BELATED HASTE
Instinctively Nancy sought a sheltered corner of the ice cream room. She
was greatly embarrassed to have come along the road with a stranger whom
she knew nothing about, and now she was determined to leave him alone
with Teddy. There must be something odd about him, to have drawn that
remark from the girls. Nancy looked at him critically from her place
below the decorated looking glass, and decided he did appear queer to
her.
"But I'm just starved," she told herself, "and I've got to have
something to eat." The girl in the gingham dress, with a great wide
muslin apron, took an order for cake and cream and a glass of milk.
Fortunately, Nancy had her purse along with her. That much, at least,
she had already learned about being a business woman.
Teddy was chatting gaily with the man down near the door. They seemed to
be having a great time over their stories, and Nancy rightly suspected
the stories concerned Ted's favorite sport, camping.
She ate her lunch rather solemnly. Everything seemed to be going wrong,
but the escape from fire, with the frying meat on a shallow griddle, was
surely something to be thankful for.
Oh, well! Only half a day had been lost, and she really couldn't have
done more when Miss Townsend took all that precious time with her
lamentations.
Miss Townsend! Nancy sipped the last of her milk as she reflected on the
little dog's interest in the old fireplace. Of course, Miss Townsend
would come again, and Tiny would always be along with her. And Nancy
hadn't yet told Ted about that experience.
"Just buying a country store didn't seem to mean buying a lot of freaks
along with the bargain," Nancy speculated. "And now here's Mr. Baldy who
wants to be called after Uncle Sam, going right in back of my counter
and helping himself--"
"Ready, Sis!" called out Teddy, as he waited for Mr. Sanders to pay his
bill.
"You go along, Ted," called back Nancy. "I've got to stop some place,
but I'll be there in time to open the door for you."
Ted never questioned one of those queer decisions of Nancy's. He knew
how useless such a thing would be; so off he went with the man in the
short sleeved shirt, while Nancy tarried long enough to give them a fair
start.
Then, easily finding a way through the fields, she raced off herself,
although getting through thick hedges and climbing an occasional rail
fence, proved rather tantalizing.
In front of the store she found Mr. Sanders just leaving Ted. They were
both talking and laughing as if the acquaintance had proved highly
satisfactory, but it irritated Nancy.
"Now, I suppose, _he'll_ come snooping around," she grumbled. "Well,
there's one thing certain, I'm not going to keep an old-fashioned
country store. No hanging around my cracker barrels," she told herself,
although there was not, and likely never would be a cracker barrel in
the Whatnot Shop.
Once more left to themselves, the burnt dinner was not referred to, as
Ted helped at last to clear up the disordered kitchen. Not even the lost
potatoes came in for mention as brother and sister "made things fly," as
most belated workers find themselves obliged to do.
"Here, Ted, get the broom."
Ted grabbed the broom.
"No, let me sweep. You empty those baskets of excelsior."
"Where?"
"Where?"
"Yes. Can we burn it?"
"No, never. No more fire for us," groaned Nancy. "Just dump the stuff
some where."
"But we can't, Sis," objected Ted. "Mother 'specially said nothing could
be dumped around."
"Well, do anything you like with it, but just get it out of the way,"
and Nancy's excited broom made jabs and stabs at corners without quite
reaching them.
Ted was much more methodical. He really would do things right, if only
Nancy would give him a chance. Just now he was carefully packing the
excelsior in a big clothes basket.
"You know, Nan," he remarked, "Mr. Sanders is awfully funny."
"How funny?" asked Nancy crisply.
"Oh, he knows an awful lot."
"He ought to, he's bald headed," answered Nancy, implying there-by that
Mr. Sanders was an old man and ought to be wise.
"Is he?" asked Ted innocently.
"For lands sake! Ted Brandon!" exclaimed Nancy. "Can't you think what
you're saying? Is he what?"
The thread of the argument thus entirely lost, Ted just crammed away at
the excelsior.
"I'm just dying to get at the store," said Nancy next. "I want to fix
that all up so that mother will buy more things to put in stock."
"She's going to bring home fishing rods. I'm goin' to have a corner for
sport stuff, you know," Ted reminded the whirl-wind Nancy.
"Oh, yes, of course, that's all right. But we'll have to see which
corner we can spare best. The store isn't any too big, is it?"
"Big enough," agreed the affable boy. "And I'll bet, Nan, we'll have
heaps of sport around here this summer. There's fine fellows over by the
big hill. That's more of a summer place than this is, I guess."
"Where does your friend Uncle Sam live?"
"You mean Mr. Sanders. Why, he didn't say, but he went up the hill
toward that old stone place."
"Yes. I wouldn't wonder but he would live in an old stone place," echoed
Nancy sarcastically.
"Why, don't you like him?"
"Like him?"
"I mean--do you hate him?" laughed Ted. His basket was filled and he was
gathering up the loose ends of the splintered fibers upon a tin cover.
"I don't like him and I don't hate him, but I do hope he won't come
snooping around _my_ store," returned Nancy.
Teddy stopped short with a frying pan raised in mid air. He swung it at
an imaginary ball, then put it down in the still packed peach basket.
"Now, Nan," he protested, "don't you go kickin' up any fuss about Mr.
Sanders. He always came around here; he's a great friend of the
Townsends."
"Ted Brandon!" Nancy flirted the dust brush at the gas stove, "do you
think I am going to take all that with this store? Did we buy all the
Townsends' old--old cronies along with the Whatnot Shop?"
"There's someone," Ted interrupted, as the store bell jangled timidly.
"Oh, you go please, Ted," begged Nancy, who had glimpsed girls' skirts
without. "I'm too untidy to tend store this afternoon."