“I don’t know nothin’ about th’ workin’ o’ your mind, Mr. Beebe,” said Mrs. Brown, “I said gaiters as plain as day—and do hurry!” She whipped the ends of her shawl impatiently around her gaunt figure.
“I d’no’s I have any gaiters—that is—that’ll fit you,” said the little shoemaker, putting the “number sixes” into their box, and slowly fitting on the cover. “P’raps I have a pair on the lower shelf.” He got down laboriously from the ladder, put it in the corner and began to rummage his stock.
“An’ there’s my bread waitin’ to go in th’ oven, an’ I’ve got cake to bake for the sewin’ s’ciety,—do hurry, Mr. Beebe.”
“I s’pose they’ve got to have rubber sides,” mused Mr. Beebe, getting down on his knees, to explore behind the chintz curtains that fell from the lowest shelf.
“Why, of course,” said Mrs. Brown, impatiently, “gaiters is gaiters, ain’t they? An’ I never saw a pair without them rubber sides to ’em, did you, Mr. Beebe?”
“I d’no’s I did,” said the little shoemaker, his head under the curtain. “Well, now here’s a pair, I do believe,” and he dragged out a box, whipped off the cover and disclosed a pair with elastic sides. “Them’s Congress gaiters,” he said, “an’ they look as if they’d fit like your skin.”
“I’m sure I hope so,” said Mrs. Brown, putting out her generous foot. “An’ do hurry an’ try ’em on, for mercy’s sakes!”
“I’m hurryin’ as fast as I can,” said Mr. Beebe, coming over to the bench where the customers always sat for the shoes to be tried on, “but you’ve upset me so about that bad news. Sho’ now!—to think that anythin’ should happen to the little brown house folks.”
“What’s that—what’s that, Pa?” Mrs. Beebe’s head appeared in the doorway between the little shop and the sitting-room. She had been frying doughnuts and she carried one in now on a blue plate, as she always did while they were nice and hot. “What’s th’ matter with th’ little brown house folks? Oh, how do you do, Mis Brown?”
Mrs. Brown’s nose wrinkled up appreciatively at sight of the doughnut.