That night, after father and mother were gone, Aunt Minnie wouldn’t let me go out of the house, because, says she, like as not burglars have been watching for just such a chance for years, hanging around Wicksville, waiting for this house to be left with nobody but her in it. It didn’t seem to me like it would be worth a burglar’s time to wait many years for a chance at what was in our house. But you couldn’t reason with Aunt Minnie, so I had to sit in the house right when I wanted to see Mark Tidd the worst kind of way.
Along about half past eight there come a rap at the door, and Aunt Minnie let out a yell that startled me so I was close to seeing burglars myself. It wasn’t, though; it was Mark.
“Come in,” I says to him. “I’m pretty busy keepin’ out robbers, but I guess I can find a minute to talk with you.”
He just grinned, because he knew Aunt Minnie.
“I’ve b-been down to the store,” says he.
“Oh!” says I.
“Just lookin’ around,” says he, “to g-git an idee.”
“Did you git one?” says I.
“I did,” says he. “I got the idee that n-n-nobody could find what he was lookin’ for in that Bazar ’less he did it by accident.”
“Pa used to have that trouble,” says I. And it was a fact. I’ve known pa to spend the whole morning looking for a spool of darning-cotton—hours after the customer that wanted it had got tired and gone home. But pa never got provoked about it; he always kept on till he found it, and then put it handy. Next day if somebody come in for a brush-broom that pa couldn’t find, he’d try to sell them the darning-cotton instead. Old Ike Bond, the ’bus-driver, used to say that if pa didn’t have anything to sell but one spool of thread, and that was hanging by a string in the middle of the store, he never would find it without the sheriff and a search-warrant.