"Mine gets holes in 'em fast enough without beginnin' that way," said the old lady, laughing heartily at her own wit, and everybody laughed in sympathy. She wound up her exhaustive examination of all the articles displayed by the purchase of a holder and five cents' worth of peanut brittle. As she limped down the steps she met three or four ladies coming up, but not one of them elicited the enthusiasm which had been the spontaneous tribute to the first arrival.
By quarter after four the rooms were buzzing, and busy as Elaine was, she found opportunity to admire the resourcefulness of Peggy. It was Peggy who soothed the feelings of the girl who thought that they should have charged more for her bureau scarf, and who propitiated the patron who felt that she had paid more than was right for a hem-stitched towel. It was Peggy who came to the assistance of a perplexed "saleslady" who could not think how much change was due her customer, and who took charge of wrapping some peculiarly obstinate article, and it was also Peggy who found, for the lady who was aggrieved over discovering that something she wanted had been sold to another purchaser, a similar article which suited her just as well. Peggy seemed to have the faculty of being every where at once. She was equal to all the little crises of the occasion.
"I don't see how you manage it," Elaine said to her during a temporary lull in the proceedings, late in the afternoon. Compliments were rare on Elaine's lips, and Peggy, looking up, had no idea that she was being complimented. "Manage what?" she asked.
"O, helping everybody out, and smoothing everybody down, and the queer part is that you keep so cheerful about it."
Peggy smiled a little.
"The queer part, as you call it, is really the secret, if I've got any secret. If you keep cheerful and are polite, and don't lose your head, it's easy enough to get other folks to see things the way you do."
By six o'clock the girls were tired but triumphant. Peggy's cheery prophesies had been more than realized, and from eight to ten they were sure of another period of activity, which would, in all probability, empty their tables and fill their treasury. The workers hurried home for a supper, even more of a form than dinner had been, and were back on duty before there was any chance of new arrivals.
On the cheerful group, comparing notes as to the day's experiences and calculating the probable gains, by methods which brought startlingly diverse results, Ruth descended like a whirlwind. "Girls, the ice cream's gone."
"Gone!" echoed a blank chorus, and Peggy, as usual the first to rally, exclaimed, "Why, I don't see how that can be. We didn't have--"
"No, no, you don't understand," cried poor Ruth, wringing her hands. "We only used one freezer of ice cream this afternoon. But the other one, the big one, has disappeared."