Forthwith Miss Judy began to get ready for going to the store. She got out the lace shawl, which had been her mother's, and which was darned and redarned till little of the original web was left. She took it out of its silver paper and folded it again with dainty care, so that the middle point would just touch the heels of her heel-less prunella gaiters. Any crookedness in the location of that middle point would have shocked Miss Judy like some moral obliquity. The strings of her dove-colored bonnet of drawn silk must also be tied "just so" in a prim little bow precisely under her pretty chin. Miss Sophia was always anxiously consulted as to the size and the angle and the precision of that little bow, as if she had been some sharp critic, who was most difficult to please. And then, when Miss Judy had drawn on her picnic gloves of black lace, she unrolled the elaborate wrapping from her sunshade, which was hardly bigger than a doll's parasol, and turned it up flat against its short handle. Finally, having pinned a fresh handkerchief in a snowy triangle to the left side of her small waist so that her left hand might be free to hold up her skirt, she took the dainty pinch of black bombazine between her forefinger and thumb, and, with the sunshade in the other little hand, sailed off down the big road, smiling back at Miss Sophia. She was always a brisk walker, and she had nearly reached the front of the store before Mr. Pettus knew that she was coming. But Uncle Watty, fortunately, saw her approach from his post of lookout over the whole village, as he sat on the goods-box in the shade, whittling happily, the pile of red cedar shavings rising high and dry through the windless, rainless summer days. Without stirring from his comfortable place, Uncle Watty was thus enabled, by merely putting his head in the door, to give Mr. Pettus instant warning of Miss Judy's nearness. Even then there hardly would have been time for Mr. Pettus to make the usual preparation for the little lady's visit, had she not stopped to shake hands with Uncle Watty and to inquire about the misery in his broken leg. She lingered still a moment longer to ask, with all the deference due a weather prophet of Uncle Watty's reputation, when he thought there would be rain, this being indeed a matter of importance, with the consideration of the planting of the peach-blow peel lying heavy in the back of her mind. Mr. Pettus, meanwhile, made good use of the limited opportunity. Hastily taking up a large clean sheet of brown paper, he quickly divided it into six squares with the speed and skill of long practice. These squares he then hastily laid at regular spaces along the counter. Reaching round for his scoop, he ladled out a generous quantity of tea, all of a kind. He had but one chest of tea, yet when the contents of the scoop was distributed in six separate heaps, it looked quite as different as he meant it to look, and as Miss Judy believed it to be.