur had made, were piled in a +pyramid in the window. The biggest of them all—“he looks just like +the man in the moon,” Rosie said—smiled benignantly at the +passers-by from the top of the heap. Standing about everywhere among +the lanterns were groups of little paper brownies, their tiny heads +turned upwards as if, in the greatest astonishment, they were +examining these monster beings. + +The jack-o’-lanterns sold like hot cakes. As for the brownies, +“Granny, you’d think they were marching off the shelves!” Maida +said. By dark, she was diving breathlessly into her surplus stock. +At the first touch of twilight, she lighted every lantern left in +the place. Five minutes afterwards, a crowd of children had gathered +to gaze at the flaming faces in the window. Even the grown-ups +stopped to admire the effect. + +More customers came and more—a great many children whom Maida had +never seen before. By six o’clock, she had sold out her entire +stock. When she sat down to dinner that night, she was a very happy +little girl. + +“This is the best day I’ve had since I opened the shop,” she said +contentedly. She was not tired, though. “I feel just like going to a +party to-night. Granny, can I wear my prettiest Roman sash?” + +“You can wear annyt’ing you want, my lamb,” Granny said, “for ’tis +the good, busy little choild you’ve been this day.” + +Granny dressed her according to Maida’s choice, in white. A very, +simple, soft little frock, it was, with many tiny tucks made by hand +and many insertions of a beautiful, fine lace. Maida chose to wear +with it pale blue silk stockings and slippers, a sash of blue, +striped in pink and white, a string of pink Venetian beads. + +“Now, Granny, I’ll read until the children call for me,” she +suggested, “so I won’t rumple my dress.” + +But she was too excited to read. She sat for a long time at the +window, just looking out. Presently the jack-o’-lanterns, lighted +now, began to make blobs of gold in the furry darkness of the +street. She could not at first make out who held them. It was +strange to watch the fiery, grinning heads, flying, bodiless, from +place to place. But she identified the lanterns in the court by the +houses from which they emerged. The three small ones on the end at +the left meant Dicky and Molly and Tim. Two big ones, mounted on +sticks, came from across the way—Rosie and Arthur, of course. Two, +just alike, trotting side by side betrayed the Clark twins. A +baby-lantern, swinging close to the ground—that could be nobody but +Betsy. + +The crowd in the Court began to march towards the shop. For an +instant, Maida watched the spots of brilliant color dancing in her +direction. Then she slipped into her coat, and seized her own +lantern. When she came outside, the sidewalk seemed crowded with +grotesque faces, all laughing at her. + +“Just think,” she said, “I have never been to a Halloween party in +my life.” + +“You are the queerest thing, Maida,” Rosie said in perplexity. +“You’ve been to Europe. You can talk French and Italian. And yet, +you’ve never been to a Halloween party. Did you ever hang +May-baskets?” + +Maida shook her head. + +“You wait until next May,” Rosie prophesied gleefully. + +The crowd crossed over into the Court Two motionless, yellow faces, +grinning at them from the Lathrop steps, showed that Laura and +Harold had come out to meet them. On the lawn they broke into an +impromptu game of tag which the jack-o’-lanterns seemed to enjoy as +much as the children: certainly, they whizzed from place to place as +quickly and, certainly, they smiled as hard. + +The game ended, they left their lanterns on the piazza and trooped +into the house. + +“We’ve got to play the first games in the kitchen,” Laura announced +after the coats and hats had come off and Mrs. Lathrop had greeted +them all. + +Maida wondered what sort of party it was that was held in the +kitchen but she asked no questions. Almost bursting with curiosity, +she joined the long line marching to the back of the house. + +In the middle of the kitchen floor stood a tub of water with apples +floating in it. + +“Bobbing for apples!” the children exclaimed. “Oh, that’s the +greatest fun of all. Did you ever bob for apples, Maida?” + +“No.” + +“Let Maida try it first, then,” Laura said. “It’s very easy, Maida,” +she went on with twinkling eyes. “All you have to do is to kneel on +the floor, clasp your hands behind you, and pick out one of the +apples with your teeth. You’ll each be allowed three minutes.” + +“Oh, I can get a half a dozen in three minutes, I guess,” Maida +said. + +Laura tied a big apron around Maida’s waist and stood, watch in +hand. The children gathered in a circle about the tub. Maida knelt +on the floor, clasped her hands behind her and reached with a +wide-open mouth for the nearest apple. But at the first touch of her +lips, the apple bobbed away. She reached for another. That bobbed +away, too. Another and another and another—they all bobbed clean out +of her reach, no matter how delicately she touched them. That method +was unsuccessful. + +“One minute,” called Laura. + +Maida could hear the children giggling at her. She tried another +scheme, making vicious little dabs at the apples. Her beads and her +hair-ribbon and one of her long curls dipped into the water. But she +only succeeded in sending the apples spinning across the tub. + +“Two minutes!” called Laura. + +“Why don’t you get those half a dozen,” the children jeered. “You +know you said it was so easy.” + +Maida giggled too. But inwardly, she made up her mind that she would +get one of those apples if she dipped her whole head into the tub. +At last a brilliant idea occurred to her. Using her chin as a guide, +she poked a big rosy apple over against the side of the tub. Wedging +it there against another big apple, she held it tight. Then she +dropped her head a little, gave a sudden big bite and arose amidst +applause, with the apple secure between her teeth. + +After that she had the fun of watching the other children. The older +ones were adepts. In three minutes, Rosie secured four, Dicky five +and Arthur six. Rosie did not get a drop of water on her but the +boys emerged with dripping heads. The little children were not very +successful but they were more fun. Molly swallowed so much water +that she choked and had to be patted on the back. Betsy after a few +snaps of her little, rosebud mouth, seized one of the apples with +her hand, sat down on the floor and calmly ate it. But the climax +was reached when Tim Doyle suddenly lurched forward and fell +headlong into the tub. + +“I knew he’d fall in,” Molly said in a matter-of-fact voice. “He +always falls into everything. I brought a dry set of clothes for +him. Come, Tim!” + +At this announcement, everybody shrieked. Molly disappeared with Tim +in the direction of Laura’s bedroom. When she reappeared, sure +enough, Tim had a dry suit on. + +Next Laura ordered them to sit about the kitchen-table. She gave +each child an apple and a knife and directed him to pare the apple +without breaking the peel. If you think that is an easy thing to do, +try it. It seemed to Maida that she never would accomplish it. She +spoiled three apples before she succeeded. + +“Now take your apple-paring and form in line across the +kitchen-floor,” Laura commanded. + +The flock scampered to obey her. + +“Now when I say ‘Three!’” she continued, “throw the parings back +over your shoulder to the floor. If the paring makes a letter, it +will be the initial of your future husband or wife. One! _Two_! +THREE!” + +A dozen apple-parings flew to the floor. Everybody raced across the +room to examine the results. + +“Mine is B,” Dicky said. + +“And mine’s an O,” Rosie declared, “as plain as anything. What’s +yours, Maida?” + +“It’s an X,” Maida answered in great perplexity. “I don’t believe +that there are any names beginning with X except Xenophon and +Xerxes.” + +“Well, mine’s as bad,” Laura laughed, “it’s a Z. I guess I’ll be +Mrs. Zero.” + +“That’s nothing,” Arthur laughed, “mine’s an &—I can’t marry anybody +named ——‘and.’” + +“Well, if that isn’t successful,” Laura said, “there’s another way +of finding out who your husband or wife’s going to be. You must walk +down the cellar-stairs backwards with a candle in one hand and a +mirror in the other. You must look in the mirror all the time and, +when you get to the foot of the stairs, you will see, reflected in +it, the face of your husband or wife.” + +This did not interest the little children but the big ones were wild +to try it. + +“Gracious, doesn’t it sound scary?” Rosie said, her great eyes +snapping. “I love a game that’s kind of spooky, don’t you, Maida?” + +Maida did not answer. She was watching Harold who was sneaking out +of the room very quietly from a door at the side. + +“All right, then, Rosie,” Laura caught her up, “you can go first.” + +The children all crowded over to the door leading to the cellar. The +stairs were as dark as pitch. Rosie took the mirror and the candle +that Laura handed her and slipped through the opening. The little +audience listened breathless. + +They heard Rosie stumble awkwardly down the stairs, heard her pause +at the foot. Next came a moment of silence, of waiting as tense +above as below. Then came a burst of Rosie’s jolly laughter. She +came running up to them, her cheeks like roses, her eyes like stars. + +They crowded around her. “What did you see?” “Tell us about it?” +they clamored. + +Rosie shook her head. “No, no, no,” she maintained, “I’m not going +to tell you what I saw until you’ve been down yourself.” + +It was Arthur’s turn next. They listened again. The same thing +happened—awkward stumbling down the stairs, a pause, then a roar of +laughter. + +“Oh what did you see?” they implored when he reappeared. + +“Try it yourself!” he advised. “I’m not going to tell.” + +Dicky went next. Again they all listened and to the same mysterious +doings. Dicky came back smiling but, like the others, he refused to +describe his experiences. + +Now it was Maida’s turn. She took the candle and the mirror from +Dicky and plunged into the shivery darkness of the stairs. It was +doubly difficult for her to go down backwards because of her +lameness. But she finally arrived at the bottom and stood there +expectantly. It seemed a long time before anything happened. +Suddenly, she felt something stir back of her. A lighted +jack-o’-lantern came from between the folds of a curtain which hung +from the ceiling. It grinned over her shoulder at her face in the +mirror. + +Maida burst into a shriek of laughter and scrambled upstairs. “I’m +going to marry a jack-o’-lantern,” she said. “My name’s going to be +Mrs. Jack Pumpkin.” + +“I’m going to marry Laura’s sailor-doll,” Rosie confessed. “My name +is Mrs. Yankee Doodle.” + +“I’m going to marry Laura’s big doll, Queenie,” Arthur admitted. + +“And I’m going to marry Harold’s Teddy-bear,” Dicky said. + +After that they blew soap-bubbles and roasted apples and chestnuts, +popped corn and pulled candy at the great fireplace in the playroom. +And at Maida’s request, just before they left, Laura danced for +them. + +“Will you help me to get on my costume, Maida?” Laura asked. + +“Of course,” Maida said, wondering. + +“I asked you to come down here, Maida,” Laura said when the two +little girls were alone, “because I wanted to tell you that I am +sorry for the way I treated you just before I got diphtheria. I told +my mother about it and she said I did those things because I was +coming down sick. She said that people are always fretty and cross +when they’re not well. But I don’t think it was all that. I guess I +did it on purpose just to be disagreeable. But I hope you will +excuse me.” + +“Of course I will, Laura,” Maida said heartily. “And I hope you will +forgive me for going so long without speaking to you. But you see I +heard,” she stopped and hesitated, “things,” she ended lamely. + +“Oh, I know what you heard. I said those things about you to the +W.M.N.T.’s so that they’d get back to you. I wanted to hurt your +feelings.” Laura in her turn stopped and hesitated for an instant. +“I was jealous,” she finally confessed in a burst. “But I want you +to understand this, Maida. I didn’t believe those horrid things +myself. I always have a feeling inside when people are telling lies +and I didn’t have that feeling when you were talking to me. I knew +you were telling the truth. And all the time while I was getting +well, I felt so dreadfully about it that I knew I never would be +happy again unless I told you so.” + +“I did feel bad when I heard those things,” Maida said, “but of +course I forgot about them when Rosie told me you were ill. Let’s +forget all about it again.” + +But Maida told the W.M.N.T.’s something of her talk with Laura and +the result was an invitation to Laura to join the club. It was +accepted gratefully. + +The next month went by on wings. It was a busy month although in a +way, it was an uneventful one. The weather kept clear and fine. +Little rain fell but, on the other hand, to the great disappointment +of the little people of Primrose Court, there was no snow. Maida saw +nothing of her father for business troubles kept him in New York. He +wrote constantly to her and she wrote as faithfully to him. Letters +could not quite fill the gap that his absence made. Perhaps Billy +suspected Maida’s secret loneliness for he came oftener and oftener +to see her. + +One night the W.M.N.T.’s begged so hard for a story that he finally +began one called “The Crystal Ball.” A wonderful thing about it was +that it was half-game and half-story. Most wonderful of all, it went +on from night to night and never showed any signs of coming to an +end. But in order to play this game-story, there were two or three +conditions to which you absolutely must submit. For instance, it +must always be played in the dark. And first, everybody must shut +his eyes tight. Billy would say in a deep voice, “Abracadabra!” and, +presto, there they all were, Maida, Rosie, Laura, Billy, Arthur and +Dicky inside the crystal ball. What people lived there and what +things happened to them can not be told here. But after an hour or +more, Billy’s deepest voice would boom, “Abracadabra!” again and, +presto, there they all were again, back in the cheerful living-room. + +Maida hoped against hope that her father would come to spend +Thanksgiving with her but that, he wrote finally, was impossible. +Billy came, however, and they three enjoyed one of Granny’s +delicious turkey dinners. + +“I hoped that I would have found your daughter Annie by this time, +Granny,” Billy said. “I ask every Irishman I meet if he came from +Aldigarey, County Sligo or if he knows anybody who did, or if he’s +ever met a pretty Irish girl by the name of Annie Flynn. But I’ll +find her yet—you’ll see.” + +“I hope so, Misther Billy,” Granny said respectfully. But Maida +thought her voice sounded as if she had no great hope. + +Dicky still continued to come for his reading-lessons, although +Maida could see that, in a month or two, he would not need a +teacher. The quiet, studious, pale little boy had become a great +favorite with Granny Flynn. + +“Sure an’ Oi must be after getting over to see the poor lad’s mother +some noight,” she said. “’Tis a noice woman she must be wid such a +pretty-behaved little lad.” + +“Oh, she is, Granny,” Maida said earnestly. “I’ve been there once or +twice when Mrs. Dore came home early. And she’s just the nicest lady +and so fond of Dicky and the baby.” + +But Granny was old and very easily tired and, so, though her +intentions were of the best, she did not make this call. + +One afternoon, after Thanksgiving, Maida ran over to Dicky’s to +borrow some pink tissue paper. She knocked gently. Nobody answered. +But from the room came the sound of sobbing. Maida listened. It was +Dicky’s voice. At first she did not know what to do. Finally, she +opened the door and peeped in. Dicky was sitting all crumpled up, +his head resting on the table. + +“Oh, what is the matter, Dicky?” Maida asked. + +Dicky jumped. He raised his head and looked at her. His face was +swollen with crying, his eyes red and heavy. For a moment he could +not speak. Maida could see that he was ashamed of being caught in +tears, that he was trying hard to control himself. + +“It’s something I heard,” he replied at last. + +“What?” Maida asked. + +“Last night after I got to bed, Doc O’Brien came here to get his +bill paid. Mother thought I was asleep and asked him a whole lot of +questions. He told her that I wasn’t any better and I never would be +any better. He said that I’d be a cripple for the rest of my life.” + +In spite of all his efforts, Dicky’s voice broke into a sob. + +“Oh Dicky, Dicky,” Maida said. Better than anybody else in the +world, Maida felt that she could understand, could sympathize. “Oh, +Dicky, how sorry I am!” + +“I can’t bear it,” Dicky said. + +He put his head down on the table and began to sob. “I can’t bear +it,” he said. “Why, I thought when I grew up to be a man, I was +going to take care of mother and Delia. Instead of that, they’ll be +taking care of me. What can a cripple do? Once I read about a +crippled newsboy. Do you suppose I could sell papers?” he asked with +a gleam of hope. + +“I’m sure you could,” Maida said heartily, “and a great many other +things. But it may not be as bad as you think, Dicky. Dr. O’Brien +may be mistaken. You know something was wrong with me when I was +born and I did not begin to walk until a year ago. My father has +taken me to so many doctors that I’m sure he could not remember half +their names. But they all said the same thing—that I never would +walk like other children. Then a very great physician—Dr. +Greinschmidt—came from away across the sea, from Germany. He said he +could cure me and he did. I had to be operated on and—oh—I suffered +dreadfully. But you see that I’m all well now. I’m even losing my +limp. Now, I believe that Doctor Greinschmidt can cure you. The next +time my father comes home I’m going to ask him.” + +Dicky had stopped crying. He was drinking down everything that she +said. “Is he still here—that doctor?” he asked. + +“No,” Maida admitted sorrowfully. “But there must be doctors as good +as he somewhere. But don’t you worry about it at all, Dicky. You +wait until my father sees you—he always gets everything made right.” + +“When’s your father coming home?” + +“I don’t quite know—but I look for him any time now.” + +Dicky started to set the table. “I guess I wouldn’t have cried,” he +said after a while, “if I could have cried last night when I first +heard it. But of course I couldn’t let mother or Doc O’Brien know +that I’d heard them—it would make them feel bad. I don’t want my +mother ever to know that I know it.” + +After that, Maida redoubled her efforts to be nice to Dicky. She +cudgeled her brains too for new decorative schemes for his +paper-work. She asked Billy Potter to bring a whole bag of her books +from the Beacon Street house and she lent them to Dicky, a half dozen +at a time. + +Indeed, they were a very busy quartette—the W.M.N.T.’s. Rosie went +to school every day. She climbed out of her window no more at night. +She seemed to prefer helping Maida in the shop to anything else. +Arthur Duncan was equally industrious. With no Rosie to play hookey +with, he, too, was driven to attending school regularly. His leisure +hours were devoted to his whittling and wood-carving. He was always +doing kind things for Maida and Granny, bringing up the coal, +emptying the ashes, running errands. + +And so November passed into December. + + + + + + CHAPTER XII: THE FIRST SNOW + + +“Look out the window, my lamb,” Granny called one morning early in +December. Maida opened her eyes, jumped obediently out of bed and +pattered across the room. There, she gave a scream of delight, +jumping up and down and clapping her hands. + +“Snow! Oh goody, goody, goody! Snow at last!” + +It looked as if the whole world had been wrapped in a blanket of the +whitest, fleeciest, shiningest wool. Sidewalks, streets, crossings +were all leveled to one smoothness. The fences were so muffled that +they had swelled to twice their size. The houses wore trim, pointy +caps on their gables. The high bushes in the yard hung to the very +ground. The low ones had become mounds. The trees looked as if they +had been packed in cotton-wool and put away for the winter. + +“And the lovely part of it is, it’s still snowing,” Maida exclaimed +blissfully. + +“Glory be, it’ull be a blizzard before we’re t’rough wid ut,” Granny +said and shivered. + +Maida dressed in the greatest excitement. Few children came in to +make purchases that morning and the lines pouring into the +schoolhouse were very shivery and much shorter than usual. At a +quarter to twelve, the one-session bell rang. When the children came +out of school at one, the snow was whirling down thicker and faster +than in the morning. A high wind came up and piled it in the most +unexpected places. Trade stopped entirely in the shop. No mother +would let her children brave so terrific a storm. + +It snowed that night and all the next morning. The second day fewer +children went to school than on the first. But at two o’clock when +the sun burst through the gray sky, the children swarmed the +streets. Shovels and brooms began to appear, snow-balls to fly, +sleigh-bells to tinkle. + +Rosie came dashing into the shop in the midst of this burst of +excitement. “I’ve shoveled our sidewalk,” she announced +triumphantly. “Is anything wrong with me? Everybody’s staring at +me.” + +Maida stared too. Rosie’s scarlet cape was dotted with snow, her +scarlet hat was white with it. Great flakes had caught in her long +black hair, had starred her soft brows—they hung from her very +eyelashes. Her cheeks and lips were the color of coral and her eyes +like great velvety moons. + +“You look in the glass and see what they’re staring at,” Maida said +slyly. Rosie went to the mirror. + +“I don’t see anything the matter.” + +“It’s because you look so pretty, goose!” Maida exclaimed. + +Rosie always blushed and looked ashamed if anybody alluded to her +prettiness. Now she leaped to Maida’s side and pretended to beat +her. + +“Stop that!” a voice called. Startled, the little girls looked up. +Billy stood in the doorway. “I’ve come over to make a snow-house,” +he explained. + +“Oh, Billy, what things you do think of!” Maida exclaimed. “Wait +till I get Arthur and Dicky!” + +“Couldn’t get many more in here, could we?” Billy commented when the +five had assembled in the “child’s size” yard. “I don’t know that we +could stow away another shovel. Now, first of all, you’re to pile +all the snow in the yard into that corner.” + +Everybody went to work. But Billy and Arthur moved so quickly with +their big shovels that Maida and Rosie and Dicky did nothing but hop +about them. Almost before they realized it, the snow-pile reached to +the top of the fence. + +“Pack it down hard,” Billy commanded, “as hard as you can make it.” + +Everybody scrambled to obey. For a few moments the sound of shovels +beating on the snow drowned their talk. + +“That will do for that,” Billy commanded suddenly. His little force +stopped, breathless and red-cheeked. “Now I’m going to dig out the +room. I guess I’ll have to do this. If you’re not careful enough, +the roof will cave in. Then it’s all got to be done again.” + +Working very slowly, he began to hollow out the structure. After the +hole had grown big enough, he crawled into it. But in spite of his +own warning, he must have been too energetic in his movements. +Suddenly the roof came down on his head. + +Billy was on his feet in an instant, shaking the snow off as a dog +shakes off water. + +“Why, Billy, you look like a snow-man,” Maida laughed. + +“I feel like one,” Billy said, wiping the snow from his eyes and +from under his collar. “But don’t be discouraged, my hearties, up +with it again. I’ll be more careful the next time.” + +They went at it again with increased interest, heaping up a mound of +snow bigger than before, beating it until it was as hard as a brick, +hollowing out inside a chamber big enough for three of them to +occupy at once. But Billy gave them no time to enjoy their new +dwelling. + +“Run into the house,” was his next order, “and bring out all the +water you can carry.” + +There was a wild scramble to see which would get to the sink first +but in a few moments, an orderly file emerged from the house, Arthur +with a bucket, Dicky with a basin, Rosie with the dish-pan, Maida +with a dipper. + +“Now I’m going to pour water over the house,” Billy explained. “You +see if it freezes now it will last longer.” Very carefully, he +sprayed it on the sides and roof, dashing it upwards on the inside +walls: + +“We might as well make it look pretty while we’re about it,” Billy +continued. “You children get to work and make a lot of snow-balls +the size of an orange and just as round as you can turn them out.” + +This was easy work. Before Billy could say, “Jack Robinson!” four +pairs of eager hands had accumulated snow-balls enough for a sham +battle. In the meantime, Billy had decorated the doorway with two +tall, round pillars. He added a pointed roof to the house and +trimmed it with snow-balls, all along the edge. + +“Now I guess we’d better have a snow-man to live in this mansion +while we’re about it,” Billy suggested briskly. “Each of you roll up +an arm or a leg while I make the body.” + +Billy placed the legs in the corner opposite the snow-house. He +lifted on to them the big round body which he himself had rolled. +Putting the arms on was not so easy. He worked for a long time +before he found the angle at which they would stick. + +Everybody took a hand at the head. Maida contributed some dulse for +the hair, slitting it into ribbons, which she stuck on with glue. +Rosie found a broken clothes-pin for the nose. The round, smooth +coals that Dicky discovered in the coal-hod made a pair of +expressive black eyes. Arthur cut two sets of teeth from orange peel +and inserted them in the gash that was the mouth. When the head was +set on the shoulders, Billy disappeared into the house for a moment. +He came back carrying a suit-case. “Shut your eyes, every manjack of +you,” he ordered. “You’re not to see what I do until it’s done. If I +catch one of you peeking, I’ll confine you in the snow-house for +five minutes.” + +The W.M.N.T.’s shut their eyes tight and held down the lids with +resolute fingers. But they kept their ears wide open. The mysterious +work on which Billy was engaged was accompanied by the most +tantalizing noises. + +“Oh, Billy, can’t I please look,” Maida begged, jiggling up and +down. “I can’t stand it much longer.” + +“In a minute,” Billy said encouragingly. The mysterious noises kept +up. “Now,” Billy said suddenly. + +Four pairs of eyes leaped open. Four pairs of lips shrieked their +delight. Indeed, Maida and Rosie laughed so hard that they finally +rolled in the snow. + +Billy had put an old coat on the snow-man’s body. He had put a tall +hat—Arthur called it a “stove-pipe”—on the snow-man’s head. +He had put an old black pipe between the snow-man’s grinning, +orange-colored teeth. Gloves hung limply from the snow-man’s arm-stumps +and to one of them a cane was fastened. Billy had managed to give the +snow-man’s head a cock to one side. Altogether he looked so spruce +and jovial that it was impossible not to like him. + +“Mr. Chumpleigh, ladies and gentlemen,” Billy said. “Some members of +the W.M.N.T., Mr. Chumpleigh.” + +And Mr. Chumpleigh, he was until—until— + +Billy stayed that night to dinner. They had just finished eating +when an excited ring of the bell announced Rosie. + +“Oh, Granny,” she said, “the boys have made a most wonderful coast +down Halliwell Street and Aunt Theresa says I can go coasting until +nine o’clock if you’ll let Maida go too. I thought maybe you would, +especially if Billy comes along.” + +“If Misther Billy goes, ’twill be all roight.” + +“Oh, Granny,” Maida said, “you dear, darling, old fairy-dame!” She +was so excited that she wriggled like a little eel all the time +Granny was bundling her into her clothes. And when she reached the +street, it seemed as if she must explode. + +A big moon, floating like a silver balloon in the sky, made the +night like day. The neighborhood sizzled with excitement for the +street and sidewalks were covered with children dragging sleds. + +“It’s like the ‘Pied Piper’, Rosie,” Maida said joyfully, “children +everywhere and all going in the same direction.” + +They followed the procession up Warrington Street to where Halliwell +Street sloped down the hill. + +Billy let out a long whistle of astonishment. “Great Scott, what a +coast!” he said. + +In the middle of the street was a ribbon of ice three feet wide and +as smooth as glass. At the foot of the hill, a piled-up mound of +snow served as a buffer. + +“The boys have been working on the slide all day,” Rosie said. “Did +you ever see such a nice one, Maida?” + +“I never saw any kind of a one,” Maida confessed. “How did they make +it so smooth?” + +“Pouring water on it.” + +“Have you never coasted before, Maida?” Billy asked. + +“Never.” + +“Well, here’s your chance then,” said a cheerful voice back of them. +They all turned. There stood Arthur Duncan with what Maida soon +learned was a “double-runner.” + +Billy examined it carefully. “Did you make it, Arthur?” + +“Yes.” + +“Pretty good piece of work,” Billy commented. “Want to try it, +Maida?” + +“I’m crazy to!” + +“All right. Pile on!” + +Arthur took his place in front. Rosie sat next, then Dicky, then +Maida, then Billy. + +“Hold on to Dicky,” Billy instructed Maida, “and I’ll hold on to +you.” + +Tingling with excitement, Maida did as she was told. But it seemed +as if they would never start. But at last, she heard Billy’s voice, +“On your marks. Get set! Go!” The double-runner stirred. + +It moved slowly for a moment across the level top of the street. +Then came the first slope of the hill—they plunged forward. She +heard Rosie’s hysterical shriek, Dicky’s vociferous cheers and +Billy’s blood-curdling yells, but she herself was as silent as a +little image. They struck the second slope of the hill—then she +screamed, too. The houses on either side shot past like pictures in +the kinetoscope. She felt a rush of wind that must surely blow her +ears off. They reached the third slope of the hill—and now they had +left the earth and were sailing through the air. The next instant +the double-runner had come to rest on the bank of snow and Rosie and +she were hugging each other and saying, “Wasn’t it GREAT?” + +They climbed to the top of the hill again. All the way back, Maida +watched the sleds whizzing down the coast, boys alone on sleds, +girls alone on sleds, pairs of girls, pairs of boys, one seated in +front, the other steering with a foot that trailed behind on the +ice, timid little girls who did not dare the ice but contented +themselves with sliding on the snow at either side, daring little +boys who went down lying flat on their sleds. + +At the top they were besieged with entreaties to go on the +double-runner and, as there was room enough for one more, they took a +little boy or girl with them each time. Rosie lent her sled to those +who had none. At first there were plenty of these, standing at the +top of the coast, wistfully watching the fun of more fortunate +children. But after a while it was discovered that the ice was so +smooth that almost anything could be used for coasting. The sledless +ones rushed home and reappeared with all kinds of things. One little +lad went down on a shovel and his intrepid little sister followed on +a broom. Boxes and shingles and even dish-pans began to appear. Most +reckless of all, one big fellow slid down on his two feet, landing +in a heap in the snow. + +Maida enjoyed every moment of it—even the long walks back up the +hill. Once the double-runner struck into a riderless sled that had +drifted on to the course, and was overturned immediately. Nobody was +hurt. Rosie, Dicky and Arthur were cast safely to one side in the +soft snow. But Maida and Billy were thrown, whirling, on to the ice. +Billy kept his grip on Maida and they shot down the hill, turning +round and round and round. At first Maida was a little frightened. +But when she saw that they were perfectly safe, that Billy was +making her spin about in that ridiculous fashion, she laughed so +hard that she was weak when they reached the bottom. + +“Oh, do let’s do that again!” she said when she caught her breath. + +Never was such a week as followed. The cold weather kept up. +Continued storms added to the snow. For the first time in years came +four one-session days in a single week. It seemed as if Jack Frost +were on the side of the children. He would send violent flurries of +snow just before the one-session bell rang but as soon as the +children were safely on the street, the sun would come out bright as +summer. + +Every morning when Maida woke up, she would say to herself, “I +wonder how Mr. Chumpleigh is to-day.” Then she would run over to the +window to see. + +Mr. Chumpleigh had become a great favorite in the neighborhood. He +was so tall that his round, happy face with its eternal orange-peel +grin could look straight over the fence to the street. The +passers-by used to stop, paralyzed by the vision. But after studying +the phenomenon, they would go laughing on their way. Occasionally a +bad boy would shy a snow-ball at the smiling countenance but Mr. +Chumpleigh was so hard-headed that nothing seemed to hurt him. In +the course of time, the “stove-pipe” became very battered and, as +the result of continued storms, one eye sank down to the middle of +his cheek. But in spite of these injuries, he continued to maintain +his genial grin. + +“Let’s go out and fix Mr. Chumpleigh,” Rosie would say every day. +The two little girls would brush the snow off his hat and coat, +adjust his nose and teeth, would straighten him up generally. + +After a while, Maida threw her bird-crumbs all over Mr. Chumpleigh. +Thereafter, the saucy little English sparrows ate from Mr. +Chumpleigh’s hat-brim, his pipe-bowl, even his pockets. + +“Perhaps the snow will last all winter,” Maida said hopefully one +day. “If it does, Mr. Chumpleigh’s health will be perfect.” + +“Well, perhaps, it’s just as well if he goes,” Rosie said sensibly; +“we haven’t done a bit of work since he came.” + +On Sunday the weather moderated a little. Mr. Chumpleigh bore a most +melancholy look all the afternoon as if he feared what was to come. +What was worse, he lost his nose. + +Monday morning, Maida ran to the window dreading what she might see. +But instead of the thaw she expected, a most beautiful sight spread +out before her. The weather had turned cold in the night. Everything +that had started to melt had frozen up again. The sidewalks were +liked frosted cakes. Long icicles made pretty fringes around the +roofs of the houses. The trees and bushes were glazed by a sheathing +of crystal. The sunlight playing through all this turned the world +into a heap of diamonds. + +Mr. Chumpleigh had perked up under the influence of the cold. His +manner had gained in solidity although his gaze was a little glassy. +Hopefully Maida hunted about until she found his nose. + +She replaced his old set with some new orange-peel teeth and stuck +his pipe between them. He looked quite himself. + +But, alas, the sun came out and melted the whole world. The +sidewalks trickled streams. The icicles dripped away in showers of +diamonds. The trees lost their crystal sheathing. + +In the afternoon, Mr. Chumpleigh began to droop. By night his head +was resting disconsolately on his own shoulder. When Maida looked +out the next morning, there was nothing in the corner but a mound of +snow. An old coat lay to one side. Strewn about were a hat, a pair +of gloves, a pipe and a cane. + +Mr. Chumpleigh had passed away in the night. + + + + + + CHAPTER XIII: THE FAIR + + + SAVE YOUR PENNIES + A CHRISTMAS FAIR + WILL BE HELD IN THIS SHOP + THE SATURDAY BEFORE + CHRISTMAS + DELICIOUS CANDIES MADE BY + MISS ROSIE BRINE + PAPER GOODS DESIGNED AND + EXECUTED BY + MASTER RICHARD DORE + WOOD CARVING DESIGNED AND + EXECUTED BY + MASTER ARTHUR DUNCAN + DON’T MISS IT! + +This sign hung in Maida’s window for a week. Billy made it. The +lettering was red and gold. In one corner, he painted a picture of a +little boy and girl in their nightgowns peeking up a chimney-place +hung with stockings. In the other corner, the full-moon face of a +Santa Claus popped like a jolly jack-in-the-box from a chimney-top. +A troop of reindeer, dragging a sleigh full of toys, scurried +through the printing. The whole thing was enclosed in a wreath of +holly. + +The sign attracted a great deal of attention. Children were always +stopping to admire it and even grown-people paused now and then. +There was such a falling-off of Maida’s trade that she guessed that +the children were really saving their pennies for the fair. This +delighted her. + +The W.M.N.T.’s wasted no time that last week in spite of a very +enticing snowstorm. Maida, of course, had nothing to do on her own +account, but she worked with Dicky, morning and afternoon. + +Rosie could not make candy until the last two or three days for fear +it would get stale. Then she set to like a little whirlwind. + +“My face is almost tanned from bending over the stove,” she said to +Maida; “Aunt Theresa says if I cook another batch of candy, I’ll +have a crop of freckles.” + +Arthur seemed to work the hardest of all because his work was so +much more difficult. It took a great deal of time and strength and +yet nobody could help him in it. The sound of his hammering came +into Maida’s room early in the morning. It came in sometimes late at +night when, cuddling between her blankets, she thought what a happy +girl she was. + +“I niver saw such foine, busy little folks,” Granny said approvingly +again and again. “It moinds me av me own Annie. Niver a moment but +that lass was working at some t’ing. Oh, I wonder what she’s doun’ +and finking this Christmas.” + +“Don’t you worry,” Maida always said. “Billy’ll find her for you +yet—he said he would.” + +Maida, herself, was giving, for the first time in her experience, a +good deal of thought to Christmas time. + +In the first place, she had sent the following invitation to every +child in Primrose Court: + +“Will you please come to my Christmas Tree to be given Christmas +Night in the ‘Little Shop.’ Maida.” + +In the second place, she was spying on all her friends, listening to +their talk, watching them closely in work and play to find just the +right thing to give them. + +“Do you know, I never made a Christmas present in my life,” she said +one day to Rosie. + +“You never made a Christmas present?” Rosie repeated. + +Maida’s quick perception sensed in Rosie’s face an unspoken +accusation of selfishness. + +“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, Rosie dear,” Maida hastened to +explain. “It was because I was too sick. You see, I was always in +bed. I was too weak to make anything and I could not go out and buy +presents as other children did. But people used to give me the +loveliest things.” + +“What did they give you?” Rosie asked curiously. + +“Oh, all kinds of things. Father’s given me an automobile and a pair +of Shetland ponies and a family of twenty dolls and my weight in +silver dollars. I can’t remember half the things I’ve had.” + +“A pair of Shetland ponies, an automobile, a family of twenty dolls, +your weight in silver dollars,” Rosie repeated after her. “Why, +Maida, you’re dreaming or you’re out of your head.” + +“Out of my head! Why, Rosie you’re out of _your_ head. Don’t you +suppose I know what I got for Christmas?” Maida’s eyes began to +flash and her lips to tremble. + +“Well, now, Maida, just think of it,” Rosie said in her most +reasonable voice. “Here you are a little girl just like anybody else +only you’re running a shop. Now just as if you could afford to have +an automobile! Why, my father knows a man who knows another man who +bought an automobile and it cost nine hundred dollars. What did +yours cost?” + +“Two thousand dollars.” Maida said this with a guilty air in spite +of her knowledge of her own truth. + +Rosie smiled roguishly. “Maida, dear,” she coaxed, “you dreamed it.” + +Maida started to her feet. For a moment she came near saying +something very saucy indeed. But she remembered in time. Of course +nobody in the neighborhood knew that she was “Buffalo” Westabrook’s +daughter. It was impossible for her to prove any of her statements. +The flash died out of her eyes. But another flash came into her +cheeks—the flash of dimples. + +“Well, perhaps I _did_ dream it, Rosie,” she said archly. “But I +don’t think I did,” she added in a quiet voice. + +Rosie turned the subject tactfully. “What are you going to give your +father?” she asked. + +“That’s bothering me dreadfully,” Maida sighed; “I can’t think of +anything he needs.” + +“Why don’t you buy him the same thing I’m going to get my papa,” +Rosie suggested eagerly. “That is, I’m going to buy it if I make +enough money at the fair. Does your father shave himself?” + +“Oh, Adolph, his valet, always shaves him,” Maida answered. + +Rosie’s brow knit over the word _valet_—but Maida was always +puzzling the neighborhood with strange expressions. Then her brow +lightened. “My father goes to a barber, too,” she said. “I’ve heard +him complaining lots of times how expensive it is. And the other day +Arthur told me about a razor his father uses. He says it’s just like +a lawn-mower or a carpet-sweeper. You don’t have to have anybody +shave you if you have one of them. You run it right over your face +and it takes all the beard off and doesn’t cut or anything. Now, +wouldn’t you think that would be fun?” + +“I should think it would be just lovely,” Maida agreed. “That’s just +the thing for papa—for he is so busy. How much does it cost, Rosie?” + +“About a dollar, Arthur thought. I never paid so much for a +Christmas present in my life. And I’m not sure yet that I can get +one. But if I do sell two dollars worth of candy, I can buy +something perfectly beautiful for both father and mother.” + +“Oh, Rosie,” Maida asked breathlessly, “do you mean that your +mother’s come back?” + +Rosie’s face changed. “Don’t you think I’d tell you that the first +thing? No, she hasn’t come back and they don’t say anything about +her coming back. But if she ever does come, I guess I’m going to +have her Christmas present all ready for her.” + +Maida patted her hand. “She’s coming back,” she said; “I know it.” + +Rosie sighed. “You come down Main Street the night before Christmas. +Dicky and I are going to buy our Christmas presents then and we can +show you where to get the little razor.” + +“I’d love to.” Maida beamed. And indeed, it seemed the most +fascinating prospect in the world to her. Every night after she went +to bed, she thought it over. She was really going to buy Christmas +presents without any grown-up person about to interfere. It was +rapture. + +The night before the fair, the children worked even harder than the +night before Halloween, for there were so many things to display. It +was evident that the stock would overflow windows and shelves and +show cases. + +“We’ll bring the long kitchen table in for your things, Arthur,” +Maida decided after a perplexed consideration of the subject. +“Dicky’s and Rosie’s things ought to go on the shelves and into the +show cases where nobody can handle them.” + +They tugged the table into the shop and covered it with a beautiful +old blue counter-pane. + +“That’s fine!” Arthur approved, unpacking his handicraft from the +bushel-baskets in which he brought them. + +The others stood round admiring the treasures and helping him to +arrange them prettily. A fleet of graceful little boats occupied one +end of the table, piles of bread-boards, rolling-pins and “cats,” +the other. In the center lay a bowl filled with tiny baskets, carved +from peach-stones. From the molding hung a fringe of hockey-sticks. + +Having arranged all Arthur’s things, the quartette filed upstairs to +the closet where Dicky’s paper-work was kept. + +“Gracious, I didn’t realize there were so many,” Rosie said. + +“Sure, the lad has worked day and night,” Granny said, patting +Dicky’s thin cheek. + +They filled Arthur’s baskets and trooped back to the shop. They +lined show case and shelves with the glittering things—boxes, big +and little, gorgeously ornamented with stars and moons, caps of gold +and silver, flying gay plumes, rainbow boats too beautiful to sail +on anything but fairy seas, miniature jackets and trousers that only +a circus rider would wear. + +“Dicky, I never did see anything look so lovely,” Maida said, +shaking her hands with delight. “I really didn’t realize how pretty +they were.” + +Dicky’s big eyes glowed with satisfaction. “Nor me neither,” he +confessed. + +“And now,” Maida said, bubbling over with suppressed importance, +“Rosie’s candies—I’ve saved that until the last.” She pulled out one +of the drawers under the show case and lifted it on to the counter. +It was filled with candy-boxes of paper, prettily decorated with +flower patterns on the outside, with fringes of lace paper on the +inside. “I ordered these boxes for you, Rosie,” she explained. “I +knew your candy would sell better if it was put up nicely. I thought +the little ones could be five-cent size, the middle-sized ones +ten-cent size, and the big ones twenty-five cent size.” + +Rosie was dancing up and down with delight. “They’re just lovely, +Maida, and how sweet you were to think of it. But it was just like +you.” + +“Now we must pack them,” Maida said. + +Four pairs of hands made light work of this. By nine o’clock all the +boxes were filled and spread out temptingly in the show case. By a +quarter past nine, three of the W.M.N.T.’s were in bed trying hard +to get to sleep. But Maida stayed up. The boxes were not her only +surprise. + +After the others had gone, she and Granny worked for half an hour in +the little shop. + +The Saturday before Christmas dawned clear and fair. Rosie hallooed +for Dicky and Arthur as she came out of doors at half-past seven and +all three arrived at the shop together. Their faces took on such a +comic look of surprise that Maida burst out laughing. + +“But where did it all come from?” Rosie asked in bewilderment. +“Maida, you slyboots, you must have done all this after we left.” + +Maida nodded. + +But all Arthur and Dicky said was “Gee!” and “Jiminy crickets!” But +Maida found these exclamatives quite as expressive as Rosie’s hugs. +And, indeed, she herself thought the place worthy of any degree of +admiring enthusiasm. + +The shop was so strung with garlands of Christmas green that it +looked like a bower. Bunches of mistletoe and holly added their +colors to the holiday cheer. Red Christmas bells hung everywhere. + +“My goodness, I never passed such a day in my life,” Maida said that +night at dinner. She was telling it all to Granny, who had been away +on mysterious business of her own. “It’s been like a beehive here +ever since eight o’clock this morning. If we’d each of us had an +extra pair of hands at our knees and another at our waists, perhaps +we could have begun to wait on all the people.” + +“Sure ’twas no more than you deserved for being such busy little +bees,” Granny approved. + +“The only trouble was,” Maida went on smilingly, “that they liked +everything so much that they could not decide which they wanted +most. Of course, the boys preferred Arthur’s carvings and the girls +Rosie’s candy. But it was hard to say who liked Dicky’s things the +best.” + +Granny twinkled with delight. She had never told Maida, but she did +not need to tell her, that Dicky was her favorite. + +“And then the grown people who came, Granny! First Arthur’s father +on his way to work, then Mrs. Lathrop and Laura—they bought loads of +things, and Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Doyle and even Mr. Flanagan bought a +hockey-stick. He said,” Maida dimpled with delight, “he said he +bought it to use on Arthur and Rosie if they ever hooked jack again. +Poor Miss Allison bought one of Arthur’s ‘cats’—what do you suppose +for?” + +Granny had no idea. + +“To wind her wool on. Then Billy came at the last minute and bought +everything that was left. And just think, Granny, there was a crowd +of little boys and girls who had stood about watching all day +without any money to spend and Billy divided among them all the +things he bought. Guess how much money they made!” + +Granny guessed three sums, and each time Maida said, triumphantly, +“More!” At last Granny had to give it up. + +“Arthur made five dollars and thirty cents. Dicky made three dollars +and eighty-seven cents. Rosie made two dollars and seventy cents.” + +After dinner that night, Maida accompanied Rosie and Dicky on the +Christmas-shopping expedition. + +They went first to a big dry goods store with Dicky. They helped +Dicky to pick out a fur collar for his mother from a counter marked +conspicuously $2.98. The one they selected was of gray and brown +fur. It was Maida’s opinion that it was sable and chinchilla mixed. + +Dicky’s face shone with delight when at last he tucked the big round +box safely under his arm. “Just think, I’ve been planning to do this +for three years,” he said, “and I never could have done it now if it +hadn’t been for you, Maida.” + +Next Dicky took the two little girls where they could buy razors. +“The kind that goes like a lawn-mower,” Rosie explained to the +proprietor. The man stared hard before he showed them his stock. But +he was very kind and explained to them exactly how the wonderful +little machine worked. + +Maida noticed that Rosie examined very carefully all the things +displayed in windows and on counters. But nothing she saw seemed to +satisfy her, for she did not buy. + +“What is it, Rosie?” Maida asked after a while. + +“I’m looking for something for my mother.” + +“I’ll help you,” Maida said. She took Rosie’s hand, and, thus linked +together, the two little girls discussed everything that they saw. + +Suddenly, Rosie uttered a little cry of joy and stopped at a +jeweler’s window. A tray with the label, “SOLID SILVER, $1,” +overflowed with little heart-shaped pendants. + +“Mama’d love one of those,” Rosie said. “She just loved things she +could hang round her neck.” + +They went inside. “It’s just what I want,” Rosie declared. “But I +wish I had a little silver chain for it. I can’t afford one though,” +she concluded wistfully. + +“Oh, I know what to do,” Maida said. “Buy a piece of narrow black +velvet ribbon. Once my father gave my mother a beautiful diamond +heart. Mother used to wear it on a black velvet ribbon. Afterwards +papa bought her a chain of diamonds. But she always liked the black +velvet best and so did papa and so did I. Papa said it made her neck +look whiter.” + +The other three children looked curiously at Maida when she said, +“diamond heart.” When she said, “string of diamonds,” they looked at +each other. + +“Was that another of your dreams, Maida?” Rosie asked mischievously. + +“Dreams!” Maida repeated, firing up. But before she could say +anything that she would regret, the dimples came. “Perhaps it was a +dream,” she said prettily. “But if it was, then everything’s a +dream.” + +“I believe every word that Maida says,” Dicky protested stoutly. + +“I believe that Maida believes it,” Arthur said with a smile. + +They all stopped with Rosie while she bought the black velvet ribbon +and strung the heart on it. She packed it neatly away in the glossy +box in which the jeweler had done it up. + +“If my mama doesn’t come back to wear that heart, nobody else ever +will,” she said passionately. “Never—never—never—unless I have a +little girl of my own some day.” + +“Your mother’ll come back,” Maida said. + + + + + + CHAPTER XIV: CHRISTMAS HAPPENINGS + + +Maida was awakened early Christmas morning by a long, wild peal of +the bell. Before she could collect her scattered wits, she heard +Rosie’s voice, “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! +Oh, Granny, won’t you please let me run upstairs and wake Maida? +I’ve got something dreadfully important to tell her.” + +Maida heard Granny’s bewildered “All roight, child,” heard Rosie’s +rush through the living-room and then she bounded out of bed, +prickling all over with excitement. + +“Maida,” Rosie called from the stairs, “wake up! I’ve something +wonderful to tell you.” + +But Maida had guessed it. + +“I know,” she cried, as Rosie burst into the room. “Your mother’s +come home.” + +“My mother’s come home,” Rosie echoed. + +The two little girls seized each other and hopped around the room in +a mad dance, Maida chanting in a deep sing-song, “Your mother’s come +home!” and Rosie screaming at the top of her lungs, “My mother’s +come home!” After a few moments of this, they sank exhausted on the +bed. + +“Tell me all about it,” Maida gasped. “Begin at the very beginning +and don’t leave anything out.” + +“Well, then,” Rosie began, “I will. When I went to bed last night +after leaving you, I got to thinking of my mother and pretty soon I +was so sad that I nearly cried my eyes out. Well, after a long while +I got to sleep and I guess I must have been very tired, for I didn’t +wake up the way I do generally of my own accord. Aunt Theresa had to +wake me. She put on my best dress and did my hair this new way and +even let me put cologne on. I couldn’t think why, because I never +dress up until afternoons. Once when I looked at her, I saw there +were tears in her eyes and, oh, Maida, it made me feel something +awful, for I thought she was going to tell me that my mother was +dead. When I came downstairs, my father hugged me and kissed me and +sat with me while I ate my breakfast. Oh, I was so afraid he was +going to tell me that mother was dead! But he didn’t! After awhile, +he said, ‘Your Christmas presents are all up in your mother’s +bedroom, Rosie.’ So I skipped up there. My father and Aunt Theresa +didn’t come with me, but I noticed they stood downstairs and +listened. I opened the door.” + +Rosie stopped for breath. + +“Go on,” Maida entreated; “oh, do hurry.” + +“Well, there, lying on the bed was my mother. Maida, I felt so queer +that I couldn’t move. My feet wouldn’t walk—just like in a dream. +My mother said, ‘Come here, my precious little girl,’ but it sounded +as if it came from way, way, way off. And Maida _then_ I could move. +I ran across the room and hugged her and kissed her until I couldn’t +breathe. Then she said, ‘I have a beautiful Christmas gift for you, +little daughter,’ and she pulled something over towards me that lay, +all wrapped up, in a shawl on the bed. What do you think it was?” + +“I don’t know. Oh, tell me, Rosie!” + +“Guess,” Rosie insisted, her eyes dancing. + +“Rosie, if you don’t tell me this minute, I’ll pinch you.” + +“It was a baby—a little baby brother.” + +“A baby! Oh, Rosie!” + +The two little girls hopped about the room in another mad dance. + +“Maida, he’s the darlingest baby that ever was in the whole wide +world! His name is Edward. He’s only six weeks old and _he can +smile_.” + +“Smile, Rosie?” + +“He can—I saw him—and sneeze!” + +“Sneeze, Rosie?” + +“That’s not all,” said Rosie proudly. “He can wink his eyes and +double up his fists—and—and—and a whole lot of things. There’s no +doubt that he’s a remarkable baby. My mother says so. And pretty +as—oh, he’s prettier than any puppy I ever saw. He’s a little too +pink in the face and he hasn’t much hair yet—there’s a funny spot in +the top of his head that goes up and down all the time that you have +to be dreadfully careful about. But he certainly is the loveliest +baby I ever saw. What do you think my mother let me do?” + +“Oh, what?” + +“She let me rock him for a moment. And I asked her if you could rock +him some day and she said you could.” + +“Oh! oh!” + +“And what else do you think she’s going to let me do?” + +“I can’t guess. Oh, tell me quick, Rosie.” + +“She says she’s going to let me give him his bath Saturdays and +Sundays and wheel him out every day in his carriage.” + +“Rosie,” Maida said impressively, “you ought to be the happiest +little girl in the world. Think of having a baby brother for a +Christmas present. You will let me wheel him sometimes, won’t you?” + +“Of course I will. I shall divide him exactly in half with you.” + +“Where has your mother been all this time?” Maida asked. + +“Oh, she’s been dreadfully sick in a hospital. She was sick after +the baby came to her—so sick that she couldn’t even take care of +him. She said they were afraid she was going to die. But she’s all +right now. Father bought her for Christmas a beautiful, long, +red-silk dress that’s just to lie down in. She looks like a queen +in it, and yet she looks like a little girl, too, for her hair is done +in two braids. Her hair comes way down below her waist like your +mother’s hair. And when I gave her the little silver heart, she was +so pleased with it. She put it right on and it looked sweet. She +said she would much rather wear it on a black velvet ribbon than on +a silver chain.” + +“Everything’s come out all right, hasn’t it?” Maida said with +ecstasy. + +“I guess it has. Now I must go. I want to be sure to be there when +the baby wakes up. I asked my mother when you could see the baby, +Maida, and she said to-morrow. I can’t wait to show you its feet—you +never did see such little toes in your life.” + +Exciting as this event was, it was as nothing to what followed. + +Granny and Maida were still talking about Rosie’s happiness when +Billy Potter suddenly came marching through the shop and into the +living-room. + +“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” they all said +at once. + +“Granny,” Billy asked immediately, “if you could have your choice of +all the Christmas gifts in the world, which one would you choose?” + +An expression of bewilderment came into Granny’s bright blue eyes. + +“A Christmas gift, Misther Billy,” she said in an uncertain tone; “I +cudn’t t’ink of a t’ing as long as Oi can’t have me little Annie wid +me.” + +Maida saw Billy’s eyes snap and sparkle at the word Annie. She +wondered what—Could it be possible that—She began to tremble. + +“And so you’d choose your daughter, Granny?” Billy questioned. + +“Choose my daughter. Av coorse Oi wud!” Granny stopped to stare in +astonishment at Billy. “Oh, Misther Billy, if you cud only foind +her!” She gazed imploringly at him. Billy continued to smile at her, +his eyes all “skrinkled up.” Granny jumped to her feet. She seized +Billy’s arm. “Oh, Misther Billy, you _have_ found her,” she +quavered. + +Billy nodded. “I’ve found her, Granny! I told you I would and I +have. Now don’t get excited. She’s all right and you’re all right +and everything’s all right. She’ll be here just as soon as you’re +ready to see her.” + +For a moment Maida was afraid Granny was going to faint, for she +dropped back into her chair and her eyes filled with tears. But at +Billy’s last words the old fire came back to her eyes, the color to +her cheeks. “Oi want to see her at wance,” she said with spirit. + +“Listen,” Billy said. “Last night I happened to fall into +conversation with a young Irishman who had come to read the +gas-meter in my house. I asked him where he came from. He said, +‘Aldigarey, County Sligo.’ I asked him if he knew Annie Flynn. +‘Sure, didn’t she marry my cousin? She lives—’ Well, the short of it +is that I went right over to see her, though it was late then. I +found her a widow with two children. She nearly went crazy at the +prospect of seeing her mother again, but we agreed that we must wait +until morning. We planned—oh, come in, Annie,” he called suddenly. + +At his call, the shop door opened and shut. There was a rush of two +pairs of feet through the shop. In the doorway appeared a young +woman carrying a baby. Behind her came a little boy on crutches. +Granny stood like a marble statue, staring. But Maida screamed. + +Who do you suppose they were? + +They were Mrs. Dore and Delia and Dicky. + +“Oh, my mother!” Mrs. Dore said. + +“My little Annie—my little girl,” Granny murmured. The tears began +to stream down her cheeks. + +Followed kissings and huggings by the dozen. Followed questions and +answers by the score. + +“And to t’ink you’ve been living forninst us all this time,” Granny +said after the excitement had died down. She was sitting on the +couch now, with Delia asleep in her lap, Mrs. Dore on one side and +Dicky on the other. “And sure, me own hearrt was telling me the +trut’ all the toime did Oi but listhen to ut—for ’twas loving this +foine little lad ivry minut av the day.” She patted Dicky’s head. +“And me niver seeing the baby that had me own name!” She cuddled +Delia close. “OI’m the happiest woman in the whole woide wurrld this +day.” + +It was arranged that the two families were to have Christmas dinner +together. Dicky and Mrs. Dore hurried back for a few moments to +bring their turkey to the feast. + +“Granny, will you love me just the same now that you’ve got Dicky +and Delia?” Maida said wistfully. + +“Love you, my lamb? Sure, I’ll love you all the more for ’twas +t’rough you I met Misther Billy and t’rough Misther Billy I found me +Annie. Ah, Misther Billy, ’tis the grand man you make for such a b’y +that you are!” + +“Yes, m’m,” said Billy. + +When Mrs. Dore returned, mother and daughter went to work on the +dinner, while Billy and Maida and Dicky trimmed the tree. When the +door opened, they caught bits of conversation, Granny’s brogue +growing thicker and thicker in her excitement, and Mrs. Dore +relapsing, under its influence, into old-country speech. At such +times, Maida noticed that Billy’s eyes always “skrinkled up.” + +They were just putting the finishing touches to the tree when the +window darkened suddenly. Maida looked up in surprise. And then, +“Oh, my papa’s come!” she screamed; “my papa’s come to my Christmas +tree after all!” + +There is so much to tell about the Christmas tree that I don’t know +where to begin. + +First of all came Laura and Harold. Mrs. Lathrop stopped with them +for a moment to congratulate Mrs. Dore on finding her mother. + +“Mrs. Lathrop, permit me to introduce my father, Mr. Westabrook,” +Maida said. + +Mrs. Lathrop was very gracious. “The neighborhood have accepted your +daughter as Mrs. Flynn’s grandchild, Mr. Westabrook. But I guessed +the truth from the first. I believed, however, that you wished the +matter kept a secret and I have said nothing of it to anybody.” + +“I thank you, madam,” said “Buffalo” Westabrook, bending on her one +of his piercing scrutinies. “How ever the neighborhood accepted her, +they have given her back her health. I can never be too grateful to +them.” + +Came Rosie next with a, “Oh, Maida, if you could only have seen +Edward when my mother bathed him to-night!” Came Arthur, came the +Doyles, came the Clark twins with Betsy tagging at their heels. Last +of all, to Maida’s great delight, came Dr. Pierce. + +Nobody was allowed to go into the shop where the tree stood until +the last guest had arrived. But in spite of their impatience they +had a gay half hour of waiting. Billy amused them with all kinds of +games and tricks and jokes, and when he tired, Dr. Pierce, who soon +became a great favorite, took them in hand. + +Dr. Pierce sat, most of the evening, holding Betsy in his lap, +listening to her funny baby chatter and roaring at her escapades. He +took a great fancy to the Clark twins and made all manner of fun for +the children by pretending that there was only one of them. +“Goodness; how you do fly about!” he would say ruefully to Dorothy, +“An instant ago you were standing close beside me,” or “How can you +be here on the couch,” he would say to Mabel, “when there you are as +plain as a pikestaff standing up in the corner?” + +“What can you do about that leg, Eli?” Mr. Westabrook asked Dr. +Pierce once when Dicky swung across the room. + +“I’ve been thinking about that,” Dr. Pierce answered briskly. “I +guess Granny and Annie will have to let me take Dicky for a while. A +few months in my hospital and he’ll be jumping round here like a +frog with the toothache.” + +“Oh, Dr. Pierce, do you think you can cure him?” Mrs. Dore asked, +clasping her hands. + +“Cure him!” Dr. Pierce answered with his jolliest laugh. “Of course +we can. He’s not in half so bad a condition as Maida was when we +straightened her out. Greinschmidt taught us a whole bag of tricks. +Dicky could almost mend himself if he’d only stay still long enough. +Look at Maida. Would you ever think she’d been much worse than +Dicky?” + +Everybody stared hard at Maida, seated on her father’s knee, and she +dimpled and blushed under the observation. She was dressed all in +white—white ribbons, white sash, white socks and shoes, the softest, +filmiest white cobweb dress. Her hair streamed loose—a cascade of +delicate, clinging ringlets of the palest gold. Her big, gray eyes, +soft with the happiness of the long day, reflected the firelight. +Her cheeks had grown round as well as pink and dimpled. + +She did not look sick. + +“Oh, Dicky,” she cried, “just think, you’re going to be cured. +Didn’t I tell you when my father saw you, he’d fix it all right? My +father’s a magician!” + +But Dicky could not answer. He was gulping furiously to keep back +the tears of delight. But he smiled his radiant smile. Billy took +everybody’s attention away from him by turning an unexpected +cartwheel in the middle of the floor. + +Finally, Maida announced that it was time for the tree. They formed +in line and marched into the shop to a tune that Billy thumped out +of the silver-toned old spinet. + +I wish you could have heard the things the children said. + + ---------------------- + +The tree went close to the ceiling. Just above it, with arms +outstretched, swung a beautiful Christmas angel. Hanging from it +were all kinds of glittery, quivery, sparkly things in silver and +gold. Festooned about it were strings of pop corn and cranberries. +At every branch-tip glistened a long glass icicle. And the whole +thing was ablaze with candles and veiled in a mist of gold and +silver. + +At the foot of the tree, groups of tiny figures in painted plaster +told the whole Christmas Day story from the moment of the first +sight of the star by the shepherds who watched their flocks to the +arrival, at the manger, of the Wise Men, bearing gold, frankincense +and myrrh. + +Billy Potter disappeared for a moment and came in, presently, the +most chubby and pink-faced and blue-eyed of Santa Clauses, in purple +velvet trimmed with ermine, with long white hair and a long white +beard. + +I can’t begin to name to you all the fruits of that magic tree. From +Maida, there came to Rosie a big golden cage with a pair of canary +birds, to Arthur a chest of wonderful tools, to Dicky a little +bookcase full of beautiful books, to Laura a collection of sashes +and ribbons, to Harold a long train of cars. For Molly, Betsy and +the Clark twins came so many gifts that you could hardly count them +all—dolls and dolls’ wardrobes, tiny doll-houses and tinier +doll-furniture. For Tim came a sled and bicycle. + +To Maida came a wonderful set of paper boxes from Dicky, a long +necklace of carved beads from Arthur, a beautiful blank-book, with +all her candy recipes, beautifully written out, from Rosie, a warm +little pair of knitted bed-shoes from Granny, a quaint, little, +old-fashioned locket from Dr. Pierce—he said it had once belonged to +another little sick girl who died. + +From Billy came a book. Perhaps you can fancy how Maida jumped when +she read “The Crystal Ball,” by William Potter, on the cover. But I +do not think you can imagine how pleased she looked when inside she +read the printed dedication, “To Petronilla.” + +From her father came a beautiful miniature of her mother, painted on +ivory. The children crowded about her to see the beautiful face of +which Maida had told them so much. There was the mass of golden hair +which she had described so proudly. There, too, was a heart-shaped +pendant of diamonds, suspended from a black velvet ribbon tied close +to the white throat. + +The children looked at the picture. Then they looked at each other. + +But Maida did not notice. She was watching eagerly while Dr. Pierce +and Billy and her father opened her gifts to them. + +She was afraid they would not understand. “They’re to save time, you +see, when you want to shave in a hurry,” she explained. + +“Maida,” her father said gravely, “that is a very thoughtful gift. +It’s strange when you come to think of it, as busy a man as I am and +with all the friends I have, nobody has ever thought to give me a +safety razor.” + +“I don’t know how I ever managed to get along without one,” Dr. +Pierce declared, his curls bobbing. + +“As for me—I shall probably save about a third of my income in the +future,” Billy announced. + +All three were so pleased that they laughed for a long time. + +“I’m going to give you another Christmas present, Maida,” Mr. +Westabrook said suddenly, “I’m going to give us both one—a vacation. +We’re going to start for Europe, week after next.” + +“Oh, papa, papa, how lovely!” Maida said. “Shall we see Venice +again? But how can I give up my little shop and my friends?” + +“Maida going away!” the children exclaimed. “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” +“But Mr. Westabrook, isn’t Maida coming back again?” Rosie asked. +“How I shall miss her!” Laura chimed in. + +“Take my lamb away,” Granny wailed. “Sure, she’ll be tuk sick in +those woild counthries! You’ll have to take me wid you, Misther +Westabrook—only—only—” She did not finish her sentence but her eyes +went anxiously to her daughter’s face. + +“No, Granny, you’re not to go,” Mr. Westabrook said decisively; +“You’re to stay right here with your daughter and her children. +You’re all to run the shop and live over it. Maida’s old enough and +well enough to take care of herself now. And I think she’d better +begin to take care of me as well. Don’t you think so, Maida?” + +“Of course I do, papa. If you need me, I want to.” + +“Mr. Westabrook,” Molly broke into the conversation determinedly, +“did you ever give Maida a pair of Shetland ponies?” + +Mr. Westabrook bent on the Robin the most amused of his smiles. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“And an automobile?” Tim asked. + +Mr. Westabrook turned to the Bogle. “Yes,” he said, a little +puzzled. + +“And did Maida’s mother have a gold brush with her initials in +diamonds on it?” Rosie asked. + +Mr. Westabrook roared. “Yes,” he said. + +“And have you got twelve peacocks, two of them white?” Arthur asked. + +“Yes.” + +“And has Maida a little theater of her own and a doll-house as big +as a cottage?” Laura asked. + +“Yes.” + +“And did she have a May-party last year that she invited over four +hundred children to?” Harold asked. + +“Yes.” + +“And did you give her her weight in silver dollars once?” Mabel +asked. + +“Yes.” + +“And a family of twenty dolls?” Dorothy asked. + +“Yes, you shall see all these things when we come back,” Mr. +Westabrook promised. + +“Then why did she run away?” Betsy asked solemnly. + +Everybody laughed. + +“I always said Maida was a princess in disguise,” Dicky maintained, +“and now I suppose she’s going back and be a princess again.” + +“Dicky was the first friend I made, papa,” Maida said, smiling at +her first friend. + +“But you’ll come back some time, won’t you, Maida?” Dicky begged. + +“Yes, Dicky,” Maida answered, “_I’ll_ come back.” + +Yes, Maida did come back. And what fun they all have, the Little Six +in their private quarters, and the Big Six with their picnics, and +their adventures with the Gypsies, is told in _Maida’s Little +House_. + + THE END + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + THE CAROLYN WELLS BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +Fresh, spirited stories that the modern small girl will take to her +heart these well known books by a famous author have won an +important place in the field of juvenile fiction. + + THE FAMOUS "PATTY" BOOKS + +Patty Fairfield Patty at Home Patty in the City Patty’s Summer Days +Patty in Paris Patty’s Friend Patty’s Pleasure Trip Patty’s Success +Patty’s Motor Car Patty’s Butterfly Days Patty’s Social Season +Patty’s Suitors Patty’s Romance Patty’s Fortune Patty Blossom +Patty—Bride Patty and Azalea + + THE MARJORIE BOOKS + +Marjorie’s Vacation Marjorie’s Busy Days Marjorie’s New Friend +Marjorie in Command Marjorie’s Maytime Marjorie at Seacote + + TWO LITTLE WOMEN SERIES + +Two Little Women Two Little Women and Treasure House Two Little +Women on a Holiday + + DORRANCE SERIES + +The Dorrance Domain Dorrance Doings + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + THE MARY JANE SERIES + By CLARA INGRAM JUDSON + + Each Volume Complete in Itself. + +Take a trip with Mary Jane. She is the heroine of this popular +series for young girls. You’ll find her a charming traveling +companion. Her good nature, her abounding interest in her friends +and surroundings, and her fascinating adventures both at home and +abroad have endeared her to thousands all over the country. + +MARY JANE—HER BOOK +MARY JANE—HER VISIT +MARY JANE’S KINDERGARTEN +MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH +MARY JANE’S CITY HOME +MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND +MARY JANE’S COUNTRY HOME +MARY JANE AT SCHOOL +MARY JANE IN CANADA +MARY JANE’S SUMMER FUN +MARY JANE’S WINTER SPORTS +MARY JANE’S VACATION +MARY JANE IN ENGLAND +MARY JANE IN SCOTLAND +MARY JANE IN FRANCE +MARY JANE IN SWITZERLAND +MARY JANE IN ITALY +MARY JANE IN SPAIN +MARY JANE’S FRIENDS IN HOLLAND + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + THE BEVERLY GRAY STORIES + _by_ + CLAIR BLANK + +These stories, full of the fun and thrills of college life, with an +exciting mystery in each, have unusual appeal for the modern girl. + +BEVERLY GRAY, FRESHMAN +BEVERLY GRAY, SOPHOMORE +BEVERLY GRAY, JUNIOR +BEVERLY GRAY, SENIOR +BEVERLY GRAY’S CAREER +BEVERLY GRAY ON A WORLD CRUISE +BEVERLY GRAY IN THE ORIENT +BEVERLY GRAY ON A TREASURE HUNT +BEVERLY GRAY’S RETURN +BEVERLY GRAY, REPORTER +BEVERLY GRAY’S ROMANCE + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + MELODY LANE MYSTERY STORIES + By LILIAN GARIS + +Thrills, secrets, ghosts—adventures that will fascinate you seem to +surround pretty Carol Duncan. A vivid, plucky girl, her cleverness +at solving mysteries will captivate and thrill every mystery fan. + +THE GHOST OF MELODY LANE + Three people see the "ghost" that wanders in the grove carrying + a waxy white rose. And in the end Carol finds the rose and the + ghost too! + +THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL + Carol has several bad frights before she clears up the mystery + that keeps the family at Splatter Castle unhappy and afraid. + +THE TOWER SECRET + The winking lights from the old tower defy explanation. Had the + engaging circus family anything to do with them? + +THE WILD WARNING + What power did the strange, wild warning in the woods have over + Polly Flinders? Carol brings happiness to three families when + she solves this mystery. + +THE TERROR AT MOANING CLIFF + Carol finally tracks the uncanny “haunts” in the great, bleak + house on “moaning cliff” to their source. + +THE DRAGON OF THE HILLS + When Carol runs a tea shop for a friend, a baffling mystery + comes to her with her first customer. + +THE MYSTERY OF STINGYMAN’S ALLEY + An adorable child is left at the day nursery where Carol + works—who are all the mysterious people trying to claim her? + +THE SECRET OF THE KASHMIR SHAWL + _A sequel to _“The Wild Warning” + A shawl brought from Egypt brings with it an absorbing mystery + which Cecy, with the aid of Polly Flinders, finally solves. + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + FAIRY TALES + _and tales of wonder that + are favorites of young people the world over_ + +ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE Miss Mulock +ANDERSEN’S FAIRY TALES Hans Christian Andersen +AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH George MacDonald +WIND THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK Andrew Lang +ENGLISH FAIRY TALES Joseph Jacobs +GRANNY’S WONDERFUL CHAIR Frances Browne +GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES The Brothers Grimm +JAPANESE FAIRY TALES Yei Theadora Ozaki +THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE Miss Mulock +PINOCCHIO C. Collodi +THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE George MacDonald +THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN George MacDonald +THE RED FAIRY BOOK Andrew Lang +THE WATER BABIES Charles Kingsley + + ---------------------------------------------------------------- + + GROSSET &. DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIDA'S LITTLE SHOP ***
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