CHAPTER V
ORIGINAL PLANS
During the next half hour the girls busied themselves playing store.Ruth was almost as keenly interested in the little place as was Nancy,herself, but it was noticeable that Vera was more curious. She pokedinto the farthest corners, even opening obscure little cubby-holes thatNancy had not yet discovered. All the while they talked about theTownsends and the mysterious Mr. Sanders, declaring that somethingaround the Whatnot Shop held the clue to the Townsend disagreement, andMr. Sanders' mysterious power of disappearing.
"I think it's the funniest thing," ruminated Nancy, clapping the wrongcover on the white thread box, "here we came away out here to bepeaceful, quiet and studious. Mother looked for a place just to keep Tedand me busy, and then we run into a regular hornet's nest of rumors."
"Don't you know," replied Ruth, "that still waters run deepest?"
"But I didn't know we had to take on a whole Mother Goose set of fairytales with a little two cent shoe-string shop," protested Nancy. "Ofcourse it will serve me right if I get into an awful squall. Myrebellion against the long-loved house-work idea, is sure to get me intosome trouble, isn't it?"
"Who doesn't rebel secretly?" admitted Ruth. "Isn't it fairer to up andsay so than to be always hoping the dishpan will spring a leak, anddish-towels will blow away?" Ruth was making rapid strides in gainingNancy's affection. She was so unaffected, so frank, and so sensible.
Vera wasn't saying much but she was poking a lot. Just now she wasfussing with some discarded and disabled toys. She held up a helplesswindmill.
"Imagine!" she said, simply.
"Well, what of it?" asked Ruth. "It was pretty--once!"
"Pretty! As if anyone around here would ever buy a thing like that."
"Let me see it," Nancy said. "I'm sure Ted would love 'a thing likethat.' He'd spend days tinkering with it." Nancy took the red and bluetin toy and inspected it critically. As she wound a tiny key a littlebell tinkled.
"Lovel-lee!" cried Ruth. "That's a merry wind. Or is it a tinkle-lywind? Anyway it's cute. Save it for the small brother, Nancy. And Ithink he's awfully cute. Here's something else for his camp," sheoffered, handing Nancy over a red, white and blue popgun.
"Great!" declared Nancy. "Ted has been too busy to rummage yet, but he'ssure to be thrilled when he does go at it. Yes, I think Ted is cute, andI hope the disappearing man won't cast a spell on him," she finished,laughing at the idea, and meanwhile inspecting the toy windmill.
"You can joke," warned Vera, "but my grandmother insists that whateveryone says must be true, and everyone says Baldy Sanders isfreakish."
"Baldy," repeated Nancy gaily. "I noticed that. But he has enough ofeyes to make up for the lost hair. I never saw such merry twinklingeyes."
"Really!" Vera commented. "I never notice men's eyes."
"Just their bald heads," teased Ruth. "Now Vera, if Mr. Sanders is aprofessor, as some folks claim, and if he ever gets our class inchemistry, I'm afraid you would just have to notice his merry, twinklingeyes. Anyhow," and Ruth cocked up a faded little blue muslin pussy cat,"he's merry, and that is in his favor. What are you doing with thatwindmill, Nancy?"
"Inspecting it. It's a queer kind of windmill. Look at the cross pieceson top and this tin cup."
All three girls gave their attention to the queer toy. It was, as Nancyhad said, different from the usual model. It had cross pieces on topinstead of on the side, and one piece was capped off with a metal cup.
"I'll save it for Ted," Nancy concluded. "But I hope it isn't dangerous.It takes boys to find out the worst of everything. Just before we moved,most of our furniture is in storage you know," she put in to explain thescarcity of things at the country place, "Ted went up to the attic andfound an old wooden gun. It would shoot peas, and what those boys didn'tshoot peas at wasn't worth mentioning. I'll put the freak windmill awayfor him, though. It looks quite harmless."
"Oh, I think it's just joyous to have a shop," exclaimed Ruth, "and ifyou'll let me, Nancy, I'll come in and 'tend sometimes."
"I'd love to have you," replied Nancy earnestly. "I did expect my chum,Bonny Davis, to visit me, but she's gone down to the shore first.Bonny's lots of fun. I'm sure you'd like her if she does come," declaredNancy, loyally.
"I like her name," Ruth answered. "What is it? Bonita?"
"No, it's really Charlotte, but she's so black we've always called herBonny from ebony, you know. Now Vera, what have you discovered?" brokeoff Nancy, looking over to the comer in which Vera was plainlyinterested. "Anything spooky?"
"Not spooky," replied Vera, "but I never saw such odd looking fishingthings. No wonder the Townsends went bankrupt. Here are boxes and boxesof wires and weights, and I don't know what all. Oh, I'll tell you!" sheexclaimed, in a rare burst of enthusiasm. "Let's have a fishing sale?"
"And sell fish!" teased Ruth.
"No," objected Nancy, taking Vera's part. "I think a special sale offishing and sport supplies would be great. Let's see what we've gottoward it."
"It would draw the boys and that's something," joked Ruth. "But I'lltell you what, Nancy, you had better be careful what you try to sell tothe young fishermen around here. They're pretty particular and rathergood at the sport. I like to fish myself."
"Oh, I'd love to," declared Nancy. "Where do you go?"
"Dyke's pond and sometimes the old mill creek," replied Ruth. "But weonly get sunnies there. There's perch in the pond, though."
This led to discussing the fishing prospects in brooks, ponds and otherwaterways around Long Leigh, until it was being promptly decided thatRuth and Vera should very soon introduce Nancy to the sport. The idea ofhaving a sale of the outfit at the shop was also entered uponenthusiastically, until the afternoon was melting into shadows beforethe girls realized it.
"But what ever you do," Ruth cautioned Nancy, "don't let any one induceyou to take the Whatnot out of the window. That's the sign of this oldshop that's known for miles and miles."
"I think a cute little windmill would be lots nicer," suggested Vera."That Whatnot is--atrocious."
"Windmill!" repeated Ruth. "But we don't sell windmills."
"Certainly not. Neither do we sell Whatnots," contended Vera.
"But we sell the things that are on the Whatnot," argued Ruth. "Andbesides Whatnot stands for _What Not!_"
It was amusing Nancy to listen to their assumed partnership. They wereboth talking about "_our_ shop" and insisting upon what "_we_ sell."This established at once a comradeship among all three, and Nancy wasconvinced that her own desire to go into business was not, after all,very queer. Other girls, no doubt, shared it as well, but the differencewas--Nancy's mother. She was the "angel of the enterprise," as Nancy haddeclared more than once.
"And I'll tell you," confided Vera, quite surprisingly, "if you'll letme, I'll help you with your housework. I don't mind it a bit, and youhate it so."
"Oh, that's just lovely of you, Vera," Nancy replied, while a sense offear seized her, "but I really must do some of it, you know. Even a goodstore keeper should know how to cook a little," she pretended, vowingthat her house would be in some kind of order before Vera ever even gota peek into the living rooms.
When they were finally gone Nancy stood alone in the little store, tooexcited to decide at once which way to turn. She liked the girls,especially Ruth, and even Vera had her interesting features. At leastshe said odd things in an odd way, and her drawl was "delicious," Nancyadmitted. Of course she was gossipy. There was all that nonsense aboutMr. Sanders. As if any human being could really disappear. Ted wouldjust howl at the idea, Nancy knew, and if the man were really aprofessor of some sort, that ought to make him interesting, shereflected. At any rate, he was, the girls had said, a friend of theTownsends, and Nancy would make it her business to ask Miss Townsendabout him the very next time she came into the store.
Her mind busy with such reflections, Nancy hooked the screen door, (theshop was not yet supposed to be o
pen for business) and turned toward theupset kitchen.
"I've just got to do something with it," she promised, "before mothercomes. I wish Ted would hurry along home. Of course, he's a boy and boysdon't have to worry about kitchens."
Nevertheless, as Nancy dashed around she did make a real effort toadjust the disordered room, for her pride was now prompting her.Whatever would Vera Johns say to such a looking place? And was all thisfair to a mother so thoughtful and so good-natured as was Nancy's?
"I begin right here at this door," she decided, feeling she had to beginat a definite spot, "and I just straighten out every single thing fromhere to the back door."
Peach baskets idling with the odds and ends of packing, Ted's redsweater, Nancy's blue one, Nancy's straw hat that she felt she must havewithin reach and which therefore had been "parked" on the floor, safe,however, under a big chair, and a paste-board box of books that she alsodidn't want to lose track of, the portable phonograph cover, thephonograph itself was reposing safely on the corner of the sink whereTed had been trying a new record; all these and as many moremiscellaneous articles Nancy was briefly encountering in her generalclearing up plan "from one door to the other."
But she forged on, the old broom doing heroic duty as a plough cuttingthrough the debris. Finally, having gotten most of the stuff into acorner, she undertook to scatter it in a way peculiar to one withbusiness, rather than domestic, instincts.
"I'll need the baskets, all of them, when I'm settling the store," shepromptly decided, "and I'll get Ted to put the box of books in theretoo, so I can read while I'm waiting. Then the phonograph--That can goin there just as well, it may draw customers." At this Nancy laughed,but she picked up the little black box, it had been her birthdaypresent, and put it right on the small table under the old mantle in thestore. A phonograph in the store seemed attractive.
"I guess we'll find the store handy for lots of things," Nancy wasthinking, for the difference in the size of their old home, and thelimits of this new one, was not easy to adjust.
With a sort of flourish of the broom at the papers and bits of excelsiorthat were still an eyesore about, Nancy at length managed to "make apath," as she expressed it, through the kitchen.
"And I'll gather some flowers to greet mother with," she insisted."There's no reason why we shouldn't make a pretty room of a kitchen likethis, with one, two, three, good sized windows," she counted.
But the glorious bunch of early roses must have felt rather out ofplace, trying to conserve their wondrous perfume from contamination withthe remains of a smudgy odor from burnt potatoes--which by-the-way, hadnot yet come to light, not to say anything of the real fire smell ofburnt meat, that ran over from a pan-cake griddle into a seething gasflame.
"Oh, those flowers!" exhaled the triumphant Nancy, pushing the dishpanaway so as not to bend the longest stalk, which was brushed against it."Won't mother just love it here?"
After all, is not the soul of the poet more valuable than the skill of aprospective housewife?