Maidas Little Shop | Page 6

and the like also, but not at the same places where you git the toys. I've put all the addresses down on the list. I don't see how you can make any mistakes."
"How long will it take you to get out of the shop?" Billy asked.
Maida knew that Billy enjoyed Mrs. Murdock, for often, when he looked at that lady, his eyes "skrinkled up," although there was not a smile on his face.
"A week is all I need," Mrs. Murdock declared. "If it worn't for other folks who are keeping me waiting, I'd have that hull place fixed as clean as a whistle in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Now I'll put a price on everything, so's you won't be bothered what to charge. There's some things I don't ever git, because folks buy too many of them and it's sich an everlasting bother keeping them in stock. But you're young and spry, and maybe you won't mind jumping about for every Tom, Dick and Harry. But, remember," she added in parting, "don't git expensive things. Folks in that neighborhood ain't got no money to fool away. Git as many things as you can for a cent a-piece. Git some for five and less for ten and nothing for over a quarter. But you must allus callulate to buy some things to lose money on. I mean the truck you put in the window jess to make folks look in. It gits dusty and fly-specked before you know it and there's an end on it. I allus send them to the Home for Little Wanderers at Christmas time."
Early one morning, a week later, a party of three--Granny Flynn, Billy and Maida--walked up Beacon Street and across the common to the subway. Maida had never walked so far in her life. But her father had told her that if she wanted to keep the shop, she must give up her carriage and her automobile. That was not hard. She was willing to give up anything that she owned for the little shop.
They left the car at City Square in Charlestown and walked the rest of the way. It was Saturday, a brilliant morning in a beautiful autumn. All the children in the neighborhood were out playing. Maida looked at each one of them as she passed. They seemed as wonderful as fairy beings to her--for would they not all be her customers soon? And yet, such was her excitement, she could not remember one face after she had passed it. A single picture remained in her mind--a picture of a little girl standing alone in the middle of the court. Black-haired, black-eyed, a vivid spot of color in a scarlet cape and a scarlet hat, the child was scattering bread-crumbs to a flock of pigeons. The pigeons did not seem afraid of her. They flew close to her feet. One even alighted on her shoulder.
"It makes me think of St. Mark's in Venice," Maida said to Billy.
But, little girl--scarlet cape--flocks of doves--St. Mark's, all went out of her head entirely when she unlocked the door of the little shop.
"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "how nice and clean it looks!"
The shop seemed even larger than she remembered it. The confused, dusty, cluttery look had gone. But with its dull paint and its blackened ceiling, it still seemed dark and dingy.
Maida ran behind the counter, peeped into the show cases, poked her head into the window, drew out the drawers that lined the wall, pulled covers from the boxes on the shelves. There is no knowing where her investigations would have ended if Billy had not said:
"See here, Miss Curiosity, we can't put in the whole morning on the shop. This is a preliminary tour of investigation. Come and see the rest of it. This way to the living-room!"
The living-room led from the shop--a big square room, empty now, of course. Maida limped over to the window. "Oh, oh, oh!" she cried; "did you ever see such a darling little yard?"
"It surely is little," Billy agreed, "not much bigger than a pocket handkerchief, is it?"
And yet, scrap of a place as the yard was, it had an air of completeness, a pretty quaintness. Two tiny brick walks curved from the door to the gate. On either side of these spread out microscopic flower-beds, crowded tight with plants. Late-blooming dahlias and asters made spots of starry color in the green. A vine, running over the door to the second story, waved like a crimson banner dropped from the window.
"The old lady must have been fond of flowers," Billy Potter said. He squinted his near-sighted blue eyes and studied the bunches of green. "Syringa bush in one corner. Lilac bush in the other. Nasturtiums at the edges. Morning-glories running up the fence. Sunflowers in