“I know you didn’t,” said the old gentleman, kindly; “but you mustn’t go so fast, my boy. There—that’s it,” as Joel carefully set one box on another and marched across the room with them. “And now, Davie.”
David’s blue eyes sparkled with delight. “You can help me ever so much.” He led the way over to a set of drawers that ran around the side of the small shop to meet the little-paned window. “I’ve wanted these done ever so long, and now only to think, one of you Pepper children has come to help me out!” And he took up a large snarl of shoe-strings of all lengths, very much tangled up.
David’s face fell, but the old gentleman, not perceiving it, had him sit down on the settee. “Now, says I,” and he laid the bunch in Davie’s lap, “if you’ll pick that out for me and lay ’em straight, you’ll be a good boy as ever lived.”
To be “a good boy as ever lived” was such a dazzling outlook that little Davie, smothering his sigh as he saw Joel marching importantly across the shop with his delightful armful of green boxes, took up the snarl, and began at once to pick at the first shoe-string end that presented itself.
“And now, Phronsie.” Old Mr. Beebe by this time was over by her side, where she still sat on the floor, quite lost in the delightful thought of the little girl to whom she was to help to fit on her new shoes.
“Oh!” she screamed, clapping her hands, as the old gentleman bent over her with—“Now, Phronsie.” “Has she come, dear Mr. Beebe?”
“Not yet,” he said, chuckling, “but you and I are to look out for her, for we never know when customers are comin’ in, Phronsie.”
“I suppose she’s on the way,” said Phronsie, in grave happiness, and getting up to her feet to smooth down her pinafore. “And she’ll sit right here, dear Mr. Beebe, won’t she?” running over to pat the old settee.
“Yes, maybe,” said the old gentleman, “or I rather think, Phronsie, she’d better sit in that little chair where you did when you got your new shoes.”
“Yes, she better have my little chair,” cried Phronsie, in great excitement, deserting the old settee at once to run over and drag the small wooden chair away from its corner up beside it. And everything being now ready to fit on new shoes to some little girl who needed them very much, old Mr. Beebe and Phronsie now began to watch earnestly for footsteps outside, and to see if the latch on the green door should fly up.