Eva Larry was delighted to see Agnes on the street, and had taken her
home one day with her. Myra Stetson was always jolly and pleasant, but
no urging by Agnes could get either of these nice girls to visit the
old Corner House.
“Do you suppose it is the ghost of the garret that keeps them away?”
demanded Agnes, of Ruth.
“We wouldn’t entertain them in the garret,” responded Ruth, laughing.
Only she did not feel like laughing. “If that is the trouble, however,
we’ll soon finish up cleaning out the garret. And we’ll sweep out the
ghost and all his tribe, too.”
A Saturday intervened before this could be accomplished, however. It
was the first Saturday after Mr. Howbridge had bestowed upon the
Corner House girls their monthly allowance.
After the house was spick and span, and the children’s playthings put
away for over Sunday, and the garden (which was now a trim and
promising plot) made particularly neat, the four girls dressed in
their very best and sallied forth. It was after mid-afternoon and the
shoppers along Main Street were plentiful.
Aunt Sarah never went out except to church on Sunday. Now that the
weather was so warm, the big front door stood open a part of the time,
and the girls sat with their sewing and books upon the wide porch.
Mrs. McCall joined them there; but Aunt Sarah, never.
Because she did not go out, anything Aunt Sarah needed was purchased
by one of the girls. Particularly, Ruth never forgot the peppermints
which were bought as regularly now that they lived in the Corner House
as they were bought in the old days, back in Bloomingsburg.
Sometimes Ruth delegated one of the other girls to buy the
peppermints, but on this particular occasion she chanced to find
herself near the candy counter, when she was separated from Agnes in
Blachstein & Mapes. So she purchased the usual five cents’ worth of
Aunt Sarah’s favorite Sunday “comfort.”
“No matter how dry the sermon is, or how long-winded the preacher, I
can stand it, if I’ve got a pep’mint to chew on,” the strange old lady
once said. That was almost as long a sentence as the girls had ever
heard her speak!
With the peppermints safe in her bag, Ruth hunted again for Agnes. But
the latter had those shoe-buckles on her mind and, forgetting Ruth,
she left the big store and made for the shoeshop.
On the way Agnes passed the Lady’s Shop with its tempting display in
the show-window, and she ventured in. There were those lovely
handkerchiefs! Agnes feasted her eyes but she could not gain the
courage to break one of her dollar bills for the trifle.
So she wandered out and went toward the glittering buckles in the
shoeshop window. And there she hesitated again. Fifty cents! A quarter
of her entire monthly allowance. She wanted to find Eva Larry, who
would be down town, too, and treat her to a sundae. Besides, she must
buy Myra Stetson some little remembrance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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