The following morning Mary astonished her uncles by announcing that as soon as she had helped Isaiah with the breakfast dishes and the bed making she was going up to the store.
"What for?" demanded Captain Shad. "Course we'll be mighty glad to have your company, but Zoeth and me presumed likely you'd be for goin' round callin' on some of the other girls today."
"Well, I'm not. If they want to see me they can call on me here.
I'm going up to the store with you and Uncle Zoeth. I want to help sell those Christmas goods of ours."
The partners looked at each other. Even Zoeth was moved to protest.
"Now, Mary-'Gusta," he said, "it ain't likely that your Uncle Shadrach and I are goin' to let you sell goods in that store. We won't hear of it, will we, Shadrach?"
"Not by a thunderin' sight!" declared Shadrach, vehemently. "The idea!"
"Why not? I've sold a good many there."
"I don't care if you have. You shan't sell any more. 'Twas all right when you was just a--a girl, a South Harnisser like the rest of us, but now that you're a Boston young lady, up to a fin--er--what-d'ye-call-it?--er--endin' school--"
"Finishin' school, Shadrach," corrected Mr. Hamilton.
"Well, whatever 'tis; I know 'twould be the end of ME if I had to live up to the style of it. 'Anyhow, now that you're there, Mary-
'Gusta, a young lady, same as I said, we ain't--"
But Mary interrupted. "Hush, Uncle Shad," she commanded. "Hush, this minute! You're talking nonsense, I AM a South Harniss girl and I'm NOT a Boston young lady. My chief reasons for being so very happy at the thought of coming home here for my Christmas vacation were, first, that I should see you and Uncle Zoeth and Isaiah and the house and the horse and the cat and the hens, and, next, that I could help you with the Christmas trade at the store. I know perfectly well you need me. I'm certain you have been absolutely lost without me. Now, really and truly, haven't you?"
"Not a mite," declared the Captain, stoutly, spoiling the effect of the denial, however, by adding, although his partner had not spoken:
"Shut up, Zoeth! We ain't, neither."
Mary laughed. "Uncle Shad," she said, "I don't believe you. At any rate, I'm going up there this minute to see for myself. Come along!"
She made no comment on what she saw at the store, but for the remainder of the forenoon she was very busy. In spite of the partners' protests, in fact paying no more attention to those perturbed men of business than if they were flies to be brushed aside when bothersome, she went ahead, arranging, rearranging, dusting, writing price tickets, lettering placards, doing all sorts of things, and waiting on customers in the intervals. At noon, when she and her Uncle Zoeth left for home and dinner, she announced herself in a measure satisfied. "Of course there is a great deal to do yet," she said, "but the stock looks a little more as if it were meant to sell and less as if it were heaped up ready to be carted off and buried."
That afternoon the store of Hamilton and Company was visited by a goodly number of South Harniss residents. That evening there were more. The news that Mary-'Gusta Lathrop was at home and was "tendin' store" for her uncles spread and was much discussed. The majority of those who came did so not because they contemplated purchasing extensively, but because they wished to see what effect the fashionable finishing school had had upon the girl. The general opinion seemed to be that it "hadn't changed her a mite." This result, however, was considered a desirable one by the majority, but was by some criticized. Among the critics was Mrs. Rebecca Mullet, whose daughter Irene also was away at school undergoing the finishing process.
"Well!" declared Mrs. Mullet, with decision, as she and her husband emerged from the store together. "Well! If THAT'S a sample of what the school she goes to does for them that spend their money on it, I'm mighty glad we didn't send our Rena there, ain't you, Christopher?"
Mr. Chris Mullet, who had received that very week a bill for his daughter's "extras," uttered a fervent assent.
"You bet you!" he said. "It costs enough where Rena is, without sendin' her to no more expensive place."
This was not exactly the reply his wife had expected.
"Umph!" she grunted, impatiently. "I do wish you could get along for two minutes without puttin' on poor mouth. I suppose likely you tell everybody that you can't afford a new overcoat account of Rena's goin' away to school. You'd ought to be prouder of your daughter than you are of an overcoat, I should think."
Mr. Mullet muttered something to the effect that he was dum sure he was not proud of his present overcoat. His wife ignored the complaint.
"And you'll be proud of Irene when she comes home," she declared.
"She won't be like that Mary-'Gusta, standin' up behind the counter and sellin' goods."
"Why, now, Becky, what's the matter with her doin' that? She always used to sell goods, and behind that very counter, too. And she certainly can SELL 'em!" with a reminiscent chuckle.
Mrs. Mullet glared at him. "Yes," she drawled, with sarcasm, "so she can--to some folks. Look at you, with all that Christmas junk under your arm! You didn't need to buy that stuff any more'n you needed to fly. What did you buy it for? Tell me that."
Chris shook his head. "Blessed if I know," he admitted. "I hadn't any idea of buyin' it, but she and me got to talkin', and she kept showin' the things to me, and I kept lookin' at 'em and--"
"Yes, and kept lookin' at her, too! Don't talk to ME! There's no fool like an old fool--and an old man fool is the worst of all."
Her husband, usually meek and long-suffering under wifely discipline, evinced unwonted spirit.
"Well, I tell you this, Becky," he said. "Fur's I can see, Mary-
