“Well, we can try again, then,” said Ben, “he’s got plenty more, I s’pose.” And he told Mr. Beebe the difficulty.
But Ben was wrong. It wasn’t so easy to fit Phronsie’s little fat foot thus nicely again, and Mr. Beebe brought forward shoe after shoe until they were almost in despair.
In the meantime, Ben kept his own counsel. He walked around the shop to see if he could possibly spy out a pair of “red-topped ones.” If he couldn’t, he wasn’t going to take away Phronsie’s pleasure in the plain ones by mentioning it. But no delightful “red-topped ones” appeared, or showed signs of appearing, and he had almost given up the idea, when—
“Stay! wait a bit!” said the old man; “now I remember I made a pair once for the squire’s little daughter down to the Point, but her ma didn’t take ’em, she thought they were too small. Maybe they’ll just fit. I shouldn’t wonder, now.”
And he ambled away to the farther part of the room; there, from underneath a shelf, he produced a pair, saying as he brought them towards the children, “But perhaps you’ll object to them for being red-tops.”
“Object to them!” Phronsie screamed right out. “Oh, Ben, he did have them!” And then she was so ashamed she hid her face in Polly’s cloak, while Ben explained to delighted Mr. Beebe, who began to try them on.
Ben and Polly both held their breath. What if they shouldn’t fit! But on the little shoe went; snugly it buttoned up; and then Mr. Beebe told Phronsie to stand up.
“Stamp in it, child. Why, it looks as if ’twas made for her, don’t it?” he said, pleased almost as the children.
The price, too, was just right. Polly didn’t know, as she counted out the money into the old man’s hand, that at least a quarter of their value was deducted. Phronsie wouldn’t have the shoe taken off; so the old man cut the string, buttoned on its mate, and rolled up the poor little old ones in a bit of newspaper.
“There, now!”—and then he put into her hand a most beautiful button-hook; it had a bright little handle that looked like silver, and it was just as cunning as it could be,—“that’s from me! And you’ll come and see the old man again, won’t you, dear, and tell him how the shoes go?”