“Pepper—David Pepper, I told you,” said little Mr. Beebe, turning away from the window.
“You said David—I didn’t catch the last name.”
“Well, it’s Pepper.”
“Pepper? Well, that’s a funny name. Who be his folks?”
“Now, Mis’ Goodsell,” exclaimed the little shoemaker in exasperation, standing quite still to regard her, “do you mean to say that you don’t know Mis’ Pepper? I thought all Badgertown knew her.”
“Well, my fam’ly ain’t Badgertown folks, you must remember,” said Mrs. Goodsell, getting back to the bench, and flapping the shawl-ends again across her lap, “an’ I don’t get over from Four Corners only once in a dog’s age. How am I to know your Pepperses, pray tell?”
“Well, you’ve missed gettin’ acquainted with an awful nice woman,” observed Mr. Beebe. “I tell you, we set by her in Badgertown, her an’ her childern.”
“Well, ef they’re as queer as that young one,” Mrs. Goodsell indicated with her large hand the departed small boy, “I guess I hain’t anythin’ to cry over ’cause we ain’t more acquainted.”
“Ef you mean ’cause David got scared an’ run off,” the little shoemaker stopped half across the shop on his way to begin a cobbling job, and faced her with a gleaming eye, “I can tell you why. ’Twas enough to make him run, I says, says I.”
“What was?” the big woman hitched forward on the bench. It was worth coming in from “Four Corners”—a journey she detested, to hear the little shoemaker go on like this, for generally he only passed the time of day, and then got down to the business of selling shoes.