THE BROWN BAG.
Madge was spending her afternoon in a still more stirring manner than
the twins. A shopping expedition to Churchbury was always an
excitement, and it was extraordinary how many little purchases seemed
absolutely necessary directly the children found out that one of them
was going to town.
Madge was heavily laden with money. Five shillings and sevenpence,
mostly in coppers, take up a great deal of room. This sum represented
the joint property of Madge, Betty, and John. They collected it in a
tin money-box shaped like a small doll's house, with a slit in the roof
to drop in the pennies. Miss Thompson kept the key of the front-door,
and they had to apply to her for it before any money could be taken
out. They had made this rule themselves, because they found that
unless their money was locked up so that they could not get at it
without a little trouble, they used it as soon as it was given them.
To-day they had all three asked for the key, and opened the front-door
with pleasant anticipations of finding a fortune inside. They were
able to judge in some measure of the probable extent of their fortune
by the weight of the tin house. Luckily there was no space required
for sitting-rooms or stairs inside the house (which was in fact rather
a sham, being really nothing better than a box), so that it would hold
an almost unlimited quantity of money. Even five shillings and
sevenpence did not half fill it.
Of course Madge could not take a tin house with chimneys in her pocket
to Churchbury on a shopping expedition, and she signally failed in an
attempt to squeeze the money into her purse. Betty and John offered
theirs in addition; but at this point she was met by a fresh
difficulty, no pocket will hold three purses unnaturally distended with
pennies.
"I really do think I had better only take my share and leave you two
your own money to spend another day," Madge had observed rather
dolefully, for she had been looking forward with some pride to the
unusually substantial purchases that the possession of their united
fortunes would enable her to make.
But John and Betty would not hear of this suggestion for a moment.
They were longing to spend their saved-up hoards of money, and as there
was no immediate prospect of their going to Churchbury themselves, they
had been counting on Madge returning in the evening laden with
interesting purchases.
There was a short period of dismayed silence. Then Betty suddenly
broke out: "I know a way! Wait just a second!"
She rushed excitedly off, and returned waving a neat bag of shiny brown
calico.
"Why, that's what Nurse made for you to pack your best shoes in when
you went away on visits!" exclaimed Madge.
"Yes, it was made out of a bit of lining that was left over from Mama's
last winter dress, and it has got a wreathing-string and everything,"
replied Betty proudly. "It really seems as if Nurse had made it on
purpose for a money-bag."
To make a long story short, the brown calico bag appeared so exactly
suited to hold the sum of five shillings and sevenpence (mostly in
pennies), that it would have been a stupid neglect of opportunities not
to use it. Madge quickly emptied the contents of the tin house into
their new resting-place, and then started for Churchbury with the
comfortable feeling of having practically boundless wealth at her
disposal.
Now it happened that Miss Thompson had several errands of a peculiarly
uninteresting nature to do in the town, as Mrs. West had asked her to
buy a number of things for the household. Generally the children
enjoyed being inside any sort of shop, but after watching Miss Thompson
carefully select dusters and pantry-clothes, cotton, tape, and buttons,
for what appeared an interminable time, Madge sighed deeply.
"If you are tired of sitting still you may go outside and look at the
shop windows," said Miss Thompson. "I have not nearly finished yet,
and it fidgets me to hear you sighing in such a despairing way."
"It's only because I'm afraid of not having time to buy all the things
we want if we stay here so long," explained Madge.
"Why, what do you want?"
"Oh, Miss Thompson! You know we have five shillings and sevenpence to
spend!" cried Madge reproachfully. "And we all want a nice thing
apiece out of it, and one or two little extra things if there is money
enough."
"And you have not yet decided on what you are going to buy, I suppose,"
said Miss Thompson; "and are waiting to choose until you get into the
right sort of shop?"
Madge admitted that this was the case.
"But if I may go outside and walk up and down the street, I dare say I
shall find something in the windows by the time you are ready," she
added.
Miss Thompson thought this rather a good plan, as she knew from past
experience what a very long time it always took the children to decide
on how to lay out their money to the best advantage. So after Madge
had been solemnly warned not to wander far, she was allowed to go out
in the street by herself for a few minutes.
It was an exciting moment when the little girl found herself walking
sedately up the pavement alone. She had never been quite so
independent before in her life, and she hoped that the passers-by all
noticed there was not any grown-up person in charge of her. But they
were mostly too occupied to take any interest in this event. Possibly
there were so many little girls in Churchbury that the appearance of
one extra did not strike people as particularly remarkable.
At any rate Madge herself felt all the importance of the occasion. She
walked soberly along with the heavy little brown bag hanging from her
wrist by its string. Secured in this way, there was no chance of her
forgetting its existence and leaving it on the counter of a shop. She
had done this once with a purse, and Miss Thompson had been obliged to
go back to most of the places where she had been shopping before she
could recover it for Madge. But a brown bag tied firmly round the
wrist of its owner really seemed safe from any sort of accident.
Madge had no wish to wander far away, but unfortunately the dulness of
the large linen-draper's shop that she had just left seemed to pervade
its neighbours on either side; for about fifty yards there was nothing
to be seen but highly respectable and uninteresting tailors' and
shoemakers' establishments. Thus it came about that Madge walked
almost to the end of the street before she found a shop window that
held any objects of the kind for which she was looking. At last she
stopped in front of a small stationer's. There, arranged among the
piles of writing-paper and envelopes, were a quantity of little
ornaments and toys.
Madge was growing rather old to care about regular playthings, and yet
she could not resist the charms of a tiny doll's dressing-table covered
with miniature hair-brushes and combs. She wondered how much it cost,
and whether Betty would want to share it with her.
"John won't care for it, I suppose," she muttered to herself. "At
least he will think it grander to pretend that he doesn't like such a
girlish thing, though I dare say he will always be wanting to play with
it. After all, one can't choose things that will suit everybody, and I
know I could make such a dear little pin-cushion to stand on that
table, with very small pins stuck into it in a pattern. I've got a bit
of silk that would do exactly--Oh! What has happened? Oh, dear! oh,
dear!"
Poor Madge! While thinking over the various ways in which she could
amuse herself with the doll's dressing-table, she had been excitedly
swinging the little brown bag up and down by the string. Five
shillings and sevenpence, mostly in pennies, is rather heavy; an
insecurely tied knot gave way, and the bag suddenly fell with a loud
clatter--not to the ground, that would have been a very bearable
misfortune, but through a grating in the pavement on which Madge
happened to be standing at the moment.
It does not often fall to a person's lot to drop his whole fortune down
a grating into someone else's cellar. It seemed to Madge as if no such
terrible fate had ever overtaken a human being before. If the brown
bag had contained nothing but her own money, she would have preferred
leaving it where it fell, to making a fuss about recovering it. She
could not bear to be thought stupid, and yet it did not seem very
clever to have lost the bag of which she was professing to take so much
care. But as Betty's and John's money had also disappeared down the
dark grating, it seemed quite hopeless to hush the matter up. They
would naturally question her until they found out the truth, and then
loudly express their opinion of her selfishness if she had not made
every possible effort to recover their missing property.
Madge looked despairingly down the street in the hope of seeing Miss
Thompson, but only an unceasing stream of strangers passed and repassed
the spot where she stood. Then she stooped down and peered through the
grating. It was so dark down below that she could not distinguish the
bag; only, of course, having seen it fall, and even heard the clatter
of some of the coins as they rolled out, she knew it must be there.
She did not like to leave the spot and go back to Miss Thompson. It
seemed as if the money would be more likely to disappear in her
absence; although she could not really take care of it by standing on
top of the grating, yet she felt as if she could.
While hesitating what to do next, Madge happened to look through the
window of the stationer's shop, and saw an elderly woman sitting behind
the counter. She had spectacles on her nose, and such a very mild
appearance that Madge at last decided to go in and explain the whole
matter to her. If the woman would only let her run down to the cellar
and pick up the money, nobody at home need ever know anything about the
silly accident.