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 [pg 51]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,’— ‘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. [pg 58]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 [pg 59]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 [pg 69]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.
