“We wouldn’t entertain them in the garret,” responded Ruth, laughing. Only she did not feel like laughing. “If that is the trouble, however, we’ll soon finish up cleaning out the garret. And we’ll sweep out the ghost and all his tribe, too.”
A Saturday intervened before this could be accomplished, however. It was the first Saturday after Mr. Howbridge had bestowed upon the Corner House girls their monthly allowance.
After the house was spick and span, and the children’s playthings put away for over Sunday, and the garden (which was now a trim and promising plot) made particularly neat, the four girls dressed in their very best and sallied forth. It was after mid-afternoon and the shoppers along Main Street were plentiful.
Aunt Sarah never went out except to church on Sunday. Now that the weather was so warm, the big front door stood open a part of the time, and the girls sat with their sewing and books upon the wide porch. Mrs. McCall joined them there; but Aunt Sarah, never.
Because she did not go out, anything Aunt Sarah needed was purchased by one of the girls. Particularly, Ruth never forgot the peppermints which were bought as regularly now that they lived in the Corner House as they were bought in the old days, back in Bloomingsburg.
Sometimes Ruth delegated one of the other girls to buy the peppermints, but on this particular occasion she chanced to find herself near the candy counter, when she was separated from Agnes in Blachstein & Mapes. So she purchased the usual five cents’ worth of Aunt Sarah’s favorite Sunday “comfort.”
“No matter how dry the sermon is, or how long-winded the preacher, I can stand it, if I’ve got a pep’mint to chew on,” the strange old lady once said. That was almost as long a sentence as the girls had ever heard her speak!
With the peppermints safe in her bag, Ruth hunted again for Agnes. But the latter had those shoe-buckles on her mind and, forgetting Ruth, she left the big store and made for the shoeshop.
On the way Agnes passed the Lady’s Shop with its tempting display in the show-window, and she ventured in. There were those lovely handkerchiefs! Agnes feasted her eyes but she could not gain the courage to break one of her dollar bills for the trifle.
So she wandered out and went toward the glittering buckles in the shoeshop window. And there she hesitated again. Fifty cents! A quarter of her entire monthly allowance. She wanted to find Eva Larry, who would be down town, too, and treat her to a sundae. Besides, she must buy Myra Stetson some little remembrance.