The Little Girl looked with wide open shining eyes as we went along Kinzie Street and turned into LaSalle, where the Cayses kept a country store at that time. There were two or three higher toned ones, where articles were not so promiscuously mixed. At first glance it seemed like moving day. It was long and low, with two counters, one for dry goods and a yard measure, and the other with scales for weighing everything from powder and shot to an ounce of spice, coffee, sugar, honey, molasses, butter, pork, hams, even game that had been traded off for other wants, along with more bulky wares and farming implements.
Ma'am Cayse, as she was generally called, was a short, stout, strong-looking woman with a square jaw, large white teeth, a rather flat nose and a forehead that took full one-half of her face. Her sandy hair was twisted in a tight knot at the back of her head, her skirt was short, showing both homespun stockings and home-made shoes. A sort of loose sacque enveloped the upper part of her body with the sleeves rolled over in a wad nearly to the shoulder.
"Who's gal is that?" she asked abruptly.
"Her father took the Towner place. He's buildin' onto it."
"Some one must have money in sech times as these. It's skace as hen's teeth. I declare to man if I could get holt of half a dollar I'd pinch the eagle 'til he squealed, an' ther's goin' to be a vandue, too."
"Whose vanduin'?" asked mother with a look of interest. People in newly settled places are apt to coin words, I have noticed, and after awhile some of them get regularly accepted.
"Why the Simses, goin' back to Cahoky before cold weather, but I'd go way down to Noo Orleens if I was them and wanted to keep warm. An' 'tother folks go to Canady or up to Mackinac. Ye jest can't count for tastes. What'll ye have?"
Mother ordered with an air of slow indifference. The gingham was really pretty I thought, with some fine lines of blue and red with the black and little squares of white. Some eatables followed in turn, and the ordinary country gossip until the next customer came in. It was rather early for the men to be congregating in a line across the front, smoking their pipes. Those who tarried here were mostly church-going people who would not be seen at the taverns, but dearly loved to argue politics or religion.
"I'm glad she spoke of that vandue," said mother when we were out of hearing. "Ther' may be a chance to get a bargain."