IN MISS PENNY'S SHOP
The Reverend John Bliss walked homeward, revolving many things. Seth's
stories, the vexed question of prayer-meetings, the Second Epistle to
the Hebrews, from which his text was taken, Mrs. Tree's will, and the
New England character (Mr. Bliss was a Minnesota man) made an intricate
network of thought which so absorbed his mind that his feet carried him
whithersoever they would.
"A tangled skein!" he said aloud, shaking his head; "a tangled skein!"
and then he stopped abruptly, looked about him, and began to retrace his
steps hurriedly. He had forgotten the pink worsted.
The little minister entered Miss Penny Pardon's shop with an air of
nervous apology, and an inward shiver. He hated women's shops; he was
always afraid of seeing crinoline, or hair-curlers, or some other
reprehensibly feminine article.
"Why will they?" he murmured to himself, as even now his unwilling eye
lighted on a "Fluffy Fedora." "Why will--oh, good morning, Miss Pardon;
a beautiful morning after the rain."
"Good mornin', Mr. Bliss!" said Miss Penny, with a beaming smile.
"You're quite a stranger, ain't you? Yes, sir, 'tis elegant weather; and
the rain, too, so seasonable yesterday. I think weather most always _is_
seasonable right along; far as I've noticed, that is. Pleasant to see
spring comin', isn't it, Mr. Bliss? Not but what I've enjoyed the
winter, too, real well. I think the snow's real pretty, specially _in_
winter. That's right; yes, sir, we should be thankful for all. Was there
anything I could do for you to-day, Mr. Bliss?"
"Yes! yes, Miss Pardon," said Mr. Bliss, nervously. "I--that is--Mrs.
Bliss desired some pink--pink--worsted, I think it was. Yes, I am quite
positive it was pink worsted. Have you the article?"
He looked relieved, and met Miss Penny's eye almost hardily.
"Worsted, sir? Yes, indeed, we keep it. What kind did she wish, Mr.
Bliss? Single zephyr, do you think it was, or Germantown?"
Miss Penny's tone was warmly sympathetic; she always felt for gentlemen
who came on such errands.
"They feel like a fish on a sidewalk," she would say; "real homesick!"
Mr. Bliss pondered. "I--I think it _was_ a German town," he said,
slowly. "I am almost positive it was a German town,--or province; the
exact name escapes me. Hanover, perhaps? Nassau? Saxe-Coburg? I incline
to think it was Saxe-Coburg, Miss Pardon. Have you the article?"
It was Miss Penny's turn to look puzzled. "We don't keep that, sir," she
said. "I don't know as I ever heard of it. All we keep is Germantown and
Saxony, and--"
"That is it!" cried the little minister. "Saxony! to be sure! Saxony, of
course. And--yes, I have a sample--somewhere!"
He felt in his pockets, and produced a parish circular, a calendar, a
note-book, a fishing-line, and finally the envelope containing the
sample.
Miss Penny beamed at sight of it. "Yes, sir, we have it," she announced,
joyfully.
"Mis' Bliss got it here only last week. How much did she say, Mr.
Bliss?"
"Two pounds," said Mr. Bliss, promptly and decidedly.
"Two--" Miss Penny looked aghast. "Why, we don't generally--I doubt if
we have that much in the store, Mr. Bliss. Was she goin' to make a
slumber robe?"
"It was--I think--for an infant's jacket," Mr. Bliss hazarded, looking
sidelong at the door. These things were hard to bear; harder than
Marietta knew; yet how gladly should he do it for her, on that very
account. He turned an appealing glance on Miss Penny. "An infant's
jacket would not, you think, require two pounds?" he asked.
"A jacket for your little Beauty Darlin', to be sure! She bought a
pattern, too, I remember, a shell border, and then--don't you believe
p'r'aps it was skeins she said, Mr. Bliss, instead of pounds? I presume
most likely it was." Her voice was tender now, as if addressing a little
child.
"You are probably right, Miss Penelope," said the minister, dejectedly.
"I seem to have singularly little faculty for these matters. Two
skeins--ah, yes! I perceive it is so written here on the envelope. I beg
your pardon, Miss Penelope!"
"You've no need to, Mr. Bliss, not a mite!" cried Miss Penny. "We all
make mistakes, and, if you never done anything worse than this, you'd be
sure of the Kingdom. Not but what you are anyways, I expect. Gentlemen
don't have any call to know about fancy work as a rule, especially a
pastor, whose mind on higher things is set; you remember the hymn. There
is those, though, that finds comfort in it, same as a woman doos. I knew
a gentleman once who used to come and get his worsted of me just as
regular! _He_ crocheted for his nerves; helped him to sleep, so he
thought, and it _is_ real soothin', but he's dead and buried now. I
often think, times when I hear of a man bein' nervous and crotchety
about the house, there! I think, if he'd only set down and crochet a
spell, or knit, one of the two, what a comfort it would be to him and
his folks. We're made as we are, though; that's right. Was there
anything more, Mr. Bliss? Twenty cents; thank _you_, sir. Real pleased
you came in; call again, won't you? _Good_ morning!"
Miss Penny looked anxiously after the minister as he walked away. "I do
hope he'll get that home safe!" she said. "I set out to ask him if he
didn't think he'd better put it in his pocket, but I was afraid he might
think me forth-puttin'. Like as not he'll forget every single thing
about it, and drop it right in the street. There! I don't see _why_
men-folks is so forgetful, do you, Sister? Not that they are all alike,
of course."
"Some ways they are," said Miss Prudence.
Miss Prudence was invisible, but the door between the shop and her
sanctum was always ajar, for she liked to hear what was going on.
"I never see the man yet that I'd trust to carry a parcel home; not a
small parcel, that is. If it's a whole dress, he'll take it all right,
if he takes it at all; but give him a small parcel that wants to be
carried careful, and he'll drop it, or else scrunch it up in his pocket
and forget it. I've got to run up these brea'ths now; Miss Wax is comin'
at eleven to try on."
There was a silence, broken only by the cheerful whir of the
sewing-machine, and the still more cheerful voice of Miss Penny cooing
to her birds. She hopped from one cage to another, feeding, stroking,
caressing.
"You're lookin' dumpy to-day, darlin'," she said, addressing a rather
battered-looking mino bird. "There! the fact is, you ain't so young as
once you was. You're like the rest of us, only you don't know it, and we
do--some of us! Here's a nice bit of egg for you, Beauty; that'll shine
you up some, though I do expect you've seen your best days. Luella
Slocum told me she expected me to make this bird over as good as new,
Sister. I told her I guessed what ailed him was the same as did the rest
of us. Stop the clock tickin', I told her, and she'd stop his trouble
and hers as well. She was none too well pleased. She'd just got her a
new front from Miss Wax, and not a scrap of gray in it. She'd ought to
sing 'Backward, turn backward,' if anybody ought. There!" The
exclamation had a note of dismay in it.
"What's the matter?" asked Miss Prudence; the machine had stopped, and
her mouth was apparently full of pins.
"Why, I never thought to ask Mr. Bliss how Mr. Homer was, and he just
the one to tell us. Now did you ever! Fact is, when he come in, I hadn't
got my face straight after that woman askin' for mesmerized petticoats.
I was shakin' still when I see Mr. Bliss comin', and my wits flew every
which way like a scairt hen. But speakin' of petticoats reminds me,
Tommy Candy was in this mornin' while you was to market, and _he_ said
Mr. Homer was re'l slim. 'Pestered with petticoats' was what he said,
and I said, 'What do you mean, Tommy Candy?' and he said, 'Just what I
say, Miss Penny,' he said. 'I guess you and Miss Prudence are the only
single or widder women in Quahaug that ain't settin' their caps for Mr.
Homer,' he said. And I said, 'Tommy Candy, that's no way for you to
talk, if you _have_ had money left you!' I said. He said he knew it
wasn't, but yet he couldn't help it, and you and I had always ben good
to him sence his mother died. He has a good heart, Tommy has, only he
doos speak up so queer, and love mischief. But he says it's a fact, they
do pester Mr. Homer, Sister. There! it made me feel fairly ashamed.
'Don't tell me Miss Bethia Wax is one of 'em,' I said, 'because I
shouldn't believe you if you did,' I said. 'Well, I won't,' he said,
'for she ain't; she's a lady.' But some, he said, was awful, and he
means to stand between; he don't intend Mr. Homer should marry anybody
except he wants to, and it's the right one. Seemed to have re'l good
_i_deas, and he thinks the world of Mr. Homer. I like Tommy; he has a
re'l pleasant way with him."
"You'd make cream cheese out of 'most any skim-milk, Sister," said Miss
Prudence, kindly. "Not but what Tommy has improved a vast deal to what
he was. It's his lameness, I expect."
"That's right!" cried little Miss Penny, the tears starting to her round
brown eyes. "That's it, Sister, and that's what turns my heart to the
boy, I expect. So young, and to be lame for life; it is pitiful."
"He did what he had a mind to do," said Miss Prudence, grimly. "He had
no call to climb that steeple, as I know of."
"Oh, Sister, there's so many that has no call to do _as_ they do, and
yet many times they don't seem to get their come-uppance, far as we can
see; I expect they do, though, come to take it in the yard _or_ the
piece. But, howsoever, Mis' Tree has done handsome by Tommy, and he has
a grateful heart, and means to do his part by Mr. Homer and the
_Mu_seum, I feel sure of that. Sister, do you suppose Pindar Hollopeter
is alive? Seem's though if he was, he'd come home now, at least for a
spell: Homer in affliction, as you may say, and left with means and all.
How long is it since he went away?"
"Thirty years," said Miss Prudence. "I always thought it was a good
riddance to bad rubbidge when Pindar went away."
"Why, Sister, he was an elegant man, flighty, but re'l elegant; at
least, so he appeared to me; I was a child then. Why did he go, Sister?
I never rightly understood about it."
"He went from flightiness," said Miss Prudence. "Him and Homer was both
crazy about Mary Ashton, and Pindar asked her to have him. She'd as soon
have had the meetin'-house weathercock, and when she told him so,--I
don't mean them words; Mary would have spoke pleasant to the Father of
Evil."
"Why, Sister!"
"Well, she would. Anyhow, when she said no, he made sure she was going
to have Homer, and off he went, and never come back. So that's _his_
story."
"I want to know!" said Miss Penny. "But she never--"
"She never cast a look at ary one of 'em. She give her heart to George
Jaquith to break, and he done it; and now he's dead, and so is she. But
Homer is alive, and so is Pindar, for all I know. He never liked here as
Homer did; he always wanted to get away, from a boy. Old Mis' Hollopeter
run a great resk, I always thought, the way she brought up those two
boys, fillin' their heads with poetry and truck. If she had learned 'em
a good trade, now, it would be bread in their mouths this day; not that
Homer is ever likely to want now. I wish't he'd marry Bethia Wax."
"I don't know, Sister Prudence," said Miss Penny, who was romantic.
"Some is cut out for a single life, and I think's it's real pretty to
see a man faithful to the ch'ice of his youth."
"Ch'ice of his grandmother!" retorted Miss Prudence, sharply. "Don't
talk foolishness, Penny! A woman can get along single, and oftentimes do
better, and it's meant some of 'em should, or there wouldn't be so many
extry; but leave a man alone all his life, and either he dries up or
else he sploshes out, and either way he don't amount to what he should.
They ain't got enough _to_ 'em, someways. There! this is ready to try
on, and Miss Wax ain't here. She said she'd be here by eleven."
"I see her comin' now," cried Miss Penny. "It's just on the stroke;
she's 'most always punctual. She has a re'l graceful, pretty walk. _I_
think Miss Wax is a fine-lookin' woman, though a little mite more flesh
would set good on her."
"Her clo'es would set better on her if she had it," said Miss Prudence.
"I know that. I don't know but I'd sooner fit a bolster than a
bean-pole."
"Hush, Sister, for pity's sake! Good mornin', Miss Wax. You're right on
the dot, ain't you? I was just sayin' to Sister how punctual you always
was. Yes'm, we're smart; the same old story, peace and poverty. You can
go right in, Miss Wax; Sister's expectin' you."