“Yes, I do want to know,” answered Lydia, wondering whether he read the question in her eye.
“Too polite to ask, eh?” said Mr. Jolly. “Well, most folks ask, and I tell them it’s for ‘hedloes to catch medloes.’ You’re Mr. Blake’s little girl, aren’t you? He’s a nice man. Well, I’ll tell you because you didn’t ask. I have my shop out here because she can’t stand the noise of the hammer”—and Mr. Jolly nodded toward the nearest house. “Twenty years she’s been lying in that bed and never touched a foot to the floor, and two years ago last spring she said to me, ‘Jolly, I can’t bear another tap of that hammer.’ And so I bought the old coach—springs are gone—and moved out here. Gives the town something to talk about, too. Everybody comfortable all round.” And Mr. Jolly with a chuckle drew in his head and fell to work again.
Above the taps of his hammer Lydia called out, “I’ll come to-morrow for my shoes. Good-bye!” and then home she ran as fast as she could go.
“Father!” she cried, climbing upon Mr. Blake’s lap as, refreshed by his nap, he sat reading the newspaper, “Mr. Jolly knows you. He says you are nice. Who is ‘she’?”
“She?” repeated the puzzled Mr. Blake. “You will have to tell me something more about her before I can answer that question, I’m afraid. Is it a puzzle?”
“She has been in bed for twenty years, and never touched a foot to the floor, and she can’t bear the sound of the hammer,” explained Lydia in an excited burst.
“Oh, that’s Mrs. Jolly,” said Mr. Blake. “She has something the matter with her back and can’t walk. Mr. Jolly and I are old friends. He’s a good fellow.”
“He’s going to mend my shoes for me,” went on Lydia. “He told me to take good care of my garden, and I must go to-morrow and get my shoes.”
Lydia could talk of nothing for the rest of the day but Mr. Jolly and his strange little shop.
The next morning she was impatient to be off on her errand, but Mrs. Blake woke with a bad headache, and there were many odds and ends that Lydia could do about the house to save her mother steps. At last Mrs. Blake went to lie down, and Lydia, after spreading a shawl over the invalid’s feet, and pressing a kiss into the palm of the hand that lay so limply on the bed, hurried up the road after her shoes.