Maida's Little Shop Part 25

"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 s.h.i.+ning 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, p.r.i.c.king through the round of her soft, pink cheeks, were a pair of tiny hollows.

CHAPTER XI: HALLOWEEN

Halloween fell on Sat.u.r.day 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 d.i.c.ky hollowed and sc.r.a.ped 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 pa.s.sers-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 d.i.c.ky 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 n.o.body 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 ap.r.o.n 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, d.i.c.ky 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!"