EXPANSION.
The short Thanksgiving holiday ended, Eleanor returned to college and
Jean to school, found Constance busier than ever in her kitchen, for the
holiday season was her hardest time, and this year promised to be an
exceptional one. An extra supply of candy must be made for the booth in
the Arcade, as well as for those who sold her candies on commission in
other towns. Then, too, an unusual number of private orders had already
come in. These all meant incessant work for Constance and Mary Willing.
The first week in December she entered the kitchen where Mary was just
cutting into squares great masses of chocolate caramels. She had been
hard at work all the morning, and her face was flushed from her
exertions.
“Oh, I’m afraid you are nearly done up,” cried Constance, contritely.
“You have been working so hard ever since eight o’clock, and it is now
past eleven. I am so sorry to leave all this work to you while I do the
easy part.”
“Do you call it easy work to write about two dozen letters, keep track
of all the orders which are pouring in now, and run accounts
straight?—to say nothing of ordering our supplies. _I_ don’t, and I’m
thanking my lucky stars that I can do _my_ share of the work with a big
spoon instead of a pen,” was Mary’s cheerful reply, as she raised her
arm to push back from her forehead an unruly lock of hair which fell
across her eyes.
“Let me,” said Constance quickly, lifting the soft strand into place.
“You are all sticky, and when one’s hands are sticky that is the time
for hair to grow rampant and one’s nose to itch! I’ve been there too
many times myself not to know all about it, I tell you. But that isn’t
what I came downstairs to say! Do you know that this pile of letters has
set me thinking, Mary? If things go on at this rate you and I can never
in the world handle the business. Why, it has taken me the whole morning
to look after the letters and acknowledge the orders which came by the
early mail. I haven’t been able to do one single stroke in here, and now
I have got to go down to South Riveredge. Charles told Mammy that we
ought to have more space there for our goods, and he wished I would see
Mr. Porter about it at once. He thinks we ought to rent one of the other
spaces for the Christmas season, anyway, and have someone there to
attend to it. What do you think? And do you know of someone we could
get? You see Christmas is only three weeks off, and whatever we do we’ve
got to do at once.”
As Constance talked she wielded a big knife and helped briskly. Mary did
not answer at once; her pretty forehead wore a perplexed pucker. At
length she said:
“I know a girl who could take charge of it I think, although I don’t
know whether you’d like her or not.”
Constance smiled as she answered: “Suppose you tell me who she is, then
maybe I can tell you whether I like her or not.”
“It’s Kitty Sniffins. We used to go to school together.”
“I don’t know her at all, so I’m a poor judge of her qualifications, am
I not? But if you think she is the sort of girl we would like to have
there, I am sure she needs no other recommendation, Mary. What is her
address?”
“Her brother is an insurance agent down on State Street. You might see
him. They moved not long ago, and I don’t know where they live now.”
“Oh——,” exclaimed Constance, light beginning to dawn upon her. She had
not heard the name Sniffins since the year in which she began her
candy-making, as the result of the burning of their home, and the name
had not figured very pleasantly in the experience of that October, or
the months which followed. Still, the sister might prove very unlike the
brother, and just now time was precious. If she was to act upon Charles’
suggestion she must act immediately.
“I think I’ll drop her a note in care of her brother; I don’t like to go
to his office. She can call here,” said Constance.
Mary glanced up quickly to ask:
“Is there any reason, Miss Constance, why you would prefer someone
else?” for something in Constance’s tone made her surmise that for some
reason which she failed to comprehend Kitty Sniffins did not meet with
her young employer’s approval.
“If I have one it is too silly to put into words,” laughed Constance,
“so I will not let it influence me. I dare say Kitty Sniffins is a right
nice girl and will sell enough candy to make me open my eyes. At all
events, I’ll have a pow-wow with her. But before she can sell candy or
anything else she must have a place to sell it in, and it’s up to me to
scuttle off to the Arcade as fast as I can go. And, by the way, you’ve
got to have more help here, Mary. Yes, you _have_. You need not shake
your head. As matters are shaping I shall have to give every moment of
my time to the business of this great and glorious enterprise. Now whom
shall I get? What is Fanny doing this fall? She left school in the
spring, didn’t she?”
“Yes. She is helping mother sew, but——” and an eager light sprang into
Mary’s eyes. Fanny Willing was a younger sister, a rather delicate girl,
who was growing more delicate from the hours spent at work in the close
rooms of her home, and running a heavy, old-fashioned sewing machine.
She was a plain, quiet little thing, very unlike her striking-looking
older sister, and as such had not found favor in her mother’s eyes. In
her younger days Mrs. Willing had boasted a certain style of beauty, and
with it had contrived to win a husband whom she felt would elevate her
to a higher social plane, but her hopes had never been realized.
Probably every family has a black sheep; Jim Willing had figured as that
unenviable figure in his. It was the old story of the son born after his
parents had been married a number of years, and several older sisters
were waiting to spoil him; plenty of money to fling about, a wild
college career of two years, marriage with a pretty housemaid
and—disinheritance. It had required only twenty-three years to bring it
all to pass, and the next twenty-three completed the evil. At forty-six
Jim Willing looked like a man of fifty-six—so can dissipation and moral
degeneration set their seal upon their victims. Gentle blood? What had
it done for him? Very little, because he had permitted it to become
hopelessly contaminated. And his children?—they were working out the
problem of heredity; paying the penalties of an earlier generation;
demonstrating the commandment which says, “unto the third and fourth
generation.” A cruel, relentless one, but not to be lightly broken.
In Mary was one illustration of it; Fanny another. Each was to “drie her
weird,” as the Scotch say.
“Do you think your mother can spare her?”
“I’m sure she can. The fact is, Fanny has been trying to get some work
in one of the shops in South Riveredge. Sewing doesn’t agree with her,
somehow; she seems to grow thinner every day; she ain’t—_isn’t_, I
mean—very strong, you see.”
“Will you send word to her, Mary? I think this sort of work will be
better for her than the sewing, and we’ll talk about the salary when she
comes over.”
“She’ll be a mighty lucky girl just to _get_ here, salary or _no_
salary!” was Mary’s positive reply. “If you don’t mind I’ll run down
home this afternoon and tell her to come early to-morrow morning. I’ll
have all this batch made, and the rest can wait until the morning; we’ve
got a good lot ahead already.” Mary’s eagerness manifested itself in her
every action, and Constance nodded a cheerful approval as she laid down
her big knife and turned to leave the kitchen.
“Go ahead, partner, but I must be off now.”
“So the business is expanding?” exclaimed Mr. Porter, heartily, when
Constance had explained to him her wish to rent an arch for her
Christmas trade. “Good! I knew it would. Couldn’t possibly help it with
such candy as that to back it up. But mind, you are not to forget my
Christmas order in all your bustle and hurry for other people. Twenty
pounds——”
“What!” cried Constance, aghast at the recklessness of her oldest
customer.
“Now, that will do, young lady. Will you please answer me this! Why must
I always be looked upon as a mild sort of lunatic when I give you an
order? ’Twas ever thus! Why, you hooted my first order, and you have
kept on hooting every single one since. I wonder I haven’t transferred
my patronage long since. Trouble is you realize where you have me
cornered. You know I can’t duplicate those candies anywhere. Now come
along with me and let us arrange for the new quarters which are to
replace the outgrown ones, and—mark my word—this business will never
again contract to the old space. This is where my business acumen shows
itself. Once I’ve got you into the bigger stand, and the rent into my
coffers, I mean to keep you there, even if I have to get out and drum up
the extra trade to meet the extra outlay. Co-operation.”
Constance was too accustomed to this good friend’s nonsense to see
anything but the deepest interest for her welfare underlying it. She
knew that, with all his seeming badinage, he was looking further ahead
than she, with her still limited experience, even after four years in
her little business world, could look, for her’s, while exceptional for
her years and sex, could never match that of this man of the great,
active business world. But if Mr. Porter was far-seeing in some
directions, in others he was short-sighted, and his range of vision was
to be broadened by one who dwelt in a far humbler walk of life—Mammy
Blairsdale.
Upon this particular morning Mammy had elected to drive in state to
South Riveredge, ostensibly to cast a critical eye over the
Blairsdale-Devon Lunch Counter, but in reality to convey to it a very
special dainty for her pet customer—Hadyn Stuyvesant.
In addition to a few hundred other side issues to her business, Mammy
had raised poultry during the previous summer, and, curiously enough, to
every chick hatched out, there had pecked themselves into the world
about four roosters, until poor Mammy began to believe her setting eggs
must have had a spell cast upon them. As the summer advanced such an
array of lordly, strutting, squawking young cocks never dominated a
poultry yard, and the sequel was inevitable. When they arrived at the
_crowing age_ the neighbors arose in revolt! Such a vociferous,
discordant collection of birds had never fought and crowed themselves
into public notice. Mammy became almost distracted, and was at her wits’
end until a diplomatic move struck her: those roosters should win not
only fame for themselves, but for their owner also; and not long
afterward first one neighbor then another was mollified and highly
flattered to receive a fine daintily broiled, fried, or roasted young
bird, cooked as only Mammy knew how to cook a fowl, garnished as only
Mammy knew how to garnish, and accompanied by a respectful note, _not_
written by Mammy, but by Jean, somewhat in this strain:
“Will Mrs. —— please accept this dish with the most respectful
compliments of Mammy Blairsdale, who _hopes_ this noisy rooster will
never disturb her any more?”
Oh, “sop to Cerberus!” Could diplomacy go further?
It was one of the most vociferous of her flock which now lay upon his
lordly back, his legs pathetically turned to the skies, his fighting and
his squaking days ended forever, that reposed in Mammy’s warming can, to
be transferred to Charles’ warming oven, there to await Hadyn’s arrival.
As Constance and Mr. Porter drew near the lunch counter, Mammy was
giving very explicit directions to Charles. Constance and Mr. Porter
were too occupied to be aware of her presence; not she of theirs,
however.
Mr. Porter conducted Constance to the arch next but one to that in which
the lunch counter stood, only separated from it by the cigar stand.
“Now here is a space which you can have as well as not, and it is close
enough to Charles for him to cast an eye over it from time to time.”
“And may I rent it for one month?” asked Constance.
“Better rent it for one year,” urged Mr. Porter. “It’s in a mighty good
location.”
“And _I_ call it a mighty _po’_ location,” broke in an emphatic voice.
“A _mighty_ po’ one, and no kynd ob a place fo’ one ob ma chillen fer to
be at. _Gobblin_ men-folks hyar at de lunch stan’; _smokin’_ men-folks
at de nex’ one; an’ we kin bress Gawd ef we don’t fin’ oursefs wid
_guzzlin_ men-folks on yonder at de tother side befo’ long.”
“Now, now! Hold on, Mammy! Go slow,” broke in Mr. Porter, laughingly.
“You know the Arcade doesn’t stand for _that_ sort of thing. Don’t hit
us so hard.”
“How I gwine know what it boun’ ter stan’ fer if _it_ lak ter stan’ fer
lettin’ dat chile rint a counter nex’ door to a segar stan’?” snapped
Mammy, her eyes fixed upon the luckless superintendent, personifying the
strongly emphasized _it_.
“Well, it’s lucky we found you here. Now, we never took _that_ side of
the question into consideration, did we, little girl? Yes, I guess
Mammy’s judgment beats ours. Great head! So come on, Mammy, and let us
have your sound advice in this choice of bigger quarters for Miss
Constance. You see, _I_ predict that she will never return to the
smaller ones again.”
“Don’t need no gre’t secon’-sight fer ter make _dat_ out, I reckon,” was
the superior retort.
Mr. Porter looked crushed and then dropped behind Mammy, who went
sailing majestically down the Arcade, to stop at the very first and most
pretentious of all the Arches—one which had been rented until very
recently by a stationer, who had profited so handsomely that he had
built a large shop not far from the Arcade, and now wished to sub-let
this arch until his lease expired. Next to it was a florist’s stand, and
opposite a stationer’s, each of a very high order. Constance stood
aghast at Mammy’s audacity.
“Why, Mammy, this is the highest-priced arch in the Arcade,” she
exclaimed.
“Well, what _dat_ got ter do wid it, Baby? Ain’t your candy _de
highest-priced candy_? _An’ ain’ you de very high-water mark quality?_
Who gwine ter ’spute dat? Go ’long an’ rint yo’ place; yo’ all matches
p’intedly,” and with this speech Mammy stalked back to her own quarters.
Constance gave one look at Mr. Porter, then sank upon one of the little
benches within the arch.
“By George, she’s right and I’m a blockhead! Think I’d better turn over
my job to her and go down into the engine-room until I learn to read
human nature as _she_ can. Yes, it is the finest, highest-priced arch in
the building, but it didn’t take that old black woman five seconds to
discover the match for it.”
“But, Mr. Porter,” protested Constance, “of all the extravagant steps,
and for Mammy, above all others, to urge it. That conservative creature!
And the way she expressed it! _Why_ was I born a Blairsdale? It will
shorten my years, I know, to have to live up to the name,” and Constance
broke into a merry laugh.
“Perhaps the burden will be lifted before long, and such a calamity to
your friends averted,” answered Mr. Porter, soberly, but with twinkling
eyes. The one o’clock whistle had just blown in a building hard by, and
the Arcade’s elevator was beginning to bring down the people from the
floors above. Among them was Hadyn Stuyvesant, who went at once to the
luncheon counter, quite unaware of the presence of a certain little lady
near the entrance of the Arcade; but her back was toward the elevator.
For one second she glanced at Mr. Porter entirely innocent of the
purport of his words. Then, catching sight of the mischievous eyes
twinkling at her, she rose suddenly to her feet, saying: “Come at once
and let me learn what this rash step will cost me.”
With a low laugh Mr. Porter strode toward his office beside a very
rosy-cheeked young girl.