Comfort, trailing the sled behind her, started timidly after Matilda.
Gerrish's was a small store, but there was a large window full of watches and chains and clocks, and a man with spectacles sat behind it mending watches.
The two little girls went in and stood at the counter, and a thin man with gray whiskers, who was Mr. Gerrish himself, came forward to wait upon them. Matilda nudged Comfort.
“You ask him—it's your ring,” she whispered.
But Comfort shook her head. She was almost ready to cry. “You'd ought to when I'm giving you the dollar,” whispered Matilda, with another nudge. Mr. Gerrish stood waiting, and he frowned a little; he was a nervous man. “Ask him,” whispered Matilda, fiercely.
Suddenly Comfort Pease turned herself about and ran out of Gerrish's, with a great wail of inarticulate words about not wanting any ring. The door banged violently after her. Matilda Stebbins looked after her in a bewildered way; then she looked up at Mr. Gerrish, who was frowning harder. “If you girls don't want anything, you'd better stay out of doors with your sled,” said he. And Matilda trembled and gathered up the sled-rope, and the door banged after her. Then Mr. Gerrish said something to the man mending watches in the window, and went back to his desk in the rear of the store.
Matilda could just see Comfort running down the street toward home, and she ran after her. She could run faster than Comfort. As she got nearer she could see people turning and looking curiously after Comfort, and when she came up to her she saw she was crying. “Why, you great baby, Comfort Pease,” said she, “going along the road crying!”
Comfort sobbed harder, and people stared more and more curiously. Finally one stout woman in a black velvet bonnet stopped. “I hope you haven't done anything to hurt this other little girl?” she said, suspiciously, to Matilda.
“No, ma'am, I ain't,” replied Matilda.
“What's the matter, child?” said the woman in the black velvet bonnet to Comfort. And Comfort choked out something about losing her ring.