The verse was followed by the name of the teacher and pupils in some long-ago country school. Hugh Sammis was one of the names.
“Is this for sale?” Judy asked, sure he wouldn’t want to part with it.
He laughed, an unpleasant sort of laugh as if he were making fun of her. “It’s junk. I was going to throw it out. You can have it for a quarter.”
“I’ll take it then,” Judy decided. “It’s for the beginning of school, too,” she pointed out as she and Holly made their way back to the front of the shop.
“Careful there!” Mr. Sammis warned again.
It was his own elbow that knocked over the little table with the claw feet, but he looked at Judy as if she had done it. One foot with a claw clutching a glass ball fell to the floor. He picked it up and waved it in Judy’s face.
“Now see what you’ve done,” he charged unreasonably. “I told you you’d have to pay for anything you broke. Young people nowadays are all alike. Careless, blundering fools, the lot of them. Come in here for junk and break up my best furniture! This table is fragile—”
“I can see it is,” Judy interrupted. “The claw fell off because the table leg was already broken. I can see where it’s been glued. The top is warped, too. It looks as if it had been left out in the rain.”
“What if it was? Where else could I leave it when the roadmakers took half my house? I won’t charge you much for it. Only fifteen dollars.”
“Fifteen dollars! What are you talking about, Mr. Sammis? I’ll never pay for a table I didn’t break,” Judy declared with indignation.