"All right," says I, "maybe I don't; but I do understand this: Judgin' by the amount of hard cash you've spent for lace tuckers and doilies, and the bill them stairs and panelin's and candlesticks'll come to, I don't see a profit on the Pilgrim Curio Mothers' Exchange in ten year big enough to cover a five-cent piece."
He'd risk the profit. Besides, there was another reason for the stairs, and such. To get to 'em all, the rich folks would have to go right through the store; and if they didn't buy anything upstairs they would down, sure and sartin. He was figgerin' on catchin' the transient trade, the automobile trade; and all around the foot of the stairs we'd have temptin' lunches put up and set out, and bottles of ginger ale and boxes of cigars, and so forth, and so on. He preached for half an hour, windin' up with:
"Anyhow, Skipper, if the curio shop should lose money—which it won't—it will bring customers to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes, and Fancy Goods Store, which is the main thing; that and keepin' the coin in the United States instead of shippin' it to Armenia. The embroideries and laces are by-products, as you might say; and if a plant comes out even on its by-products, it's a payin' proposition."
He had me there. I didn't know a by-product from a salt herrin'; so I shut up.
The "Old Colony Women's Exchange and Curio Room," which was the name he finally picked out, opened at the end of a fortni't. Jacobs had advertised it in the papers, and put signs for miles up and down the main roads, let alone tellin' every well-off summer woman within reachin' distance. And, almost from the very start, it done well. The loft was crowded 'most every afternoon; and sometimes there'd be as many as three automobiles anchored alongside our main platform.
At the end of the fust month, the Exchange had cleared—cleared, mind you—over two hundred dollars; and Jim Henry was crowin' over me like a Shanghai rooster over a bantam. He'd had another happy thought, and had added "antiques" to the stock in the loft; and the prices he got for lame chairs and rheumatic tables was somethin' scandalous. But it wa'n't all joy. There was two things that troubled him.
One of the things was that the supply of knittin' and fancywork was givin' out. Likewise the "antiques." Of course, there was some on hand. Aunt Susannah Cahoon's yeller and black mittens, ear lappets, and tippets hadn't sold, and wa'n't likely to; and Abinadab Saint's alabaster whale-oil lamp with the crack in it, that his Great-uncle Peleg brought home from sea, hadn't been grabbed to any extent. But these were the exceptions. 'Most all the good stuff had gone; and, though Jacobs had raked the county with a fine-tooth comb, as you might say, the reg'lar dealers from Boston had raked it ahead of him, and there wa'n't any "antiques" left.
There was several reasons for the shortage in fancywork. One was that the knitters and tatters couldn't turn it out fast enough; and, moreover, the season for church fairs was settin' in, and the heft of the females, bein' reg'lar members in good standin', had to tack ship and go to helpin' their meetin'-houses. So our stock was gettin' low, and Jim Henry was worried.
The other thing that worried him was that we couldn't get the right kind of help to sell the stuff. He couldn't tend to it himself, bein' too busy otherwise. Mary had the post-office department on her hands. The clerk and the delivery boys wa'n't fitted for the job at all; and, as for me, I couldn't sell a blue sugar bowl without a cover for seven dollars and take the money. I knew the one that bought it was perfectly satisfied, but I couldn't do it; I ain't built that way.
"It's no use, Jim Henry," says I. "I may be foolish, but I have ideas about some things; and it's my notion that sartin kinds of folks are fitted by nature for sartin kinds of things. Now, Cape Codders they're fitted for seafarin', and such; and New Yorkers and Chicagoers, like you, are fitted for stock-brokin' and storekeepin'; and Italians for hand organs, and diggin' streets, and singin' in opera. And when it comes to sellin' secondhand stuff or keepin' a pawnshop, there's—"