As she pondered ways and means in her little brain, a daring thought struck her. That thought took away her breath. She turned white and cold. Then she turned burning red all over. Her little feet shook under her. But, my! What riches! What a supply to go to! How they would envy her!
“I don’t care—so. They needn’t be so stingy with me! And Mrs. Reub uses so much such things I don’t believe it will ever be noticed in the ‘account’—and, any way, it’ll be six months before he settles up. Nobody will know it till then, and maybe—maybe I shall be dead by that time, or the world will burn up!”
With these comforting reflections, Roxy straightened up her little sun-bonneted head, doubled her 056little brown fists, and ran as hard as she could—and Roxy could outrun most of the boys. On she ran, past the school-house—it was not yet unlocked—right on down to the village. She slacked up as she struck the sidewalks. She walked slower and slower, to cool her bounding pulses and burning skin.
Still her cheeks were like two blood-red roses as she walked into the cool, dark, old stone store; but for some reason, mental, moral, or physical, while her cheeks remained red, her little legs and arms grew stone cold and stiff, and spots like blood came before her eyes, and a great ringing filled her ears, as Mr. Hampshire, the merchant himself, instead of his clerk, came to wait upon her. “And what will you have, Miss Roxy—some peppermints?”
“No, sir. If you please, Mrs. Reuben Markham wants two pounds of raisins, and five pounds of cinnamon, and you are to charge it to Mr. Markham.”
It was strange, but her voice never faltered after she got well begun. However, for all that, Mr. Hampshire stared at her. “Five pounds of cinnamon, did you say, sis?”
“Yes, sir, if you please,” answered Roxy, quietly, “and two pounds of raisins.”
So Mr. Hampshire went back, and weighed out the cinnamon and raisins, and gave them to her. She 057was a little startled at the mighty bundle five pounds of stick cinnamon made; but she took them and went out, and Mr. Hampshire went back and charged the things to Mr. Reuben Markham.
Miss Roxy went speeding back to the school-house with her aromatic bundle. Her face was fairly radiant. She had no idea five pounds of cinnamon were so much. O, such a lot! She had made up her mind what to do with it. She couldn’t, of course, carry it home. She had no trunk that would lock, or any place safe from her mother’s eyes. But in the grove, back of the school-house, there was a tree with a hollow in it. By hard running she got there before any of the scholars came. She put her fragrant packages in, first filling her pocket, and then stopped the remaining space with a couple of innocent-looking stones.