They returned to the work of getting everything ready for the boys to carry to Mrs. Kump. Ivy completed her label and pasted it on the jar, where the fancy initials looked effective. Laura and her mother proceeded with the packing. The former still wore a disapproving countenance and her vexation hung round them like a cloud.
"This reminds me of something that happened to me once upon a time," said Mrs. Lee, who had occasion to move the hamper. Ivy smiled encouragingly.
"Ob, a story, a story! Come and sit here, Lol, and listen!"
"Once upon a time," Mrs. Lee began, "I and my cousin Clementina, just about my own age, ten years, were the best of chums, even thicker than you Happy-Go-Lucky girls, for we had just ourselves to play with, all the other members of both families being much older; the next in age was my sister Roxana, going on sixteen. Clemmie and I used to watch the store windows and I remember one day we stood transfixed at a new display in Smithley's drug store. In addition to drugs, they sold many other things, so there we stood, Clemmie admiring a pair of pink garters with silver buckles, while I looked longingly at a volume of Jane Eyre.
"'Only thirty cents! If I only had a pair!' sighed Clementina.
"'A dollar and a half,' I lamented, for in those days there were no cheap editions of books.
"Day after day on our way to and from school we stopped before our idols. Clem told me she often dreamed of that pair of garters with its shining buckles!
"'Saturday's my birthday; if some kind, rich old gentleman would happen along and adopt me before then, the first thing I'd ask for would be a pair of pink garters like these!'
"That day when I reached home I found a small package which my godmother, Mrs. Keyes, had left for me. It was a pretty handkerchief with my initial in the corner, and knotted inside was a silver half dollar. To me that was quite a fortune and Roxana gave me much advice as to its disposal, but I scarcely heard what she said; I was thinking of something else; you can guess what it was."
"Yes, we know, we know," cried Ivy.