Like other and greater people, however, Nelly discovered that in reaching this height she had by no means left all her troubles behind her. The store was a very popular one, and Nelly entered at the busiest season. They were thronged with customers from morning till night. Nelly must learn to attend to two or three at once, to answer questions upon two or three different subjects without becoming confused, to remember where every thing was, and to employ every spare minute with her crochet-needle; for there was a greater demand even than usual at that season for babies' jackets and blankets, scarfs and afghans, and all the other worsted articles in which Mrs. Kirkland dealt so largely. She must learn to do all this, to preserve her patience and presence of mind, and not lose her temper when, as now and then happened, customers were rude or unreasonable. It was far harder work than tending Crummie, and tried Nelly's nerves much more severely. No matter how hard she might have worked or how far she might have run out-of-doors, she could always fall asleep the instant she went to bed, and never wake till it was time to get up. But now she found her work haunting her at night in a very unpleasant fashion. The patterns she had been working stared her in the face; she saw endless buttons, of all possible and impossible styles, whenever she shut her eyes; and her dreams were tormented with visions of wrong change, of bundles mis-sent, and customers hopelessly offended: so that she seemed to rise in the morning as tired as she went to bed. She began to grow thin, pale and nervous. Miss Powell herself noticed the change in her.
"You are growing nervous, Nelly," said she. "What is the matter?"
"I do get so tired," said Nelly, laying down her work and leaning back in her chair (a rare luxury, which a hopelessly rainy and slushy day allowed her to enjoy). "I never was so tired before in all my life. I used to think it was very hard work running after Crummie; but it did not weary me any thing like so much as this does. It makes my head so tired!"
"I am afraid you carry too much of your work home with you," said Miss Powell. "Don't you sit up at night to work?"
"No, ma'am granny won't let me."
"I am glad she has so much sense. But Nelly, you must learn not to carry it in your mind, either. Try, as soon as you get home, to put every thing which concerns the shop out of your head, and think about something else."
"I do try," said Nelly; "but I don't make out very well; and I get so fidgety in the store,—so afraid of making mistakes in change, or prices, or something! I do want to do just right and please Mrs. Kirkland. But I am afraid I never shall learn. I am afraid she doesn't like me, after all; and I do so—"
Nelly's voice was lost in the tears which would come in spite of her.
Miss Powell laid down her work and took Nelly's hand in her own.
"You are a little fanciful, my child. Why should you think that you don't please Mrs. Kirkland?"