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As Mr. Pore had never attempted to tell of any such thing, this was most audacious of me. Annie was actually gasping and Sleepy choked, but Mr. Pore looked at me quite solemnly through his gold-rimmed glasses.
"Sometimes my father is called away; you see a country doctor's time is not his own, either, and he has had to leave me just when I felt I most needed him – on birthdays – and – and – all kinds of holidays, but he comes back to me just as fast as he can. My father is thinking of getting an assistant and then he can have more time, I hope. You have had an assistant, too, have you not?"
He bowed gravely.
"Where is he, then?"
"He is away on leave."
"Ill? That is too bad!"
"No, not ill! He is having a much-needed holiday."
"Oh, then he has gone on a trip?"
"I fancy not."
"Why, then I am sure he would be glad to come back and relieve Annie so she can come to Maxton. Oh, Mr. Pore, do please write for him to come on back and take his holiday later!"
"Really, Miss Allison – " he began in his most dignified Oxford donnish manner.
"Oh, I just know you will! You and Father and Mr. Tucker are all just alike. You can't bear to deny your girls any pleasure."
His expression was comical at having these virtues thrust upon him.
"I – er – I – shall endeavor to return from this enforced journey, necessary to replenish the stock which one engaged in mercantile pursuits in the rural districts finds it expedient to carry, and on my return if all goes well with the business, I shall permit my daughter to enjoy the hospitality extended to her by my neighbor, General Price."
"I knew you would! I knew you would!" and I shook his limp hand which Dee Tucker had once said reminded her of nothing so much as an old pump handle that had lost the sucker. Everybody knows how that feels, at least everybody who has had dealings with pumps. You grasp the handle expecting some resistance and a flow of water in response; but when the sucker has disappeared, the handle will fly up in a strange limp manner and unless the pumper is wary there is danger of getting a lick in the nose.
I cared not for a response. If no flow of kindliness was the result of my enthusiasm, I cared not a whit. Annie was to be one of the house-party and I had saved the day. I remembered how Mr. Tucker, dear old Zebedee, had declared that he had won over Mr. Pore by treating him like a human being, that time he had persuaded him to let Annie come to Willoughby to the vacation party. I had treated him as I would any ordinary kind father and he had been so astonished and pleased at his portrait that he had unconsciously accepted it as a likeness and begun to pose to look like it.
CHAPTER III
ENGAGING IN MERCANTILE PURSUITS
A warning whistle from the up-going steamboat made the dignified Mr. Pore step lively. With admonitions to Annie to keep an eye to business and with a limp handshake to Sleepy and me, a peck of a kiss on Annie's white brow, he seized his ancient Gladstone bag and made for the landing. That bag must have been a leftover from the old days in England, and more precious it was in its owner's eyes than the finest new suitcase that money might buy.
All of us were relieved that he was gone. I giggled with joy and Annie smiled at Sleepy and me as she had not done since we arrived.
"All the gang is coming down soon to see you, honey. They would have come with us but we slipped off," said I, going behind the counter to hug my little friend. I always have had a way of calling Annie my little friend, which is most absurd as she is inches taller than I am, but there has been a feeling somehow that she must be protected, and persons who must be protected seem little even when they are big.
"Gee, I wish I could take you on a little drive before they come!" exclaimed Sleepy.
"That is very kind of you but of course I can't leave the shop," sighed Annie.
"Yes, you can! I am here!"
"But I wouldn't let you keep shop for me," laughed Annie.
"I'd like to know why not – I bet I can sell more things than you can. Just you try me."
"It isn't that! I just couldn't let you. It is something I have to do but it is not right for you to do it."
"Such nonsense! You just put on your hat and go with Sleepy. How do you know what is the price of things?"
"Almost all the goods have marks on them but here is a list of prices, besides, – but Page, dear, – I just couldn't let you do it."
"Well, you just can!" and I took off my own hat and put it on her head. I hadn't known before what a pretty hat it was. Any hat would be glorified by Annie's wonderful honey-colored hair. "Now give me your apron!" and I untied the little frilly affair that Annie wore to keep shop in and put it on myself.
Sleepy took her by the arm and carried her off, protesting, laughing, holding back, but happy in being coerced.
"Take her for a long drive, Sleepy! I can run this store and sell it out of supplies in no time, I am sure."
I heard the sound of the red wheels of the spruce little buggy die away as the driver let the young horse have free rein. I gave a sigh of joy. Here I was keeping store at last! What would Mammy Susan say? It is not often that the acme of one's ambition is reached so young. I smoothed down my apron and slipped in behind the counter just as a customer entered.
It was a farmer's wife who had driven over to the landing for provisions. She hitched her horse and ramshackle buggy in front of the store and came in prepared to spend a delightful hour. Going to the store in the country is the event of the week. Her eye had an eager gleam and there was a flush on her high cheek bones. She was a gaunt-looking woman with hair slicked up so tight under her stiff straw hat that it looked as though it must hurt. The hat had all the flowers that grow in an old-fashioned garden bedecking it, to say nothing of spiky bows of green ribbon and a rhinestone buckle. She had on a linen duster which had evidently been hastily donned over a calico house dress.
"Where's Mr. Pore?"
"He has gone to Richmond."
"Where's Annie?"
"She has stepped out for a moment. Please may I serve you?"
"No, I reckon I'll come again when some of them are in. I'll go over to Blinker's and trade this morning."
Heavens! Was I to stand still and see customers go over to the rival store? Had I missed my vocation after all my dreams? Was storekeeping not what I was cut out for?
"I'm sorry you won't stay and see these new ginghams," I faltered. A gleam in her eye emboldened me to proceed. "They are making them up so pretty in Richmond now."
"Well, I wonder if they are! Are you from Richmond?"
"I have been visiting there but I am from Milton. I love to visit in Richmond. Don't you? It is such a good way to get the new styles."
That had fetched her. She gave up all idea of trading with Blinker. What did he know of styles and the way ginghams were being made up in the city? I got down stacks of dry-goods and with my first customer began to plan a wonderful garment for the protracted meeting soon to take place. Gingham was decided not to be fine enough for the occasion and a pretty piece of voile was chosen instead. A silk drop skirt must go with it and bunches of velvet ribbon must set it off. The farmer's wife was having the time of her life and I was enjoying myself to the utmost. I measured off the material in a most professional manner, trembling for fear the customer would find out what a novice I was. I was thankful that she was to make it instead of me. With all of my learned talk about clothes, I could not have sewed up a pillowslip and had it fit the pillow.
Next on the program was chicken feed. The rats had devoured her supply of wheat saved for the poultry and the corn had not yet been harvested. We had to go in the adjoining room for that and I had a chance to peep at my price list on the way. I persuaded her also into laying in a supply of canned soups and got her interested in a lawn mower and a patent churn. She declared she was coming over the next day with her husband and try to persuade him to purchase both of them for her.
"Men-folks are mighty slow to get implements for the women. I ain't complaining of my old man, but he thinks he must have every new-fangled bit of farming machinery that comes along while I am churning with the same old big-at-the-bottom-and-little-at-the-top-little-thing-in-the-middle-goes-flippityflop churn that my mother had. As for the bit of lawn around the house that he 'lows me, – that has to be cut with a sickle just when I can catch a hand to do it. Now if I had that little lawn mower I could run it myself and keep things kind of tidy like 'round the house."
"Of course you could," I assented. "Now don't you want some of this cheese? It is right fresh." I had noted a great new cheese in a glass case that had evidently been cut only that morning. "Do you ever make polenta? This cheese would be fine for that."
"No, do tell! I never even heard of it."
"Why, it is a great dish among the Italians and is the best thing you ever tasted."
"I'm a great hand for cooking and sho' do relish a new recipe."
"Take three cups of boiling water and one cup of corn meal and one cup of grated cheese, and a teaspoon of salt. Stir the meal into the boiling water and let it cook until it begins to get thick and then put in the cheese and salt and bake it in a well-greased pan. It is dandy eating."
"Well now, doesn't that sound nice? Give me a pound of the cheese and one of those new pans to bake it in. My pans are all pretty nigh burnt out."
"Did you ever try any of this glassware for baking? It is so nice and clean and the crust looks so pretty showing through. To be sure it is more expensive than tin, but it is so satisfactory."
"I never heard of such a thing! Show it to me."
I had noticed with some surprise that Mr. Pore had a supply of the fire-proof glass just coming into general use. He was certainly a progressive buyer for one who was such a poor salesman. I sold her two glass baking dishes and then more dry-goods. It took three trips for us to carry out all her packages to the buggy. More purchasers had arrived in the meantime. I foresaw a busy time.
A little colored girl with three eggs tied up in a rag wanted to trade them for flour.
"My maw is makin' a cake fur the barsket fun'ral an' she ain't got a Gawd's mouth er flour in the house. She say if'n she can trade these here fur some flour she'll be jes' a-kitin'."
"Whar you git them aigs?" asked an old uncle suspiciously. I had just sold him a plug of "eatin' terbaccer."
"I git 'em out'n the nesses, whar they b'long," she asserted, tossing her wrapped plaits scornfully.
"Yer ain't got but one hen an' I done see yo' maw a-wringing her naick this ve'y mawnin'."
"What'n if'n yer did? That ole blue hen been layin' two three times er day lately, an' my maw she says she mus' about laid out by this time, so she up'n kilt her fer the barsket fun'ral goin' on at de same time of de big meetin'. But laws a mussy! Do you know she was that full er aigs that it war distressful?" The child's eyes were wistful at the remembrance.
"Well, well! Nobody can't tell 'bout women an' hens. It seems lak nobody don't speak up an' testify how much good they is in some sisters 'til they is dead an' gone. Same way with hens! Same way with hens! Is yo' maw gwinter bile it or bake it?"
"Sh'ain't 'cided. If'n yer bile it yer gits soup extry an' if'n yer bake it yer gits stuffin' an' graby."
I was thankful for the little training I had in mathematics when it was up to me to convert eggs into flour. Some problem! I put in a little extra flour to make sure and the child skipped off.
At this juncture the Tucker twins, Mary Flannagan, and a troop of young men from Maxton blew in. I was secretly relieved that Miss Wilcox was not of the party. Not that I minded her seeing me keep store, but I had a feeling she might be a little scornful of Annie Pore.
"Where is Annie?" cried Dum.
"We are nearly dead to see her," declared Dee.
"Gone driving with Sleepy. I am keeping store in her absence. His Lord High Muck-a-Muck has embarked for Richmond."
"What fun! What fun! We bid to help!"
"Maybe only one had better help, as purchasers coming in might be overcome by too many clerks," I laughed.
"You are right! Dee must be the one because she is so tactful," said Dum magnanimously.
So Dee took off her hat and got behind the candy and ginger ale side of the counter, and then such a buying and selling ensued as that country store had never witnessed.
Of course everybody treated everybody else and then had to be treated in turn. I stayed on the dry-goods side, and while I was not doing such a thriving business as Dee, still I had my hands full. The farmer's wife had met some acquaintances and sent them to Pore's to see the new clerk who could tell them so much about Richmond styles. I had to draw a gallon of kerosene for one customer, but Wink insisted upon doing this for me. I did not want him to one little bit. If I was to be storekeeper, I preferred being one, not just playing at it.
"I think you are wonderful, Page, to do this for Annie," he whispered to me as we made our way to the coal oil barrel.
"Nonsense! What is wonderful about it?"
"You are always kind to everybody but me."
"Do you want me to keep store for you?"
"No, I want you to keep house for me," he muttered.
"But I did not know you had a house," I teased.
He pumped vigorously at the coal oil.
"I intend to have one some day."
"A grand one, surely, if you expect to have a housekeeper!"
"Page, you know what I mean!" He looked longingly into my eyes that I knew were full of mischievous twinkles.
"All I know is, you have wasted about a quart of kerosene."
The floor was flooded. It is a difficult thing to pump coal oil and make love at the same time. Poor Wink had done both of his jobs badly. He looked aghast at the havoc he had caused.
"I am a bungling fool!" he cried.
"No, Wink, you are not that. You are just not an adept at – pumping coal oil."
"Why are you always different with me? You don't treat other fellows the way you do me."
"You don't treat other girls the way you do me," I retorted.
"Of course not! I don't feel towards them as I do towards you."
"Well, it is a good thing your feelings don't make you grouchy with everybody. You just exude gloom as soon as you get with me. But this isn't keeping shop for Annie," and I grabbed the oil can from him and ran back into the store.
I was very glad to see Wink make his way to Dee. He usually went to her after a bout with me. They were great friends and seemed to have a million things of interest to discuss and nothing to disagree about. I could have been just as good a friend to him if he had only dropped the eternal subject and treated me as he did Dee: like an ordinary girl who was ready for a good time but had no idea of a serious attachment. We were nothing but chits of girls, after all, and only out of school because Gresham happened to burn down before we had time to graduate.
"Umm! How you do smell of coal oil!" cried Dee. "Don't dare to touch anything in my line of groceries until you have washed your hands. There's a basin back there."
Wink laughed and washed his hands as commanded. Now if I had said to him what Dee had he would have been furious, and gloom impenetrable would have ensued.
That afternoon I cut off and planned four different dresses for four farmers' wives, selling trimming and ribbons and fancy buttons. I made many trades with persons bringing in eggs and chickens and carrying off various commodities in exchange. I was never so busy in my life. Dee was equally so, even after we had persuaded the noisy crowd from Maxton to depart.
"Goodness! I feel as though I had been serving at a church fair," cried Dee, sinking down exhausted on a soap box.
She had just wheedled a shy young farmer into thinking that existence could not continue without a box of scented soap and a new cravat, although he had made a trip to the store for nothing more ornate than salt for the cattle.
"How do you reckon Annie ever gets through the day if this one is a sample? I haven't stopped a minute and here come some more traders."
The fact was that Dee and I had done about three times as much selling as the Pores usually accomplished. Word had gone forth that we were keeping shop, and everybody hastened to the country store. Dee found this out by accident over the telephone. There was such a violent ringing of the bell that she hastened to answer it, not being on to the country 'phone where everybody's bell rings at every call. This is what she overheard:
"Say, Milly! Pore's have got some gals from Richmond clerking there. They can put you on to the styles."
