Maidas Little Shop | Page 4

had a sweet, earthy smell in Maida's nostrils. As she stared,
charmed with the picture, a little girl in a scarlet cape and a scarlet hat
came climbing up over one of the fences. Quick, active as a squirrel,
she disappeared into the next yard.
"Primrose Court!" Dr. Pierce exclaimed. "Well, well, well!"
"Primrose Court," Maida repeated. "Do primroses grow there?"
"Bless your heart, no," Dr. Pierce laughed; "it was named after a man
called Primrose who used to own a great deal of the neighborhood."
But Maida was scarcely listening. "Oh, what a cunning little shop!" she
exclaimed. "There, opposite the court. What a perfectly darling little
place!"
"Good Lord! that's Connors'," Dr. Pierce explained. "Many a reckless
penny I've squandered there, my dear. Connors was the funniest, old,
bent, dried-up man. I wonder who keeps it now."

As if in answer to his question, a wrinkled old lady came to the window
to take a paper-doll from the dusty display there.
"What are those yellow things in that glass jar?" Maida asked.
"Pickled limes," Dr. Pierce responded promptly. "How I used to love
them!"
"Oh, father, buy me a pickled lime," Maida pleaded. "I never had one
in my life and I've been crazy to taste one ever since I read 'Little
Women.'"
"All right," Mr. Westabrook said. "Let's come in and treat Maida to a
pickled lime."
A bell rang discordantly as they opened the door. Its prolonged clangor
finally brought the old lady from the room at the back. She looked in
surprise at the three men in their automobile coats and at the little lame
girl.
Coming in from the bright sunshine, the shop seemed unpleasantly dark
to Maida. After a while she saw that its two windows gave it light
enough but that it was very confused, cluttery and dusty.
Mr. Westabrook bought four pickled limes and everybody ate--three of
them with enjoyment, Billy with many wry faces and a decided,
"Stung!" after the first taste.
"I like pickled limes," Maida said after they had started for Boston.
"What a funny little place that was! Oh, how I would like to keep a
little shop just like it."
Billy Potter started. For a moment it seemed as if he were about to
speak. But instead, he stared hard at Maida, falling gradually into a
brown study. From time to time he came out of it long enough to look
sharply at her. The sparkle had all gone out of her face. She was pale
and dream-absorbed again.

Her father studied her with increasing anxiety as they neared the big
house on Beacon Street. Dr. Pierce's face was shadowed too.
"Eureka! I've found it!" Billy exclaimed as they swept past the State
House. "I've got it, Mr. Westabrook."
"Got what?"
Billy did not answer at once. The automobile had stopped in front of a
big red-brick house. Over the beautifully fluted columns that held up
the porch hung a brilliant red vine. Lavender-colored glass, here and
there in the windows, made purple patches on the lace of the curtains.
"Got what?" Mr. Westabrook repeated impatiently.
"That little job of the imagination that you put me on a few moments
ago," Billy answered mysteriously. "In a moment," he added with a
significant look at Maida. "You stay too, Dr. Pierce. I want your
approval."
The door of the beautiful old house had opened and a man in livery
came out to assist Maida. On the threshold stood an old silver-haired
woman in a black-silk gown, a white cap and apron, a little black shawl
pinned about her shoulders.
"How's my lamb?" she asked tenderly of Maida.
"Oh, pretty well," Maida said dully. "Oh, Granny," she added with a
sudden flare of enthusiasm, "I saw the cunningest little shop. I think I'd
rather tend shop than do anything else in the world."
Billy Potter smiled all over his pink face. He followed Mr. Westabrook
and Dr. Pierce into the drawing-room.
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Maida went upstairs with Granny Flynn.
Granny Flynn had come straight to the Westabrook house from the boat

that brought her from Ireland years ago. She had come to America in
search of a runaway daughter but she had never found her. She had
helped to nurse Maida's mother in the illness of which she died and she
had always taken such care of Maida herself that Maida loved her
dearly. Sometimes when they were alone, Maida would call her
"Dame," because, she said, "Granny looks just like the 'Dame' who
comes into fairy-tales."
Granny Flynn was very little, very bent, very old. "A t'ousand and
noine, sure," she always answered when Maida asked her how old. Her
skin had cracked into a hundred wrinkles and her long sharp nose and
her short sharp chin almost met. But the