THE PERFECT CUSTOMER.
It was a very ordinary country sale of work. The Countess of Bilberry declared it open in a neat little speech, and then bought generously from every stall: her daughter, whose smile nobody could resist, did a fine trade with raffle tickets for the record pumpkin produced by the local allotments: Mrs. Dodd, the Rector's wife, presided over a pair of scales and a strictly rationed tea, and all the rest of the village sold vegetables and socks and pincushions, and tried to pretend that antimacassars and shaving tidies and woolwork waistbelts were the most desirable things in the world when they were made by wounded men at the nearest Red Cross Hospital, in whose aid the sale was held.
But there was one unique figure amongst all the folk who knew each other, and each other's clothes, and each other's clothes' cost, so well. She arrived at the Village Hall in a pony-carriage, drawn by the ugliest little pony that ever sniffed oats. She was very quietly and very tastefully dressed, and, instead of concentrating on the well-laden stalls of garden produce or the orderly stacks of knitted comforts, or the really useful baskets, she went straight to the stall which even Mrs. Dodd, who had the kindest heart in the countryside, had been compelled to relegate to a dark corner. There was woolwork run riot over cushions of incredible hardness; there were candle-shades guaranteed to catch alight at the mere sight of a match; there were crochet dressing-table mats, and there was a three-legged stool on which even a fairy could not have sat without danger of a break-down.
The youngest Miss Dodd, a severely practical young lady of sixteen, who was presiding at this stall, jumped up in surprise at the sight of a customer, and in doing so knocked over a glass box bound with red and white and blue ribbon, with "Handkerchiefs" painted across the corner in a design of forget-me-nots. There was very little glass box left when she picked it up, and the splinters had made a good many little craters in the surface of a big bowl of clotted cream, labelled "Positively the last appearance for the Duration of the War," which was at the corner of the next stall.
The little stranger said that she would take the box and the damaged cream too; she bought a whole family of crochet mats with centres of orange woollen loops; three pincushions made of playing cards discharged as no longer fit for active service; a table-centre with pen-painting of the Allied flags, and a letter-case with the badges of the Dominions worked in wool and "Across the sea, A letter from thee," straggling wearily across one corner. Then there was an antimacassar in purple and magenta sateen, with yellow daffodils making a brave attempt to flourish in unlikely surroundings.
At the next stall she bought a photograph frame which had lost its prop in an unequal contest with a tea-tray which had collapsed from the heartiness of the Rector's clapping at the conclusion of the Countess's speech; and a Noah's Ark from which the star performer and his very best beasts had somehow disappeared.
Then the little lady paused before the live-stock stall.
"There isn't anything really hideous here," she murmured to herself; "but I think that puppy—it's never had its tail cut, and nobody will ever know whether it's a sealyham, a spaniel or even a dash of a setter—I will take the puppy, please," she added, "as soon as I've had some tea. After that I will see what is left. You have such nice things."
After tea she went back to the youngest Miss Dodd and collected a few more of the more glaring atrocities, paid her bills, and then went off to her pony-carriage; the youngest Miss Dodd, very much inclined to giggle, bearing armfuls of odd purchases in her wake, crowned by the bowl of cream and the mongrel pup. She handed them in and was just going away when the little old lady pressed a piece of paper into her hand.
"I don't like to worry people," she said gently, "but if you have time you might read this. It has been a great opportunity to-day; I don't often find so much to be done—and I shall love the puppy."
The youngest Miss Dodd watched the start of the ugly pony with a snigger and then went back into the lighted hall to read the pamphlet. It was a touching little document—many people know it well—and the youngest Miss Dodd, who had never been known to sentimentalize over anything before, blew her nose rather violently when she had read it.
"Bless her dear little soul!" she said to herself: "I don't wonder that pup was trying to kiss her. I only hope she won't try to eat that cream with the glass in it, or give it to the pup." For the pamphlet was the Rules for Membership and a treatise on the Objects and Methods of the "Society for Buying What Nobody Wants."