Maida's Little Shop Part 18

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 d.i.c.ky 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, d.i.c.ky?" 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 cla.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+ny 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."