THE CROSS MAN
Bunny and Sue had at first paid no attention to the big man with the
black beard who entered the little corner grocery store so suddenly. The
children thought he was a customer come to buy some groceries.
But when the man, in that cross voice, said Mrs. Golden had better pay
him some money, Bunny and Sue looked sharply at him, Sue holding on to
the broom.
"'Cause I thought maybe he was a robber coming after Mrs. Golden's
money," she explained later.
"What would you have done if he had been a robber?" asked Uncle Tad.
"I'd 'a' hit him with the broom," Sue replied.
"And I'd have helped her!" exclaimed Bunny.
But this was afterward. The man, however, as the children looked at
him, did not appear to be a robber. He was big, and not very pleasant to
look at, and his black beard was as bristling as some of those worn by
moving-picture pirates. But he did not seem to be going to take any
money from the cash drawer.
From the way poor Mrs. Golden looked, though, the children were sure the
man had frightened her. She sank down in a chair, and stared silently at
the man.
"Well!" exclaimed the cross man more crossly than at first, "I'm Mr.
Flynt of the Grocery Supply Company. If you're Mrs. Golden, I want to
know why you don't pay me that money?"
"I--I wish I could, Mr. Flynt," murmured the old lady store keeper. "I
really thought I'd have it for you last week."
"But you didn't!" snapped out the man. "You told our agent who called
two weeks ago that you'd have it last week. But you didn't pay it. Then
you said you'd send it this week, and you didn't. Now I've come for it.
You can't fool me!"
Truly, thought Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, no one could fool this
man, nor play with him nor do anything with him except dislike him.
"Come, come, Mrs. Golden!" went on Mr. Flynt. "You owe us this money,
you know, and you'll have to pay it!"
"If you'll only wait until my son Philip comes back," murmured the old
lady, "he'll pay you some, I'm sure. He's gone away to get a little
legacy, and if he gets it I'll have enough to pay you all I owe and
more!"
"Yes, _if_ he gets it!" sneered the cross man. "I've heard those stories
before. But if your son doesn't get that legacy what then?"
"Oh, I'm sure he'll get it!" said Mrs. Golden, trying to smile. "But
if--if he doesn't, why, I'll just have to owe you the money, that's
all!"
"That isn't all!" exclaimed Mr. Flynt. "We've got to have money. We've
been as easy on you as we could be. We've let your bill run a good deal
longer than we do most folks' bills. You've got to pay your debts, just
as we have to pay ours. Come now, I want some money!"
Bunny and Sue looked at each other. Both had the same thought. Sue
dropped the broom and began feeling in her pocket beneath her
handkerchief. Sue had only one pocket, and she was lucky, being a girl,
to have that. Bunny had any number of pockets, and he was going through
first one and then the other, finding different things in each--a top,
pieces of string, his knife, odd bits of stone, a very black piece of
licorice, and some nails. Bunny never knew when he might want some of
these things.
"Here, Mrs. Golden!" exclaimed Sue, she being the first to get what she
was after in her pocket. "Here's two cents I was going to spend for
candy. You can have it to give to the man!"
"Bless your heart, dearie!" murmured Mrs. Golden, "I can't take your
money."
"And here's my two cents!" exclaimed Bunny. "You can keep it. And you
don't need to give us any candy either."
"No!" added Sue, though she had a catch in her breath as she said it,
for she really wanted a bit of sweet stuff that day.
"No, no, my dear," said Mrs. Golden, trying to smile, though there were
tears in her eyes. "Keep your money. I'll sell you some candy if you
want it, but you mustn't give your pennies away. Anyhow, I must pay Mr.
Flynt a great deal more than that."
"I should say so!" exclaimed the black-bearded man, though, somehow or
other, his voice was not quite so cross as before. "Four cents wouldn't
pay postage on the bills we have sent you!
"But now, Mrs. Golden," he went on, "I don't want to be any harder on
you than I have to. If you're going to get some money in, or your son
is, and you can pay us what you owe we won't sell you out."
"Sell me out!" cried the old lady. "Were you thinking of doing that?"
"We'll have to if you don't pay," was the answer. "You bought a lot of
goods of us, and you must pay for them. If you don't we'll have to take
these things away," and he looked around at the shelves of the store.
"If you take things away from her how can she sell them?" asked Bunny
Brown.
"She can't," said Mr. Flynt. "But she must pay. Everybody must pay what
they owe or be sold out. Now I'll give you a little more time," he went
on. "I'll tell them, back at the office, that you expect a legacy, and
when that comes you must pay."
"Yes, yes! I'll pay!" promised Mrs. Golden. "Only give me a little more
time and I'll pay."
"Well, see that you do!" grumbled the black-bearded man, who appeared to
be crosser than ever now. "When I come again I want money!"
He stalked out of the store with a scowl on his face, and Bunny and Sue
looked first at each other and then at poor Mrs. Golden.
"I don't like that man!" declared Sue, as she picked up the broom.
"I don't, either!" said Bunny. "What makes him so cross, Mrs. Golden?"
"Maybe he can't help it, dearie. Going around making people pay up is a
cross sort of work, I guess."
"But what makes him want you to give him money?" asked Sue. "I thought a
store was a place where people paid you money. I didn't think you had to
pay money out. Bunny's going to keep a store when he grows up. Will he
have to pay out money?"
"No, I'm not going to!" cried the little boy. "People have got to pay me
money, but I don't pay any."
"You have lots to learn about a store, little man!" said Mrs. Golden.
"It isn't all fun, as you and Sue suppose. Do you see all these things
on my shelves?" she asked.
The children looked around at them and nodded their heads.
"To get them I have to buy them from other people--from the wholesalers,
as they are called," explained Mrs. Golden. "The Grocery Supply Company
is one of them. I buy barrels of sugar, barrels of flour, big boxes of
prunes, and so on, from this company. Then I sell a few pounds of sugar,
flour or prunes at a time and make a little money each time I sell. You
see I don't pay as much for the flour and sugar as I sell it for. The
difference in price comes to me, and is what I live on, and sometimes
it's little enough.
"And now the trouble is I have bought a great many things from this Mr.
Flynt's company, and I haven't the money to pay for them. That's why
he's cross. He has a right to his money, but I haven't it to give him."
"Why not?" Bunny asked.
"Well, because I don't sell very much in my little store. If I sold more
I'd have the money to pay my bills."
"Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do!" cried Sue. "We can tell mother to
buy everything here--all her groceries and things--and then Mrs. Golden
will have money to pay the cross man."
"Your mother is very kind as it is," said the old lady. "I'd like to
have her trade here, but of course I don't keep the best of everything.
I have to sell cheap goods. But of course if I sold more of them I'd
have more money and then I could pay my bills.
"But there, my dears, this isn't any fun for you. You came to get your
pennies' worth of candy, and I'll pick it out for you. An old woman's
troubles aren't for little ones like you."
"My father had troubles once," said Bunny, "and we hugged him and kissed
him; didn't we, Sue? That was when there was a fire on his boat dock."
"Yes, we were sorry a lot," Sue replied. "And we're sorry for you now,
Mrs. Golden, and I'm going to tell mother to buy all her things here."
"That's very kind of you," said the woman. "But if Philip only gets that
legacy I'll have money enough to pay all my debts and a little left
over. Now don't worry about me. Try to have a good time. I'll get your
candy!"
"And I'll finish this sweeping," laughed Sue.
"I'll help," said Bunny Brown, and then, in spite of the cross man,
there seemed to be a little bit of sunshine in Mrs. Golden's store.