“Is it yourself, miss?” asked Mrs. Baker, the storekeeper, smiling kindly into the sweet, childish face. “I feel right sure we could get along nicely together if you’re willing to make the trial, though to be sure you’re rather young.”
“Oh, I should like to,” returned Ethel in eager delight. “I—I’m an orphan, and have a dear little brother and two little sisters, and I want to earn something to make a home for us all, so that we can be together and be independent.”
“That’s right; independence is a grand thing. But if it’s not an impertinent question, where and how do you live now?” asked Mrs. Baker, with a look of keen interest.
“We have two very kind uncles who give us homes—two of us in one house and two in the other. We see each other every day, but that’s not just the same as living together.”
“Well, but, dear child, you couldn’t support four—yourself and two others.”
“Not now, but maybe after a while, if—if I learn how to make money and work very hard and don’t spend any more than is really necessary.”
“Your wish to do all that does you a deal of credit, but I’m afraid you can hardly accomplish so much. My husband is gone to the war, and it’s almost more than I can do to make a living for mother and the children and myself. So you see I couldn’t pay a big salary to a young thing like you or to anybody; especially till you, or whoever it was, had learned something of the business.”
“Oh, no, certainly not! But I’d willingly work for a little till I learn enough to be really worth more,” returned Ethel half breathlessly; for she seemed to see some hope—some prospect of an opportunity to begin her long-desired effort to attain to the little home she and Blanche, Harry and Nannette, had been talking of for years.
“Well, I like your looks, and—perhaps we might try it,” Mrs. Baker said after a moment’s cogitation, “though I’m afraid maybe your folks may not be quite willing.”
Ethel colored at that. “I think I’ll try it, if you are willing,” she said. “I think I could sell goods—wait on customers, I mean, make change, and all that; and I know how to use the sewing machine—we have one at my uncle’s where I live, and I’ve learned on it. So I could help with that, if you want me to. Indeed, I’d try to make myself so useful that you wouldn’t want to get rid of me,” she added with a smile.