THERE was joy a few days later in the Dyces' kitchen when Peter the
postman, with a snort that showed the bitterness of his feelings, passed
through the window a parcel for Kate that on the face of it had come
from foreign parts. “I don't ken who it's from, and ye're no' to think
I'm askin',” said he; “but the stamps alone for that thing must have
cost a bonny penny.”
“Did they, indeed!” said Kate, with a toss of her head. “Ye'll be glad
to ken he can well afford it!” and she sniffed at the parcel redolent of
perfumes strange and strong.
“Ye needna snap the nose off me,” said the postman; “I only made the
remark. What--what does the fellow, do?”
“He's a traveller for railway tunnels,” retorted the maid of Colonsay,
and shut the window with a bang, to tear open the parcel in a frenzy of
expectation and find a bottle of Genuine Riga Balsam--wonderful cure for
sailors' wounds!--another of Florida Water, and a silver locket, with
a note from Charles saying the poem she had sent was truly grand,
and wishing her many happy returns of the day. Like many of Charles's
letters now, its meaning was, in parts, beyond her, until she could
learn from Bud the nature of the one to which it was an answer--for Bud
was so far enraptured with the wandering sailor that she sometimes sent
him letters which the servant never saw. That day the breakfast service
smelled of Florida Water, for Kate had drenched herself with the
perfume, and Miss Bell was sure she had washed the dishes again with
scented soap, as was the habit of the girl when first she came from
Colonsay and thought that nothing but Brown Windsor would do justice to
Grandma Buntain's tea-set used on Sundays. But Bud could see the signs
of Shipping Intelligence, and as soon as she could she hastened to the
kitchen, for it was Saturday, and on Saturdays there were no lessons in
the Dyce Academy. Oh, how she and Kate fondled the bottles lovingly,
and sniffed passionately at their contents, and took turn about of the
locket! The maid had but one regret, that she had no immediate use for
Riga Balsam; but Bud was more devoted than that--she gently pricked the
palm of her hand with a pin and applied the Genuine. “Oh, how he must
love me--us, I mean!” she exclaimed, and eagerly devoured his letter.
“What did you say to him in the last?” asked Kate. “He's talking there
about a poetry, and happy returns of the day.”
Bud confessed she had made a poem for him from his beloved Kate, and had
reckoned on fetching a gift of candy by telling him her birthday was on
Monday. “It really I'd just as lief have the balsam,” said she; “it's
perfectly lovely; how it nips!”
“It's not my birthday at all,” said Kate. “My birthday's always on
the second Sunday in September. I was born about the same time as Lady
Anne--either a fortnight before or a fortnight after; I forget mysel'
completely which it was, and I dare say so does she.”
“No, but Monday's my birthday, right enough,” said Bud, “and seeing
that we're sort of loving him in company, I s'posed it would be all the
same.”
“So it is; I'm not complainin',” said the maid. “And now we'll have to
send him something back. What would you recommend?”
They considered many gifts appropriate for a sailor--sou'westers,
Bible-markers, woollen comforters, and paper-knives, scarf-pins, gloves,
and ties. Bud was sure that nothing would delight him like a book about
a desert island, but Kate said no, a pipe was just the very ticket--a
wooden pipe with silver mountings; the very one to suit was in the
window of Mrs. Wright's Italian warehouse.
“What's an Italian warehouse?” asked the child. “You have me there,”
said Kate, “unless, maybe, her husband was Italian before he went and
died on her. 'Italian Warehouse' is the only thing that's on her sign.
She sells a thing for almost any price you like to offer, because the
Bible says it's not the thing at all to argy-bargy.”
“_I_ know,” said Bud; “it's what we call running a business on--on--on
philanthropic principles. I'd love to see a body do it. I'll run out and
buy the pipe from Mrs. Wright, Kate.”
She departed on her errand down the town, at the other side of the
church; and the hours of the forenoon passed, and dinner-time was almost
come, and still there was no sign of her returning. Kate would have lost
her patience and gone to seek for her, but found so much to interest her
at the window that she quite forgot her messenger. Something out of the
ordinary was happening on the other side of the church. Wanton Wully
knew what it was, but of course he was not telling, for he was out
as public crier, rousing the town with his hand-bell, and shouting
“Notice!” with an air that promised some tremendous tidings; but beyond
mysterious words like “bed-rock prices,” which he mumbled from a paper
in his hand, there was nothing to show this proclamation differed from
the common ones regarding herring at the quay or a sale of delft down-by
at John Turner's corner. “What are ye crying?” they asked him, but being
a man with the belief that he had a voice as clear as a concert singer
he would not condescend to tell them. Only when some one looked across
his shoulder and read the paper for himself was it found that a sale
described as “Revolutionary” was taking place at the Italian warehouse.
Half the town at once went to see what the decent body was up to. Kate
saw them hurrying down, and when they came back they were laughing.
“What's the ploy?” she asked a passer-by.
“A sale at the Pilgrim weedow's,” she was told. “She's put past her
_Spurgeon's Sermons_ and got a book aboot business, and she's learnin'
the way to keep an Italian warehouse in Scotch.”
Kate would have been down the town at once to see this marvel for
herself, but her pot was on the boil, and here was the mistress coming
down the stair crying, “Lennox, Lennox!” The maid's heart sank. She had
forgotten Lennox, and how could she explain her absence to a lady so
particular? But for the moment she was spared the explanation, for
the bark of Footles filled the street and Mr. Dyce came into the lobby
laughing.
“You're very joco!” said his sister, helping him off with his coat.
“What are you laughing at?”
“The drollest thing imaginable,” said he. “I have just left Captain
Consequence in a terrible rage about a letter that a boy has brought to
him from Mrs. Wright. He's one of the folk who brag of paying as they go
but never make a start. It seems he's as much in debt to her as to most
of the other merchants in the place, but wasn't losing any sleep about
it, for she's such a softy. This letter has given him a start. He showed
it to me, with the notion that it was a libel or a threat that might be
actionable, but I assured him I couldn't have written one more to the
point myself. It said that unless he paid at once something would be apt
to happen that would create him the utmost astonishment.”
“Mercy on us! That's not very like the widow; she must be getting
desperate.”
“It was the wording of the thing abused me,” said Mr. Dyce, walking into
the parlor still chuckling--“'something will be apt to happen that will
create you the utmost astonishment'--it suggests such awful
possibilities. And it's going to serve its purpose, too, for the
Captain's off to pay her, sure it means a scandal.” Kate took the chance
to rush round the kirk in search of her messenger. “This way for the big
bargains!” cried some lads coming back from the Italian warehouse, or,
“Hey! ye've missed a step”--which shows how funny we can be in the
smallest burgh towns--but Kate said nothing only “trash!” to herself in
indignation, and tried by holding in her breath to keep from getting
red.
The shop of the Pilgrim widow suffered from its signboard, that was “far
too big for its job, like the sweep that stuck in my granny's chimney,”
as Mr. Dyce said. Once the sign had been P. & A.'s, but P. & A's good
lady tired of hearing her husband nicknamed the Italian, and it went
back to the painter, who partly paid with it a debt to the Pilgrim
widow, who long since rued her acquisition. She felt in her soul it was
a worldly vanity--that a signboard less obtrusive on the public eye
would more befit herself and her two meek little windows, where
fly-papers, fancy goods, sweetmeats, cigarettes, country eggs, and
cordial invitations to the Pilgrims' Mission Bethel every Friday (D.
V.), eight o'clock, kept one another incongruous and dusty company. A
decent, pious widow, but ah! so wanting any saving sense of guile. The
Pilgrim Mission was the thing she really lived for, and her shop was the
cross she bore. But to-day it was scarcely recognizable: the windows had
been swept of their stale contents', and one was filled with piles of
rosy apples, the other with nuts that poured in a tempting cataract from
a cask upset with an air of reckless prodigality. A large, hand-lettered
bill was in each window; one said:
“HALLOWE'EN! ARISE AND SHINE!” and the other:
“DO IT NOW!”
what was to be done being left to the imagination. All forenoon there
had been a steady flow of customers, who came out of the shop with more
than nuts or apples, greatly amazed at the change in the Pilgrim widow,
who was cracking up her goods like any common sinner. Behind the railed
and curtained box, in which she was supposed to keep her books and pray
for the whole community, there seemed to be some secret stimulating
influence, for when bad payers tried to-day to get a thing on credit,
and she was on the point of yielding, she would dart into the box and
out again as hard as steel, insisting that at every Revolutionary Sale
the terms were cash. She was giving bargains, but at her own price,
never at her customers', as it used to be. The Health Saline--extract
of the finest fruit, Cooling, Refreshing, Invigorating, Tonic (though
indeed it looked like an old friend from Rochelle with a dash of sugar
and tartaric)--was down a ha'penny, to less than what it cost, according
to another hand-done bill upon the counter. When they asked her how she
could afford to sell the stuff below its cost, she seemed ashamed and
startled, till she had a moment in behind the curtains, and then she
told them it was all because of the large turn-over; she could
not afford to sell the saline under cost if she did not sell it in
tremendous quantities.
Did they want Ward's Matchless Polishing Paste?--alas! (after a dash
behind the curtains) she was completely out of it. Of late it had been
in such great demand that she got tired of ordering it every other week
wholesale. Yes, she was out of Ward's, but (again the curtained box)
what about this wonderful line in calf-foot jelly, highly praised by
the--by the connoisseurs? What were connoisseurs? A connoisseur (again
on reference behind the curtains) was one of those wealthy men who could
swallow anything.
“I'll tell ye what it is,” said the tailor, “I see't at last! She's
got a book in there; I've seen't before--_The Way to Conduct a Retail
Business_--and when she runs behind, it's to see what she should say to
the customers. That's where she got the notions for her window and the
'Do it Now!'”
But he was wrong--completely wrong, for when Kate came into the shop
with “Have you seen Miss Lennox, Mrs. Wright? I sent her here a message
hours ago,” Lennox herself came from the curtained box saying, “Hello,
Kate; saw you first! What can we do for you to day?”
“My stars! you'll catch it!” said the maid. “They're waiting yonder on
you for your dinner.”
“I was just heading for home,” said Bud, making for the door.
“My child! my child! my angel child!” cried the Pilgrim widow, going to
kiss her, but Bud drew back.
“Not to-day, please; I'm miles too big for kissing to-day,” said she,
and marched solemnly out of the Italian warehouse.
“What in the world were you doing away so long?” asked Kate. “Were you
carrying on at anything?”
“I was paying for Charles's pipe,” said the child, returning the money
she had got for its purchase. “That's the sweetest lady, Mrs. Wright,
but my! ain't she Baby Mine when it settles down to business? When I
wanted to buy the pipe, she was so tickled she wanted me to have it for
nothing, seeing I was Mr. Dyce's niece. She said Uncle Dan was a man of
God, who saved her more than once from bankruptcy, and it was a pretty
old pipe anyway, that had been in the window since the time she got
changed and dropped brocaded dolmans. You'd think it made her ache to
have folk come in her shop and spend money; I guess she was raised for
use in a free-soup kitchen. I said I'd take the pipe for nothing if
she'd throw in a little game with it. 'What game?' said she--oh, she's
a nice lady!--and I said I was just dying to have a try at keeping a
really really shop, and would show her Chicago way. _And you bet I did,
Kate MacNeill!_”
She came in with the soup, but no question was put till her uncle asked
the blessing, and then, before a spoon was lifted, Auntie Bell said,
“Lassie, lassie, where in the world have you been?”
“Keeping shop for Mrs. Wright,” said Bud.
“Tcht! tcht! you're beyond redemption,” cried her aunt. “A child like
you keeping shop!”
“A bonny pair of shopkeepers, the widow and you! which of you counted
the change?” said Uncle Dan. “Tell us all about it.”
“Well, I had the loveliest time,” said Bud. “It would take till tea-time
to tell just 'zactly what a lovely day it was, but I'll hurry up and
make it a front scene. What you said, Uncle Dan, about her running a
shop on phil--on philanthropic principles made me keen to see her doing
it, and I went down a message for Kate, and offered to help. She lowed
herself she wasn't the best there was in the land at keeping shop, and
didn't seem to make much money at it, but said thank the Lord she had
the priceless boon of health. I was the first customer she'd set eyes
on all the morning, 'cept a man that wanted change for half a crown and
hadn't the half-crown with him, but said he'd pay it when he didn't see
her again, and she said she felt sure that trade was going to take a
turn. I said I thought it would turn quicker if--if--if she gave it a
push herself, and she said she dared say there was something in it, and
hoped I was in the fold. I said I was, sure, and at that she cried out
'Hallelujah!' Every other way she was 'a perfectly perfect lady; she
made goo-goo eyes at me, and skipped round doing anything I told her.
First she cleared all the old truck out of the windows, and filled them
up with nuts and apples for Hallowe'en, till they looked the way windows
never looked in Scotland in all creation before, I s'pose. 'They'll
think it kind of daft,' says she, scared-like, 'they're not like any
other windows in the place.' 'Of course not,' I said, 'and that's
the very thing to jar the eye of the passer-by.' Jim Molyneux said a
shop-window was like a play-bill, it wanted a star line--a feature--a
whoop. Then I tried to think of the 'cute things shopkeepers print in
Chicago, but couldn't remember any 'cepting 'Pants two dollars a leg,
seats free,' but the widow said she didn't sell pants. Then I thought of
some natty little cards I'd seen that said 'Arise and Shine!' and 'Do
it Now!' so I got her to print these words good and big, and put them
in the window. She wanted to know what they meant, but I said I couldn't
tell from Adam, but they would make the people wonder, and come in the
shop to find out, and then it would be up to her to sell them something
and pry the money out of them before they balked. Oh, Auntie, how I go
on!” and here Bud stopped almost breathless and a little ashamed.
“Go on! go on!” cried Ailie.
“Well, I got behind a curtain into a little box-office, where the widow
kept a cash-book awfully doggy-eared, and a pile of printed sermons,
and heaps of tracts about doing to others as you should be done by, and
giving to the poor and lending to the Lord. She read bits of them to me,
and said she sometimes wondered if Captain Brodie was too poor to pay
for eighteen months' tobacco, but she didn't like to press him, seeing
he had been in India and fought his country's battles. She said she felt
she must write him again for her money, but couldn't think of what to
say that would be Christian and polite and gentle, but still make him
see she wanted the money pretty bad. I said I would tell her what to say
that would suit just fine, and I dictated it--”
“I saw the letter,” said Uncle Dan, twinkling through his glasses. “It
was a work of genius--go on! go on!”
“Then folk began to come in for nuts and apples, and asked what 'Arise
and Shine' and 'Do it Now' meant. She said they were messages from the
angel of the Lord--meaning me, I s'pose--though, goodness knows, I'm
not much of an angel, am I, Auntie Bell? Then the folk would fade away,
looking a bit rattled, and come back in a while and ask the price of
things. She'd say she wasn't sure, but she thought about a shilling, or
maybe ninepence, seeing they had a young family, and then they'd want
the stuff on credit, and she'd yammer away to them till I got wild.
When they were gone I had a good heart-to-heart talk with her, and said
phil-philanthropic principles were a great mistake in a small Italian
warehouse, and that she ought to give the customers a chance of doing
unto others as they would be done by. She made more goo-goo eyes at me,
and said I was a caution, sure enough, and perhaps I was right, for
she had never looked at it that way before. After that she spunked up
wonderful. I got her to send Mr. Wanton through the town with his bell,
saying there was everything you wanted at Mrs. Wright's at bed-rock
prices; and when people came in after that and wanted to get things for
nothing, or next to it, she'd pop into the box where I lay low, and ask
me what she was to say next, and then skip out to them as sharp as a
tack and show they needn't try to toy with her. She says she made more
money to-day by my playing shop Chicago-way than she'd make in a week
her own way. Why, I'm talking, and talking, and talking, and my soup's
stone cold!”
“So's mine,” said Uncle Dan, with a start.
“And mine!” said Auntie Ailie, with a smile.
“And mine too, I declare!” cried Miss Bell, with a laugh they all joined
in, till Footles raised his voice protesting.