He put some tiny cylindrical rolls of paper on the counter. Maida handled them curiously-they, too, were heavy.

"Open them," Billy commanded.

Maida pulled the papers away from the tops. Bright new dimes fell out of one, bright new nickels came from the other.

"Oh, I'm so glad to have nice clean money," Maida said in a satisfied tone. She emptied the money drawer and filled its pockets with the shining coins. "It was very kind of you to think of it, Billy. I know it will please the children." The thought made her eyes sparkle.

The bell rang again. Billy went out to talk with Granny, leaving Maida alone to cope with her first strange customer.

Again her heart began to jump into her throat. Her mouth felt dry on the inside. She watched the door, fascinated.

On the threshold two little girls were standing. They were exactly of the same size, they were dressed in exactly the same way, their faces were as alike as two peas in a pod. Maida saw at once that they were twins. They had little round, chubby bodies, bulging out of red sweaters; little round, chubby faces, emerging from tall, peaky, red-worsted caps. They had big round eyes as expressionless as gla.s.s beads and big round golden curls as stiff as candles. They stared so hard at Maida that she began to wonder nervously if her face were dirty.

"Come in, little girls," she called.

The little girls pattered over to the show case and looked in. But their big round eyes, instead of examining the candy, kept peering up through the gla.s.s top at Maida. And Maida kept peering down through it at them.

"I want to buy some candy for a cent," one of them whispered in a timid little voice.

"I want to buy some candy for a cent, too," the other whispered in a voice, even more timid.

"All the cent candy is in this case," Maida explained, smiling.

"What are you going to have, Dorothy?" one of them asked.

"I don't know. What are you going to have, Mabel?" the other answered. They discussed everything in the one-cent case. Always they talked in whispers. And they continued to look more often at Maida than at the candy.

"Have you anything two-for-a-cent?" Mabel whispered finally.

"Oh, yes-all the candy in this corner."

The two little girls studied the corner Maida indicated. For two or three moments they whispered together. At one point, it looked as if they would each buy a long stick of peppermint, at another, a paper of lozenges. But they changed their minds a great many times. And in the end, Dorothy bought two large pickles and Mabel bought two large chocolates. Maida saw them swapping their purchases as they went out.

The two pennies which the twins handed her were still moist from the hot little hands that had held them. Maida dropped them into an empty pocket in the money drawer. She felt as if she wanted to keep her first earnings forever. It seemed to her that she had never seen such _precious-looking_ money. The gold eagles which her father had given her at Christmas and on her birthday did not seem half so valuable.

But she did not have much time to think of all this. The bell rang again. This time it was a boy-a big fellow of about fourteen, she guessed, an untidy-looking boy with large, intent black eyes. A ma.s.s of black hair, which surely had not been combed, fell about a face that as certainly had not been washed that morning.

"Give me one of those blue tops in the window," he said gruffly. He did not add these words but his manner seemed to say, "And be quick about it!" He threw his money down on the counter so hard that one of the pennies spun off into a corner.

He did not offer to pick the penny up. He did not even apologize.

And he looked very carefully at the top Maida handed him as if he expected her to cheat him. Then he walked out.

It was getting towards school-time. Children seemed to spring up everywhere as if they grew out of the ground. The quiet streets began to ring with the cries of boys playing tag, leap frog and prisoners' base. The little girls, much more quiet, squatted in groups on doorsteps or walked slowly up and down, arm-in-arm. But Maida had little time to watch this picture. The bell was ringing every minute now. Once there were six children in the little shop together.

"Do you need any help?" Granny called.

"No, Granny, not yet," Maida answered cheerfully.

But just the same, she did have to hurry. The children asked her for all kinds of things and sometimes she could not remember where she had put them. When in answer to the school bell the long lines began to form at the big doorways, two round red spots were glowing in Maida's cheeks. She drew an involuntary sigh of relief when she realized that she was going to have a chance to rest. But first she counted the money she had taken in. Thirty-seven cents! It seemed a great deal to her.

For an hour or more, n.o.body entered the shop. Billy left in a little while for Boston. Granny, crooning an old Irish song, busied herself upstairs in her bedroom. Maida sat back in her chair, dreaming happily of her work. Suddenly the bell tinkled, rousing her with a start.

It seemed a long time after the bell rang before the door opened.

But at last Maida saw the reason of the delay. The little boy who stood on the threshold was lame. Maida would have known that he was sick even if she had not seen the crutches that held him up, or the iron cage that confined one leg.

His face was as colorless as if it had been made of melted wax. His forehead was lined almost as if he were old. A tired expression in his eyes showed that he did not sleep like other children. He must often suffer, too-his mouth had a drawn look that Maida knew well.

The little boy moved slowly over to the counter. It could hardly be said that he walked. He seemed to swing between his crutches exactly as a pendulum swings in a tall clock. Perhaps he saw the sympathy that ran from Maida's warm heart to her pale face, for before he spoke he smiled. And when he smiled you could not possibly think of him as sick or sad. The corners of his mouth and the corners of his eyes seemed to fly up together. It made your spirits leap just to look at him.

"I'd like a sheet of red tissue paper," he said briskly.

Maida's happy expression changed. It was the first time that anybody had asked her for anything which she did not have.

"I'm afraid I haven't any," she said regretfully.

The boy looked disappointed. He started to go away. Then he turned hopefully. "Mrs. Murdock always kept her tissue paper in that drawer there," he said, pointing.

"Oh, yes, I do remember," Maida exclaimed. She recalled now a few sheets of tissue paper that she had left there, not knowing what to do with them. She pulled the drawer open. There they were, neatly folded, as she had left them.

"What did Mrs. Murdock charge for it?" she inquired.

"A cent a sheet."

Maida thought busily. "I'm selling out all the old stock," she said.

"You can have all that's left for a cent if you want it."

"Sure!" the boy exclaimed. "Jiminy crickets! That's a stroke of luck I wasn't expecting."

He spread the half dozen sheets out on the counter and ran through them. He looked up into Maida's face as if he wanted to thank her but did not know how to put it. Instead, he stared about the shop.

"Say," he exclaimed, "you've made this store look grand. I'd never know it for the same place. And your sign's a crackajack."

The praise-the first she had had from outside-pleased Maida. It emboldened her to go on with the conversation.

"You don't go to school," she said.

The moment she had spoken, she regretted it. It was plain to be seen, she reproached herself inwardly, why he did not go to school.

"No," the boy said soberly. "I can't go yet. Doc O'Brien says I can go next year, he thinks. I'm wild to go. The other fellows hate school but I love it. I s'pose it's because I can't go that I want to. But, then, I want to learn to read. A fellow can have a good time anywhere if he knows how to read. I can read some," he added in a shamed tone, "but not much. The trouble is I don't have anybody to listen and help with the hard words."

"Oh, let me help you!" Maida cried. "I can read as easy as anything." This was the second thing she regretted saying. For when she came to think of it, she could not see where she was going to have much time to herself.

But the little lame boy shook his head. "Can't," he said decidedly.

"You see, I'm busy at home all day long and you'll be busy here. My mother works out and I have to do most of the housework and take care of the baby. Pretty slow work on crutches, you know-although it's easy enough getting round after you get the hang of it. No, I really don't have any time to fool until evenings."

"Evenings!" Maida exclaimed electrically. "Why, that's just the right time! You see I'm pretty busy myself during the daytime-at my business." Her voice grew a little important on that last phrase.

"Granny! Granny!" she called.

Granny Flynn appeared in the doorway. Her eyes grew soft with pity when they fell on the little lame boy. "The poor little gossoon!"