The sign attracted a great deal of attention. Children were always stopping to admire it and even grown-people paused now and then. There was such a falling-off of Maida’s trade that she guessed that the children were really saving their pennies for the fair. This delighted her.
The W.M.N.T.’s wasted no time that last week in spite of a very enticing snowstorm. Maida, of course, had nothing to do on her own account, but she worked with Dicky, morning and afternoon.
Rosie could not make candy until the last two or three days for fear it would get stale. Then she set to like a little whirlwind.
“My face is almost tanned from bending over the stove,” she said to Maida; “Aunt Theresa says if I cook another batch of candy, I’ll have a crop of freckles.”
Arthur seemed to work the hardest of all because his work was so much more difficult. It took a great deal of time and strength and yet nobody could help him in it. The sound of his hammering came into Maida’s room early in the morning. It came in sometimes late at night when, cuddling between her blankets, she thought what a happy girl she was.
“I niver saw such foine, busy little folks,” Granny said approvingly again and again. “It moinds me av me own Annie. Niver a moment but that lass was working at some t’ing. Oh, I wonder what she’s doun’ and finking this Christmas.”
“Don’t you worry,” Maida always said. “Billy’ll find her for you yet—he said he would.”
Maida, herself, was giving, for the first time in her experience, a good deal of thought to Christmas time.
In the first place, she had sent the following invitation to every child in Primrose Court:
“Will you please come to my Christmas Tree to be given Christmas Night in the ‘Little Shop.’ Maida.”