SO MUCH FOR SO MUCH
Inside Miss Crevey's stuffy little shop a woman customer kept insisting
that she must have lilac ribbon two inches wide, although Miss Crevey
told her that blue ribbon three inches wide, which Miss Crevey happened
to have in stock, would be just as good, if not better. Jacqueline
teetered impatiently from one foot to the other, while she waited for
the end of the argument. The woman left at last in dudgeon, without
buying so much as a paper of pins.
"Well, there's no suitin' some folks," Miss Crevey muttered waspishly,
and turned to Jacqueline. "Come now, what d'ye want, little girl? Speak
up! I won't have no young ones hangin' round in here, handlin' things
and askin' questions. Ain't you got a tongue?"
Most certainly Jacqueline had, and she used it, the moment Miss Crevey
stopped for breath and gave her half a chance.
"If you please," she said, "I want to know the price of the cup and
saucer on the shelf in the window."
Miss Crevey fixed her eyes on a dinky little "Souvenir of Longmeadow"
that might have graced a doll's tea table.
"Fifty cents," she said, "but you'd better buy the match box and get
more for your money."
"I didn't mean that one," protested Jacqueline. "I meant the one with
green dragons, there on the shelf."
"That old cup?"
"Yes, please. How much is it?"
Miss Crevey looked at her with hostile eyes.
"That's more 'n you can pay," she said flatly. "It's worth five dollars,
Mrs. Enos Trowbridge told me--five dollars, if it's worth a cent. Run
along now! I can't waste my time tellin' you the price of everything in
the store."
"I haven't asked the price of _everything_," Jacqueline retorted. "I
only asked about the green-dragon cup. Let me look at it, will you
please?"
So loftily did she speak, and so sure did she seem of herself, that Miss
Crevey took the cup and saucer from the shelf although she grumbled a
little as she did so.
"There they be!" she said, as she set them on the counter. "Don't you go
droppin' them now!"
Luckily at that moment a young girl from upstreet stepped in, to buy a
piece of tape, and some white hooks and eyes (she had to be contented
with black) and some orange twist, though she finally took yellow. While
Miss Crevey was making these small sales, Jacqueline had time to examine
the dragon cup and saucer at leisure. Yes, they were of identically the
same pattern as Grandma's cups and saucers that were broken. Jacqueline
couldn't be mistaken. She had washed and dried them too often. Aunt
Martha had told her that such china couldn't be had now for love nor
money, but here it was, the very cup she wanted--Grandma's cup!
The screen door slammed as the young girl went out, not too well
pleased, it would seem, with her makeshift purchases.
"Well!" said Miss Crevey briskly. "If you're through playin' with that
cup and saucer, I'll just set 'em up out o' harm's way."
"I--I want to buy them," faltered Jacqueline.
"Got five dollars handy?" challenged Miss Crevey.
Jacqueline swallowed and stared hard at the precious cup, so that she
need not meet Miss Crevey's gimlet eyes. Oh, if only she had some of the
money that she had spent so carelessly at home and at school! Why, she
had often given a five-dollar bill for a box of candy, and got back with
it only a few bits of silver--chicken-feed, she had liked to call them
grandly. If only she had one of those bills now! If only she could go
home proudly, with Grandma's cup!
"Make up your mind!" urged the implacable Miss Crevey. "Take it or leave
it--I can't wait all day."
Jacqueline felt herself backed against the wall. She must do something,
and do it quickly, or the precious cup and saucer would go back upon the
shelf, and then as likely as not they would be snapped up next minute by
some other customer and lost to Grandma forever. She could almost see
the entire town of Longmeadow, charging into the shop to buy that cup,
and nothing but that cup.
"Hold on!" she said, and she was thinking fast. "Couldn't you--trust me?
I'll have the money in September, sure."
Of course she would! Even if Caroline and the Gildersleeves didn't get
back in time for school, as Eleanor Trowbridge prophesied, Aunt Edie and
Uncle Jimmie were due in September.
Miss Crevey looked at her coldly. Oh, how conscious Jacqueline grew of
the scantiness and shabbiness of her faded gingham! She blushed, and was
angry at herself for blushing, and so blushed all the harder.
"Where d'ye expect to get the money?" Miss Crevey shot the words from
her thin lips.
"I'm eleven in September," Jacqueline said truthfully. "And I have a
pretend-aunt that always gives me money on my birthday, and she will
this time."
"Well, when you get the money," Miss Crevey spoke like one conferring a
great favor, "I'll let you have the cup and saucer."
"Will you keep them for me till I get the money?" asked Jacqueline
desperately.
"Why of course I will," cried Miss Crevey heartily, "unless somebody
comes along that'll pay me spot cash for them."
The tears of disappointment rose to Jacqueline's eyes. She blinked them
rapidly away. She must not let this hateful woman see her cry. But she
was so sorry for Grandma--and so sorry for herself! She remembered how
hopefully she had dressed for the little trip to Longmeadow, only an
hour ago--how she had made herself so extra neat, with a hair ribbon,
too--the look of the upper drawer, as she tossed its contents
over--handkerchiefs, stockings, underwear--a Japanese lacquer box.
Jacqueline caught her breath.
"Look here!" she spoke, as one inspired. "If I brought you something
worth _more_ than five dollars and let you keep it till September when I
shall have some money--then would you let me have the cup and saucer and
take them home--right now?"
Miss Crevey pursed her lips.
"What d'ye mean by _something_?" she asked stabbingly.
Jacqueline's heart was beating fast.
"There's a pin," she said, "and there's a pearl in it--or there's gold
beads--a chain of them. I know gold beads are worth a lot more than five
dollars. Oh, couldn't you take them?"
"How do I know till I see them?" snapped Miss Crevey. "You bring 'em in
some day--then we'll talk business."
Jacqueline drew a long breath.
"I'm going to go and get them right straight off," she said, "and don't
you sell that cup and saucer till I come back."
Strange though it may seem to you, it didn't enter Jacqueline's head
that she was doing a dreadful thing in taking Caroline's precious
keepsakes to use as a pledge. In a half-formed way she felt that
Caroline, by going off to the seashore, had brought this trouble upon
her, and so was bound to help her out, in any way she could. She felt,
too, that the fact that Grandma was really a relation of Caroline's, not
of hers, made the whole arrangement perfectly fair.
Still, Jacqueline might have seen her conduct in a different light, if
she had taken time to sleep upon it. But she took no time. For luck
played into her hand in a breathlessly amazing fashion. When she burst
out of Miss Crevey's shop, with a crazy idea of running clear to the
farm and back, before Ralph got to the Post Office at five o'clock, whom
should she see, heading down the street toward his home in the Meadows,
but friendly Mr. Griswold!
Shrieking like a lost soul, Jacqueline sprinted after him, and
fortunately she made him hear. A moment later she was seated at his side
in his ramshackle, blessed old car. A short half-hour later, with
warnings to Nellie never to tell, she was creeping up the stairs to
their old room, so paddy-pawed that Aunt Martha, busy changing Grandma's
sheets, behind the closed doors of the parlor, never heard a sound.
Without pausing one moment to think, she opened the lacquer box and took
out the string of gold beads. She knotted them safely in the corner of a
clean pocket handkerchief, and quietly as she had entered, slipped out
of the house again.
She ran part of the long, dusty road back to the village. Suppose she
should come too late--suppose she should find the cup already
sold--suppose oh! suppose Miss Crevey refused to keep to the bargain!
But none of these dreadful things came to pass. When she panted into the
close little shop, she found the dragon cup and saucer still in the
window, and she found Miss Crevey mindful of the agreement.
Shrewdly Miss Crevey examined the beads.
"Be they yours?" she asked suspiciously.
"Heirlooms," stammered Jacqueline, and then dodged the subject. "I know
they're worth more than five dollars."
"Hm!" sniffed Miss Crevey. She sounded noncommittal enough, but she put
the beads into the drawer of an old secretary behind the counter, and
turned the key upon them. Then she wrapped the cup and saucer carefully
in old newspapers, and even, for greater safety, packed them in a large
old button box.
"Don't ye break 'em now!" she cautioned.
Jacqueline didn't. She had broken enough dragon china, she felt, to last
her for a lifetime. She climbed into the car beside Ralph, at five
o'clock, as circumspectly as if it were a baby that she held in her
arms. She clambered out again at the kitchen door of the farm, with
equal care.
"Aunt Martha!" she cried gaspingly. "Aunt Martha! See what I've got. I
told you I would. For Grandma!"
With hands that shook with eagerness, Jacqueline unwrapped the cup and
saucer, and for once she saw Aunt Martha stand (in Grandma's phrase!)
"flabbergasted."
"For the land sake, Jackie!" Aunt Martha finally got her breath.
"Wherever in the world did you dig up that old china?"
"I found it--in Miss Crevey's shop."
"Jackie! You never got it for nothing!"
"My pretend-aunt will send me some money on my birthday." Jacqueline
spoke fast. "I'll pay Miss Crevey then. It's all right, Aunt Martha.
Honest, it is."
Aunt Martha handled the cup and saucer almost reverently.
"Seems like a miracle," she said, in a hushed voice. "I don't mind
telling you now, Jackie, we were worried to death because Grandma
wouldn't eat enough to keep up her strength, but now--why, when she sees
her own old cup----"
She broke off, as if she couldn't make the words come, and patted
Jacqueline's shoulder. From Aunt Martha that meant as much as a hug and
a kiss from Aunt Edie.
"You've done a good day's work, Jackie," Aunt Martha found words again,
as she turned away, and in the glow and triumph of the moment Jacqueline
almost forgot that the gold beads that were Caroline's lay under lock
and key in Miss Crevey's dusty secretary.