“Yes,” said Davie, “Mr. Atkins gave Mamsie a letter yesterday.”
“Sho now!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe, much gratified. He ached to ask what was in it, but for all the world he couldn’t bring himself to such a thing.
“What did the letter say?” demanded Mrs. Goodsell.
Davie turned his blue eyes up to her. “It was Mamsie’s letter,” he said simply.
“Yes, yes, I heerd you. Well, what did it say? I ain’t cur’ous, but I jest thought I’d ask. Hey?”
But she got no answer, David being busy handing the shoes, slippers, and rubbers up to old Mr. Beebe’s waiting hands.
“Well, of all the impident boys I ever see!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell, slapping the shawl-ends indignantly around her big figure, “you beat ’em all!”
“There—there—” declared the little shoemaker, straightening up, “my shop ain’t big enough to hold folks who talk against th’ Peppers. So, good mornin’ to you, Mis Goodsell.”
“An’ I shake th’ dust off from my feet,” cried Mrs. Goodsell, shaking her shawl-ends instead, “an’ I wouldn’t demean myself by stayin’, Mr. Beebe,—what with your Pepperses an’ monkeys an’ letters.” She slammed the door, and disdaining the flat stone, strode over the cobble-stones.
Davie, to whom her words brought a memory he was trying to put in the background, sighed.