Blue Bonnet drew back. “I can’t take anything, Uncle Cliff! It wouldn’t be exactly—square, under the circumstances. There’s the bell! Good-bye, and thank you just as much.”
Mr. Ashe waited until, with a final wave of the hand, she had disappeared around the bend in the stairs; then he paid a visit to the stationer’s on the corner.
There he made a record-breaking purchase of the plump little woman, whom everybody in Woodford called “Aunt Polly,” and whose tiny shop was as much one of the institutions of the place as the academy itself.
It left Aunt Polly feeling rather breathless and bewildered. Was that the way they did things out in Texas?
In the meantime, quite unconscious of the excitement he had left behind him, Mr. Ashe was strolling leisurely back to the Clyde place, stopping here and there to pass the time of day with various small Woodfordites—notably among them the “Palmer baby,” once more on its travels.
Solomon was watching for him from the gate. It was a delightful morning for a tramp, Solomon said,—as plainly as dog may.
But Mr. Ashe shook his head, and went on indoors to the sitting-room, where Miss Lucinda sat sewing.
“Are you too busy for a little chat—what we might call a business talk?” he asked, depositing his bundle on the table and taking his stand on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire.
Miss Lucinda assured him that she was quite at his service.
“I’ve been doing a little shopping,” Mr. Ashe nodded towards the parcel. “I happened to find out—accidentally—that Blue Bonnet was pretty well reduced in the matter of school supplies.”