Maidas Little Shop | Page 2

way he asked this question that he was not accustomed to take advice from other people. Indeed, he did not look it. But he looked his name. You would know at once why the cartoonists always represented him with the head of a buffalo; why, gradually, people had forgotten that his first name was Jerome and referred to him always as "Buffalo" Westabrook.
Like the buffalo, his head was big and powerful and emerged from the midst of a shaggy mane. But it was the way in which it was set on his tremendous shoulders that gave him his nickname. When he spoke to you, he looked as if he were about to charge. And the glance of his eyes, set far back of a huge nose, cut through you like a pair of knives.
It surprised Maida very much when she found that people stood in awe of her father. It had never occurred to her to be afraid of him.
"I've racked my brains to entertain her," "Buffalo" Westabrook went on. "I've bought her every gimcrack that's made for children--her nursery looks like a toy factory. I've bought her prize ponies, prize dogs and prize cats--rabbits, guinea-pigs, dancing mice, talking parrots, marmosets--there's a young menagerie at the place in the Adirondacks. I've had a doll-house and a little theater built for her at Pride's. She has her own carriage, her own automobile, her own railroad car. She can have her own flying-machine if she wants it. I've taken her off on trips. I've taken her to the theater and the circus. I've had all kinds of nurses and governesses and companions, but they've been mostly failures. Granny Flynn's the best of the hired people, but of course Granny's old. I've had other children come to stay with her. Selfish little brutes they all turned out to be! They'd play with her toys and ignore her completely. And this fall I brought her to Boston, hoping her cousins would rouse her. But the Fairfaxes decided suddenly to go abroad this winter. If she'd only express a desire for something, I'd get it for her--if it were one of the moons of Jupiter."
"It isn't anything you can give her," Dr. Pierce said impatiently; "you must find something for her to do."
"Say, Billy, you're an observant little duck. Can't you tell us what's the matter?" "Buffalo" Westabrook smiled down at the third man of the party.
"The trouble with the child," Billy Potter said promptly, "is that everything she's had has been 'prize.' Not that it's spoiled her at all. Petronilla is as simple as a princess in a fairy-tale."
"Petronilla" was Billy Potter's pet-name for Maida.
"Yes, she's wonderfully simple," Dr. Pierce agreed. "Poor little thing, she's lived in a world of bottles and splints and bandages. She's never had a chance to realize either the value or the worthlessness of things."
"And then," Billy went on, "nobody's ever used an ounce of imagination in entertaining the poor child."
"Imagination!" "Buffalo" Westabrook growled. "What has imagination to do with it?"
Billy grinned.
Next to her father and Granny Flynn, Maida loved Billy Potter better than anybody in the world. He was so little that she could never decide whether he was a boy or a man. His chubby, dimply face was the pinkest she had ever seen. From it twinkled a pair of blue eyes the merriest she had ever seen. And falling continually down into his eyes was a great mass of flaxen hair, the most tousled she had ever seen.
Billy Potter lived in New York. He earned his living by writing for newspapers and magazines. Whenever there was a fuss in Wall Street--and the papers always blamed "Buffalo" Westabrook if this happened--Billy Potter would have a talk with Maida's father. Then he wrote up what Mr. Westabrook said and it was printed somewhere. Men who wrote for the newspapers were always trying to talk with Mr. Westabrook. Few of them ever got the chance. But "Buffalo" Westabrook never refused to talk with Billy Potter. Indeed, the two men were great friends.
"He's one of the few reporters who can turn out a good story and tell it straight as I give it to him," Maida had once heard her father say. Maida knew that Billy could turn out good stories--he had turned out a great many for her.
"What has imagination to do with it?" Mr. Westabrook repeated.
"It would have a great deal to do with it, I fancy," Billy Potter answered, "if somebody would only imagine the right thing."
"Well, imagine it yourself," Mr. Westabrook snarled. "Imagination seems to be the chief stock-in-trade of you newspaper men."
Billy grinned. When Billy smiled, two things happened--one to you and the other to him. Your spirits went up and his eyes seemed to disappear. Maida said that Billy's eyes "skrinkled up." The effect