Maida's Little Shop Part 29

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 pa.s.sers-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 gla.s.sy.

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 pa.s.sed away in the night.

CHAPTER XIII: THE FAIR

SAVE YOUR PENNIES A CHRISTMAS FAIR WILL BE HELD IN THIS SHOP THE SAt.u.r.dAY 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 d.i.c.ky, 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 n.o.body 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 la.s.s 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 n.o.body 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,"