The screen door slammed as the young girl went out, not too well pleased, it would seem, with her makeshift purchases.
“Well!” said Miss Crevey briskly. “If you’re through playin’ with that cup and saucer, I’ll just set ’em up out o’ harm’s way.”
“I—I want to buy them,” faltered Jacqueline.
“Got five dollars handy?” challenged Miss Crevey.
Jacqueline swallowed and stared hard at the precious cup, so that she need not meet Miss Crevey’s gimlet eyes. Oh, if only she had some of the money that she had spent so carelessly at home and at school! Why, she had often given a five-dollar bill for a box of candy, and got back with it only a few bits of silver—chicken-feed, she had liked to call them grandly. If only she had one of those bills now! If only she could go home proudly, with Grandma’s cup!
“Make up your mind!” urged the implacable Miss Crevey. “Take it or leave it—I can’t wait all day.”
Jacqueline felt herself backed against the wall. She must do something, and do it quickly, or the precious cup and saucer would go back upon the shelf, and then as likely as not they would be snapped up next minute by some other customer and lost to Grandma forever. She could almost see the entire town of Longmeadow, charging into the shop to buy that cup, and nothing but that cup.
“Hold on!” she said, and she was thinking fast. “Couldn’t you—trust me? I’ll have the money in September, sure.”
Of course she would! Even if Caroline and the Gildersleeves didn’t get back in time for school, as Eleanor Trowbridge prophesied, Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie were due in September.
Miss Crevey looked at her coldly. Oh, how conscious Jacqueline grew of the scantiness and shabbiness of her faded gingham! She blushed, and was angry at herself for blushing, and so blushed all the harder.