CHAPTER XI
THE FAILURE
The days were slipping by, and Nancy found herself entangled in a rather confused vacation. True, she had already reaped real benefit from the big sale and from the subsequent days’ sales in her shop, but was it really being a vacation?
It must be admitted that Nancy had a tendency to stubbornness, but since that peculiarity very often marks the first stages of a strong character, her mother wisely allowed her to continue to try things out for herself. The Whatnot Shop was not proving in any way a disappointment, but it was most certainly giving Nancy work, so that she was not free to come and go with the other girls, in spite of Miss Manners frequent and generous offers to “'tend store” for her.
A bright spot on her calendar not very far off, was the coming of Mrs. Brandon’s vacation. Soon she would be at home, free to do all the precious things a devoted mother plans to do in the little interval of freedom so long looked forward to and so quickly spent.
“When you are home,” Nancy would continually plan, “I’m going to do that,” referring to any one of a number of things being postponed.
Today it was raining; a sudden summer shower was drenching everything as if rain had never had such a good time before, and a charity sale, in which all the girls were interested, was to be held that afternoon. Everyone, including Nancy, expected to attend, and she with others had promised to donate a cake.
But how it rained! And Nancy had planned to go into town to the fancy bakers to get her cake. Hour after hour she hoped the rain would cease, until it became too late for a telephone delivery, and still Nancy could not go out in the downpour.
“If I could only bake it,” she reflected, as she once more gazed gloomily out of the windows at the dripping world. “It’s easy enough to bake a cake,” she told herself, “and, of course, I could follow the recipe in mother’s cook book.”
Still Nancy had misgivings concerning such an experiment. A cake for a sale should be good, of that she was certain, and for that very reason she had previously decided to buy one at the French Pastry Shop.
“Well,” she sighed, “I may as well try it. It is sure to clear up just when the girls are due to call for me, and I simply couldn’t go without a cake.”