Maida's Little Shop Part 4

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 gla.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+ning excited eyes and ma.s.ses 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 ap.r.o.n 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.