“Well all I have to say is you are a very delightful and amusing Josie. If Elizabeth and Irene will divulge the name and address of the little old lady who has so many friends, which one can plainly tell by her old bonnet, then I will take the bonnet there on my way home and collect the money, sixty cents of which I’ll hand over to the grasping proprietors of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.”
Josie smiled to see how much more cheerful her friend was after the hours spent in making herself useful. She felt too that Mary Louise was happier in that she had seen Dr. Coles and was to know something definite concerning her grandfather’s condition. It was also easy to understand that the determination to make a clean breast of her troubles to Danny had put new heart into the girl.
“Wait a minute! Let me make out a bill on the Higgledy Piggledy paper,” suggested Elizabeth. “It takes a hardened shopkeeper to hand in a parcel and say, ‘Four dollars, please!’ while, if you have a bill with you, you don’t have to say anything, but just present the bill with an air of giving an invitation.”
Mary Louise went off carrying the bonnets, old and new, in a neat parcel.
“It seems real funny,” she said to herself, “actually to have earned three dollars and forty cents for myself and sixty cents for the Higgledy Piggledies. I am going to tell Danny about it and he will be so amused. I believe I’ll take him off tomorrow and treat him to lunch with my own hard earned funds. I’d tell Grandpa Jim, too, except that he would be sure to say Danny is not making a living for me and I have to go out and work my fingers to the bone. Poor Grandpa Jim! Everything is distorted to him just now in regard to Danny.”
The little old lady turned out to be exactly what Josie had predicted—a gentle soul who attracted friends. Mary Louise found her drinking tea with four other old ladies, all of whom examined the bonnet critically, at all angles, and pronounced favorably upon its style and workmanship. Mary Louise was devoutly thankful that none of them could peep beneath the lining and see her huge stitches. They looked at her curiously. To be sure she did not seem much like a milliner’s assistant with her handsome duvetyn suit and rich furs, but her manner was modest and impersonal and, when she produced the bill, made out in Elizabeth’s best style on the Higgledy Piggledy paper, the little old lady paid it readily and seemed to think it was very reasonable and all of the friends seemed to think so too and eagerly took the address of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.
“I think I’ll get my year-before-last hat done over,” said one. “It is so much more suitable than this horrid hat my daughter-in-law insisted upon my buying.”
“I intend to have a new one made, just like Jane’s,” declared another. Jane was the name of the little old lady—Mrs. Jane Kellogg.
“But that isn’t fair!” cried another. “Jane doesn’t want a twin.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all,” said Jane gently. “Susan and I used to dress alike when we were girls. Do you remember, Susan?”