“DO IT NOW!”
what was to be done being left to the imagination. All forenoon there had been a steady flow of customers, who came out of the shop with more than nuts or apples, greatly amazed at the change in the Pilgrim widow, who was cracking up her goods like any common sinner. Behind the railed and curtained box, in which she was supposed to keep her books and pray for the whole community, there seemed to be some secret stimulating influence, for when bad payers tried to-day to get a thing on credit, and she was on the point of yielding, she would dart into the box and out again as hard as steel, insisting that at every Revolutionary Sale the terms were cash. She was giving bargains, but at her own price, never at her customers', as it used to be. The Health Saline—extract of the finest fruit, Cooling, Refreshing, Invigorating, Tonic (though indeed it looked like an old friend from Rochelle with a dash of sugar and tartaric)—was down a ha'penny, to less than what it cost, according to another hand-done bill upon the counter. When they asked her how she could afford to sell the stuff below its cost, she seemed ashamed and startled, till she had a moment in behind the curtains, and then she told them it was all because of the large turn-over; she could not afford to sell the saline under cost if she did not sell it in tremendous quantities.
Did they want Ward's Matchless Polishing Paste?—alas! (after a dash behind the curtains) she was completely out of it. Of late it had been in such great demand that she got tired of ordering it every other week wholesale. Yes, she was out of Ward's, but (again the curtained box) what about this wonderful line in calf-foot jelly, highly praised by the—by the connoisseurs? What were connoisseurs? A connoisseur (again on reference behind the curtains) was one of those wealthy men who could swallow anything.
“I'll tell ye what it is,” said the tailor, “I see't at last! She's got a book in there; I've seen't before—The Way to Conduct a Retail Business—and when she runs behind, it's to see what she should say to the customers. That's where she got the notions for her window and the 'Do it Now!'”
But he was wrong—completely wrong, for when Kate came into the shop with “Have you seen Miss Lennox, Mrs. Wright? I sent her here a message hours ago,” Lennox herself came from the curtained box saying, “Hello, Kate; saw you first! What can we do for you to day?”
“My stars! you'll catch it!” said the maid. “They're waiting yonder on you for your dinner.”
“I was just heading for home,” said Bud, making for the door.
“My child! my child! my angel child!” cried the Pilgrim widow, going to kiss her, but Bud drew back.
“Not to-day, please; I'm miles too big for kissing to-day,” said she, and marched solemnly out of the Italian warehouse.
“What in the world were you doing away so long?” asked Kate. “Were you carrying on at anything?”
“I was paying for Charles's pipe,” said the child, returning the money she had got for its purchase. “That's the sweetest lady, Mrs. Wright, but my! ain't she Baby Mine when it settles down to business? When I wanted to buy the pipe, she was so tickled she wanted me to have it for nothing, seeing I was Mr. Dyce's niece. She said Uncle Dan was a man of God, who saved her more than once from bankruptcy, and it was a pretty old pipe anyway, that had been in the window since the time she got changed and dropped brocaded dolmans. You'd think it made her ache to have folk come in her shop and spend money; I guess she was raised for use in a free-soup kitchen. I said I'd take the pipe for nothing if she'd throw in a little game with it. 'What game?' said she—oh, she's a nice lady!—and I said I was just dying to have a try at keeping a really really shop, and would show her Chicago way. And you bet I did, Kate MacNeill!”
She came in with the soup, but no question was put till her uncle asked the blessing, and then, before a spoon was lifted, Auntie Bell said, “Lassie, lassie, where in the world have you been?”
“Keeping shop for Mrs. Wright,” said Bud.
“Tcht! tcht! you're beyond redemption,” cried her aunt. “A child like you keeping shop!”
“A bonny pair of shopkeepers, the widow and you! which of you counted the change?” said Uncle Dan. “Tell us all about it.”
“Well, I had the loveliest time,” said Bud. “It would take till tea-time to tell just 'zactly what a lovely day it was, but I'll hurry up and make it a front scene. What you said, Uncle Dan, about her running a shop on phil—on philanthropic principles made me keen to see her doing it, and I went down a message for Kate, and offered to help. She lowed herself she wasn't the best there was in the land at keeping shop, and didn't seem to make much money at it, but said thank the Lord she had the priceless boon of health. I was the first customer she'd set eyes on all the morning, 'cept a man that wanted change for half a crown and hadn't the half-crown with him, but said he'd pay it when he didn't see her again, and she said she felt sure that trade was going to take a turn. I said I thought it would turn quicker if—if—if she gave it a push herself, and she said she dared say there was something in it, and hoped I was in the fold. I said I was, sure, and at that she cried out 'Hallelujah!' Every other way she was 'a perfectly perfect lady; she made goo-goo eyes at me, and skipped round doing anything I told her. First she cleared all the old truck out of the windows, and filled them up with nuts and apples for Hallowe'en, till they looked the way windows never looked in Scotland in all creation before, I s'pose. 'They'll think it kind of daft,' says she, scared-like, 'they're not like any other windows in the place.' 'Of course not,' I said, 'and that's the very thing to jar the eye of the passer-by.' Jim Molyneux said a shop-window was like a play-bill, it wanted a star line—a feature—a whoop. Then I tried to think of the 'cute things shopkeepers print in Chicago, but couldn't remember any 'cepting 'Pants two dollars a leg, seats free,' but the widow said she didn't sell pants. Then I thought of some natty little cards I'd seen that said 'Arise and Shine!' and 'Do it Now!' so I got her to print these words good and big, and put them in the window. She wanted to know what they meant, but I said I couldn't tell from Adam, but they would make the people wonder, and come in the shop to find out, and then it would be up to her to sell them something and pry the money out of them before they balked. Oh, Auntie, how I go on!” and here Bud stopped almost breathless and a little ashamed.
“Go on! go on!” cried Ailie.
“Well, I got behind a curtain into a little box-office, where the widow kept a cash-book awfully doggy-eared, and a pile of printed sermons, and heaps of tracts about doing to others as you should be done by, and giving to the poor and lending to the Lord. She read bits of them to me, and said she sometimes wondered if Captain Brodie was too poor to pay for eighteen months' tobacco, but she didn't like to press him, seeing he had been in India and fought his country's battles. She said she felt she must write him again for her money, but couldn't think of what to say that would be Christian and polite and gentle, but still make him see she wanted the money pretty bad. I said I would tell her what to say that would suit just fine, and I dictated it—”
“I saw the letter,” said Uncle Dan, twinkling through his glasses. “It was a work of genius—go on! go on!”
“Then folk began to come in for nuts and apples, and asked what 'Arise and Shine' and 'Do it Now' meant. She said they were messages from the angel of the Lord—meaning me, I s'pose—though, goodness knows, I'm not much of an angel, am I, Auntie Bell? Then the folk would fade away, looking a bit rattled, and come back in a while and ask the price of things. She'd say she wasn't sure, but she thought about a shilling, or maybe ninepence, seeing they had a young family, and then they'd want the stuff on credit, and she'd yammer away to them till I got wild. When they were gone I had a good heart-to-heart talk with her, and said phil-philanthropic principles were a great mistake in a small Italian warehouse, and that she ought to give the customers a chance of doing unto others as they would be done by. She made more goo-goo eyes at me, and said I was a caution, sure enough, and perhaps I was right, for she had never looked at it that way before. After that she spunked up wonderful. I got her to send Mr. Wanton through the town with his bell, saying there was everything you wanted at Mrs. Wright's at bed-rock prices; and when people came in after that and wanted to get things for nothing, or next to it, she'd pop into the box where I lay low, and ask me what she was to say next, and then skip out to them as sharp as a tack and show they needn't try to toy with her. She says she made more money to-day by my playing shop Chicago-way than she'd make in a week her own way. Why, I'm talking, and talking, and talking, and my soup's stone cold!”
“So's mine,” said Uncle Dan, with a start.
“And mine!” said Auntie Ailie, with a smile.
“And mine too, I declare!” cried Miss Bell, with a laugh they all joined in, till Footles raised his voice protesting.