Maida's Little Shop

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

But just the same, she did have to hurry. The children asked her for all kinds of things and sometimes she could not remember where she had put them. When in answer to the school bell the long lines began to form at the big doorways, two round red spots were glowing in Maida’s cheeks. She drew an involuntary sigh of relief when she realized that she was going to have a chance to rest. But first she counted the money she had taken in. Thirty-seven cents! It seemed a great deal to her.

For an hour or more, nobody entered the shop. Billy left in a little while for Boston. Granny, crooning an old Irish song, busied herself upstairs in her bedroom. Maida sat back in her chair, dreaming happily of her work. Suddenly the bell tinkled, rousing her with a start.

It seemed a long time after the bell rang before the door opened. But at last Maida saw the reason of the delay. The little boy who stood on the threshold was lame. Maida would have known that he was sick even if she had not seen the crutches that held him up, or the iron cage that confined one leg.

His face was as colorless as if it had been made of melted wax. His forehead was lined almost as if he were old. A tired expression in his eyes showed that he did not sleep like other children. He must often suffer, too—his mouth had a drawn look that Maida knew well.

The little boy moved slowly over to the counter. It could hardly be said that he walked. He seemed to swing between his crutches exactly as a pendulum swings in a tall clock. Perhaps he saw the sympathy that ran from Maida’s warm heart to her pale face, for before he spoke he smiled. And when he smiled you could not possibly think of him as sick or sad. The corners of his mouth and the corners of his eyes seemed to fly up together. It made your spirits leap just to look at him.

“I’d like a sheet of red tissue paper,” he said briskly.

Maida’s happy expression changed. It was the first time that anybody had asked her for anything which she did not have.

“I’m afraid I haven’t any,” she said regretfully.

The boy looked disappointed. He started to go away. Then he turned hopefully. “Mrs. Murdock always kept her tissue paper in that drawer there,” he said, pointing.

“Oh, yes, I do remember,” Maida exclaimed. She recalled now a few sheets of tissue paper that she had left there, not knowing what to do with them. She pulled the drawer open. There they were, neatly folded, as she had left them.