Maidas Little Shop | Page 9

The walls had been colored a beautiful soft yellow. Back of the counter a series of shelves, glassed in by sliding doors, ran the whole length of the wall and nearly to the ceiling. Behind the show case stood a comfortable, cushioned swivel-chair.
"The stuff you've been buying, Petronilla," Billy said, pointing to a big pile of boxes in the corner. "Now, while Granny and I are putting some last touches to the rooms upstairs, you might be arranging the window."
"That's just what I planned to do," Maida said, bubbling with importance. "But you promise not to interrupt me till it's all done."
"All right," Billy agreed, smiling peculiarly. He continued to smile as he opened the boxes.
It did not occur to Maida to ask them what they were going to do upstairs. It did not occur to her even to go up there. From time to time, she heard Granny and Billy laughing. "One of Billy's jokes," she said to herself. Once she thought she heard the chirp of a bird, but she would not leave her work to find out what it was.
When the twelve o'clock whistle blew, she called to Granny and to Billy to come to see the results of her morning's labor.
"I say!" Billy emitted a long loud whistle.
"Oh, do you like it?" Maida asked anxiously.
"It's a grand piece of work, Petronilla," Billy said heartily.
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 glass. 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,