Maida's Little Shop

Table of

as long as they could remember. Now it was always bright and pretty-always sweet with the perfume of flowers, always gay with the music of birds. But more, the children wanted to see

the bell sounded a

uainted with all her customers. Moreover, she wanted to find out whic

her life fell into

he day's sale, dusting, replacing the things she had sold,

hours, broken only by an occasional customer. In this interval she often worked in the yard, raking up the leaves that fell fro

eet constantly until two. Between two and four came another long rest. After school tr

on knew everybody by name. She discovered by degrees that on the right side of the court lived the Hales, the Clarks, the Doy

ol, put all the clean laundry into a tub of water and painted the parlor fireplace with tomato catsup. In a single afternoon, having become secretly possessed of a pair of scissors, she cut

would say. Occasionally Maida would call in a vexed tone, "Now how did she creep past the window without my seeing her?" And outside would be rosy-cheeked, brass-buttoned Mr. Flanagan, c

was her mouth would part over the tiny pearls that were her teeth. This roguis

re but it was like entertaining a whirlwind. Betsy had a strong curiosity to see what th

o give them. It was an hour, ordinarily, before they could be made to talk above a whisper. If they saw Maida coming into the court, they would run to her side, slipping a hot little hand into each of hers. Attended always by this roly-poly bodyguard,

e met one of them; "is this you or your sister?" And he always answered their whispered remarks with whis

ery fond of the Doyle children. Like Betsy, they were too young to go to school and she saw a good deal of them in the lonely school ho

e water again," Granny wou

little pig, he would lie still until Molly picked him up. She would take h

ld say whenever they met. "Fal

iscovered that could make him laugh, for he was as serious as Molly was merry. Molly certainly wa

ver seen her. But Dicky soon became an intimate. Maida had begun the reading

pt the one big lot on which the house stood. Perhaps it was because they had once been so important that Mrs. Lathrop seemed to feel herself a little better than the rest of the people in Primrose Court. At any rate, although she

ola on the top. It was painted white with green blinds and trimmed with a great deal of wood

g all day long but ride a wheel at a tearing pace over the asphalt paths, and regul

signal for all the small fry of the neighborhood to gather about the gate. First would come the Doyles, then Betsy, then, one by one, the strange children who wandered into the court, until

the walk, using first one doll-carriage, then the other. She would even play a game of croquet against herself. Occasionally she would call in a condescending tone, "You may come in for

nger. Very often, after Laura had sent the children away, Maida would call them into the s

emed to her that he went out of his way to be impolite to her, that he looked at her with a decided expression of contempt in his big dark eyes. But Rosie and Dicky seemed very fond of him. Billy Potte

doings at Dicky's or at Arthur's house every other day. What it was all about, Maida did not know

ister, was very slender and sweet-faced. She sat all day in the window, croch

the evening they would come to call on Granny. Billy Potter was very nice to them both. He was always telling the sisters the long amusing stories of his adventures

ce of great strength and of even greater temper. "Ah, that choild's the limb," Granny would say, when Maida brought her some new tale of Rosie's disobedience. And yet, i

th numerous families of dolls. There, it would be boys, gathered in an excited ring, playing marbles or top. Just before school, games like leap-frog, or tag or prisoners' base would prevail. But, later, when there was more time, hoist-the-sail would fill the air with its strange cries, or hide-and-s

"water, water wildflower," "the farmer in the dell," "go in and out the windows." Maida used to t

p-rope-even the twins, who were especially nimble at "pepper." Maida tried it one night-all alone in the shop. But suddenly her weak leg gave way under her and she fell to the floor. Granny, rushing in from the other room, scolded her

, "and I'm sure it will be all right. That won't hurt her any and, after awhile

one jump in her nightgown, just before going to b

she said one morning at breakfast. Within a few days the re

"Well, well, Pinkwink," he said. "What do you mean by bringing me way over here!

blossom had begun to show in Maida's c

keep on like this, young woman, I shan't have an

Pierce afterwards said

shop-keeping?" Dr

erce told her to go more slowly or he would put a bit in her mouth. But he

as so intense that Dr. Pierce

lock sometimes before I can get my lunch, because from twelve to two are

ittle pig OI'm growi

pped as if there were no words a

for her. "The choil

m call him Mr. Potter or even Uncle Billy because, he said, he was a child when he was with them and he wanted to be treated like a child. He played all their games with a skill that they thought no mere grown-up could possess. Lik

he choild that you are!" G

," Billy wo

ng man." From the beginning Granny had seemed one of them, but Maida was a puzzle. The children could not understand how a little

ng we were in Paris" or "The winter we spent in Rome." She knew nothing about nouns and verbs but she talked Italian fluently with the hand-organ man who came every week and many of her books were in French. She knew nothing about fractions or decimals, yet she referred

hildren had a kind of contempt fo

d up the things they dropped and never interrupted. And yet she could carry on a long conversation with them. She never said, "Yes, ma'am," o

s and spend the whole morning with the little ones. When Granny called her, she would give all the toys away, dividing them with a careful justice. And, yet, wheneve

ered that her head was a jumble at the end of each day. In that delicious, dozy interval before

children, as long as the tail of a kite, pelting to goal at the magic cry "Liberty poles are bending!" Or it was a group of little girls, setting out rows and rows of bright-colored paper-dolls among the shadows of one of the deep old

he days were long enough to do