JUST FISHING
Some days later the Whatnot Shop was being dismantled, that is the
shelves were being treated to a great clearing off, and the
old-fashioned glass cases were being lined with white oilcloth,
preparatory to Miss Manners' Domestic Science Class storing their
samples of food therein.
Gradually Nancy's sense of honor was coming back into its own, for not
only her mother but also her girl friends were constantly reassuring
her.
"There's nothing small nor frivolous about changing one's mind for the
better," they told her. "In fact," said the mother, "that one is willing
to do so, is very often a mark of progress. If we didn't change our
minds how could we grow wiser?"
"But I thought I'd just love business," Nancy complained. "I was crazy
to keep store and now I'm crazy to start something else."
"Which is perfectly normal and entirely reasonable for any healthy young
girl," her mother insisted. "Can you imagine girls being as staid and as
old fashioned as their mothers?"
"Moth-thur!" Nancy sort of moaned, "If ever I could be as _new_
fashioned as my mother I shouldn't mind how old nor how young I might
be. And you are a love not to scold me. I know you are glad to see Manny
so happy setting-up her school, and I know you will be better satisfied
to have her there, facing the fierce public, than allowing me to do so.
Not that I had any trouble with the dear public," Nancy mocked. "And not
that Brother Ted wasn't always within a few miles call if I needed him.
But, at any rate, Mums, I did make some real money, didn't I?" she
cooed, quite birdlike for Nancy.
A clean little, yellow bankbook was offered for evidence by Mrs. Brandon
at this question, for being a business woman, she knew the value of
personal interest in every part of a business undertaking, and so, early
in the experiment, she had brought Nancy into the City Bank and there
attended to the formalities of opening her bank account.
"Mother, you keep the book, please," Nancy begged just now, as Mrs.
Brandon offered it to her. "I know I ought to be very careful and not
forget where I put things, but somehow I do. And I would hate to lose
that precious book," she murmured, touching her mother's cheek with her
lips as she made the appeal.
"Very well, daughter," Mrs. Brandon conceded, "but you simply must learn
to remember, and the way to do that is think of a thing as you do it,"
she advised.
Nancy was, however, already improving in such matters. Being obliged to
find things for herself, instead of calling out to Anna, the maid, as
she had been in the habit of doing, was teaching a lesson that words had
never been able to convey to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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