The more Betty thought of the gift-shop department the better she liked the idea. They could make a specialty of Tally-ho candle-shades and one or two other things that Madeline could be trusted to think up. The Students’ Aid girls that she had been obliged to dismiss could take charge of the table—“I shan’t have it look a bit like a counter,” Betty reflected, remembering the unpleasant remark about tradespeople—during her own busiest hours. Some of the other girls who were earning their own way might like to put work on sale there.
“Pretty things would surely sell better here than from the bulletin-board in the gym,” Betty decided swiftly, “and that’s a way to help. We might take orders for mending and copying and such things, too. The girls who come here are the very ones who have money to spend, and I’m sure lots of them don’t bother to hunt up Students’ Aid girls, when they want work done. Why, this is more helpful than I ever could be when I was in college! Miss Ferris was right—she always is. We’ll do it! I must consult Babbie and Madeline first, of course.”
But Mary, appearing bright and early the next morning, scoffed at delays.
“George Garrison Hinsdale looked as if he wanted to put me in storage till lunch time,” she explained, “so I can work for you the whole morning if you’ll only decide now. Anyway, we know Madeline is for it. Don’t you remember she said in her letter that she liked tea-rooms because they grow on your hands? Well, this is a beautiful example of growth. And you and Madeline are a majority, though I’m sure Babbie will be for it too. Now I’ve thought of a lovely new kind of Tally-ho candle-shade with little bunches of oats for fringe. I’m going to fix up a workroom for the gift-shop department in the loft. I’ve brought down oceans of things in here,” and Mary emptied paste, paints and brushes, scissors, a sewing kit, and a miscellaneous collection of scraps of paper, which she explained were designs for Christmas cards, out of a very stylish shopping-bag, borrowed Betty’s biggest apron, and proceeded to improvise a work-table out of two sawhorses and an old storm door. But having laid out her implements on it, she discovered to her dismay that the workroom would be plainly visible to the inmates of the third stall, and she came down to consult Betty about the most artistic color for a curtain to screen her from the curious public below.
“For this gift business is to be a secret, you know,” she explained to Betty, “until you’re ready to spring it on them. Not exactly a dead secret, but the interesting half-way kind. Madeline knows how to manage secrets. And speaking of Madeline, here she comes.”
Madeline approved the new departure so vehemently that she would hardly wait to shake hands before she was up in the loft investigating Mary’s arrangements, and emptying the miscellaneous contents of her suit-case out on the floor, to find a “spook” candle-shade, that the little artist, whose cousins had once had a tea-room, had designed for the new adventurers in the same field. When you examined it, you saw just a confused mass of red, blue, green, yellow, and white spots separated by broad black lines; but with the light behind them the spots resolved themselves in a big yellow Tally-ho coach drawn by white horses, who pranced grandly up to a red-roofed inn on the next panel, with a green lawn in front of it and green trees and blue sky behind.
“Isn’t it too cute?” Betty declared enthusiastically. “It ought to be our very specialest specialty, oughtn’t it, Mary?”
“I suppose so,” agreed Mary grudgingly. “They’ll take loads of time to make, though. There’ll be more real profit in mine. I must get some oats for my kind, while I’m out buying the curtain. Why, it’s noon already—I must fly! Madeline, come down and show us the secret drawer before I go.”
Madeline had appropriated a piece of Mary’s cardboard and was tracing the design of the “specialest specialty” on it.
She shook her head absently. “It’s a trade secret, only for members of the firm. Perhaps, if you don’t call me ‘my child’ too often, and make us some terribly cute shades and cards, we’ll let you into it by and by.”