THE PONY EXPRESS
Bunny Brown ran out of the storeroom, in his hand a hammer with which he
had been opening the box of prunes. Mrs. Golden gave a cry of alarm as
she heard the clatter of the boxes falling around Sue. Mr. Flynt joined
Bunny in a rush to help the little girl. As for George, he was so
frightened by the sudden toppling of things from the shelf that a tune
he had started to whistle died away and he got ready to run out of the
store.
"Mercy sakes! what is going on in here?" cried Mrs. Clark, entering the
store as the boxes ceased falling. "Is anybody hurt?"
No one knew for a moment, as Sue had uttered no cry save the first
frightened one. But by the time Bunny and Mr. Flynt reached her the
shower of boxes was over and the little girl took down her hands from
over her head.
"Did anything break?" asked Sue, looking about her. "Oh, dear, what a
terrible mess!" she cried.
"Don't worry about that, child!" exclaimed Mrs. Golden. "What if a few
boxes are broken open? It's you I'm thinking of."
"Oh, I'm all right!" Sue said, and she laughed a little.
And when they came to look her over nothing worse had happened than that
she had a few bumps and bruises. And they were not very hard ones, for
the boxes were of pasteboard and not wood.
And only one or two of the oatmeal packages were split open, so that not
much was lost in that way. So, take it all in all, the accident was a
very little one, though it made a great deal of excitement for the time
being.
"You oughtn't to reach up for such high things, little girl," said Mr.
Flynt, when he had helped pick up the packages.
"No, sir, I guess I oughtn't," agreed Sue. "But George wanted one and I
thought I could get it."
"You call me when you want things from a high shelf," said Bunny, going
back to the task of opening the box of prunes. "I'm a good climber."
"I wasn't climbing, I was reaching," answered Sue, as if that made a lot
of difference. "Here's your oatmeal, George," she added, and the
whistling boy came back to the counter and got it.
Bunny and Sue stayed in the store for an hour or more after the fall of
the oatmeal boxes. Bunny finished opening the box of prunes, and he and
Sue waited on several customers, for Mrs. Golden seemed to be quite busy
talking to Mr. Flynt in the back room. And it was not a pleasant talk,
either, as Bunny and Sue guessed when they caught glimpses now and then
of Mrs. Golden wiping tears from her eyes.
Finally the grocery man came out of the back room with Mrs. Golden. He
was saying, so that the children could hear:
"Now you'd better take my advice, Mrs. Golden, and sell out your store
here. You'll never make it pay, and you keep on owing us more money all
the while. I know you're trying to do your best, but you must either
pay us or we'll have to take our things back and sell you out besides
for the rest that you owe us.
"Take my advice and sell out before you're sold out. It will be better
that way. We can't wait any longer. This is a good little store, but you
don't make it pay."
"Maybe I could if my son Philip were to come back," sadly said the old
lady. "He's gone after a legacy, and when he comes back----"
"There there, Mrs. Golden! It's of no use to talk that way!" exclaimed
Mr. Flynt. "You've been telling me about that legacy a long time. Why
doesn't it come?"
"I don't know, Sir."
"No. And I don't believe it ever will come. We've waited as long as we
ought, but I'll give you a little more time, and that will be the last.
If you don't pay we'll have to close your store. Think it over and sell
out before you're sold out."
And then Mr. Flynt went out.
Bunny and Sue, who had been about to go home, looked at Mrs. Golden and
felt sorry for her. They could see that she was feeling bad, and that
she had been crying.
"What's the matter?" asked Bunny.
"Not enough money--that's the trouble," was her answer. "Oh, dear, I
don't want to sell my store!" she said. "I want to keep it."
"Have you got to sell?" asked Sue.
"Mr. Flynt says so," came the reply, "because I owe him a lot of money I
can't pay. If business was only better I might keep my store going until
Philip comes back with the legacy. Once we get that we'll be all right!
But if we don't----"
Mrs. Golden put her handkerchief to her eyes. Then, seeing that she was
making Bunny and Sue sad, she added:
"There now! Run along. Maybe I can get the money somehow. At any rate
you children have been most kind to me. Run along now, and don't mind a
poor old woman."
But Bunny and Sue did mind. They talked matters over on their way home
and decided that something must be done. They wanted to help more than
they had been doing, and Bunny thought of a way. As usual Sue agreed
with him, for she was willing to do anything her brother did.
That evening after supper Bunny brought his little tin savings bank from
a shelf in his room, and Sue brought hers. There was a great rattling as
the pennies, dimes and nickels in the tin boxes clattered against the
sides.
"My goodness! what's going on?" cried Daddy Brown, looking up from the
paper he was reading. "Are you two going to buy an automobile with all
that money?"
"Will you please open my bank, Daddy, and see how much is in it?" asked
Bunny.
His father, wondering what was "in the wind," as old Jed Winkler would
say, did so. With Bunny's help the cash was counted. There was eight
dollars and fifteen cents.
"I have more than that!" exclaimed Sue, and indeed she had, for Bunny
had taken some of his money the week before to buy a top and a set of
kite sticks. Sue had ten dollars and forty-six cents in her bank.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked Mrs. Brown, for she knew the
children would not have gotten down their banks unless they had some
plan in their heads.
"We're going to give it to Mrs. Golden," said Bunny.
"Mrs. Golden?" cried their father.
"You mean you're going to buy something at her store?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"No, we're going to give it to her," said Bunny gravely. "She owes money
and Mr. Flynt will close up her store if she doesn't pay. So we're going
to give her our money so she can pay Mr. Flynt and then the store will
stay open."
"'Cause if it's closed," added Sue, "we can't have any more fun helping
keep it."
"Oh, ho! I see!" laughed Mr. Brown. "Well, I must admit I forgot all
about Mrs. Golden. I promised to see if I couldn't help her when you
told me about Mr. Flynt before, but I forgot. Now, children, it wouldn't
be right for you to take your bank money to help Mrs. Golden. She
wouldn't want you to do that. Put away your pennies, and I'll see what I
can do to help."
This made Bunny and Sue feel happier, and they went to bed more
satisfied, for they felt sure their father could make everything right.
But the next day, when they went in to see Mrs. Golden, to help keep
store, they found her looking very sad and unhappy.
"What's the matter?" asked Sue.
"Oh, just the same old trouble," Mrs. Golden answered. "I need money to
pay bills."
"Mr. Flynt's?" asked Bunny.
"Yes, his and another man's. I'm afraid, children, you won't be able to
come here much longer and help keep store."
"Why not?" Bunny wanted to know.
"Because there won't be any store--at least I won't have it. I'm afraid
I'm going to lose it. If I could only get some more customers and do
more business I might manage to pull through until Philip gets back. But
I don't know--I don't know!" and she shook her head sadly.
That afternoon, going home with Sue, Bunny had another idea.
"Sue!" he exclaimed, "if we can't give our money to Mrs. Golden maybe we
can get her more customers."
"How?" asked the little girl.
"We can ask everybody we know to come and trade there," said Bunny. "I
remember when the Italian shoemaker started down at the end of our
street and I took my rubber boots there to have him fix a hole, he said
for me to tell all the boys I knew to bring their boots and shoes to him
to be mended."
"Did you?" Sue inquired.
"Yes. And the shoeman said I brought him good trade and he gave me a
piece of beeswax. So maybe we could get customers for Mrs. Golden."
"Maybe we could!" cried Sue. "Let's tell the other boys and girls to get
their fathers and mothers to let them buy things at Mrs. Golden's, and
then she'll have a lot of customers!"
"Oh, let's!" cried Bunny Brown.
And they did. The next day, when Bunny and Sue were playing with
Charlie, George, Mary, Sadie, Helen, Harry and Bobbie, the idea was
spoken of again.
"Fellows and girls!" exclaimed Bunny, who got up to make a speech, "we
have to help Mrs. Golden."
"You should speak of the girls first," said Sadie, who was a little
older than the others.
"Well, anyhow, we ought to help Mrs. Golden," went on Bunny. "She needs
customers. Now, if all of you would buy everything you could of her,
like Sue and I do, maybe she wouldn't lose her store."
"My mother says she'd trade there if Mrs. Golden would deliver stuff,"
remarked Helen Newton. "But she says she can't cart heavy things from
any store."
"My mother said the same thing," added Mary Watson.
"She can't afford to hire a delivery horse and wagon," said Charlie
Star. "I know, 'cause I helped in her store."
"She needs an auto like Mr. Gordon," said Bobbie Boomer.
"Pooh, autos are only for big stores!" exclaimed Harry.
Bunny Brown seemed to be doing some hard thinking. He had a new idea.
"Fellows!" he suddenly cried, "I have it! I'll get a delivery wagon for
Mrs. Golden!"
"You will?"
"A delivery wagon?"
"How?"
These cries greeted what Bunny had said.
"I'll take our Shetland pony, Toby, and deliver things for her in the
little cart!" cried Bunny Brown. "If all of you will promise to buy as
much as you can from her, I'll deliver things in our pony cart!"
"Hurray for the pony express!" cried Charlie Star. "I'll help!"