“What did Mrs. Murdock charge for it?” she inquired.
“A cent a sheet.”
Maida thought busily. “I’m selling out all the old stock,” she said. “You can have all that’s left for a cent if you want it.”
“Sure!” the boy exclaimed. “Jiminy crickets! That’s a stroke of luck I wasn’t expecting.”
He spread the half dozen sheets out on the counter and ran through them. He looked up into Maida’s face as if he wanted to thank her but did not know how to put it. Instead, he stared about the shop. “Say,” he exclaimed, “you’ve made this store look grand. I’d never know it for the same place. And your sign’s a crackajack.”
The praise—the first she had had from outside—pleased Maida. It emboldened her to go on with the conversation.
“You don’t go to school,” she said.
The moment she had spoken, she regretted it. It was plain to be seen, she reproached herself inwardly, why he did not go to school.
“No,” the boy said soberly. “I can’t go yet. Doc O’Brien says I can go next year, he thinks. I’m wild to go. The other fellows hate school but I love it. I s’pose it’s because I can’t go that I want to. But, then, I want to learn to read. A fellow can have a good time anywhere if he knows how to read. I can read some,” he added in a shamed tone, “but not much. The trouble is I don’t have anybody to listen and help with the hard words.”
“Oh, let me help you!” Maida cried. “I can read as easy as anything.” This was the second thing she regretted saying. For when she came to think of it, she could not see where she was going to have much time to herself.