Janie was jubilant. “We won! We won!” she exulted. But, Grandma, buried under Davey and Butch, spied victory walking down the road toward them.
“Look what’s coming,” she cried. “Two white horses pulling a load of hay.”
“Oh yes,” said James. “But that only gives your side two, and we have three.”
“Look what’s following,” said Grandma smugly. Hitched to the rear of the load were two of the whitest horses you ever saw. There were loud cheers from Billy’s team as they pulled up in front of the village store.
Janie was patronizing. “You were just lucky,” she said. “That wouldn’t happen again in a hundred years.”
Grandma was the last to crawl out of the car. She shook out her skirts ruefully. “And to think,” she said, “that I pressed this dress just before I started out.”
They split up in groups to do the shopping. The boys made straight for the hardware store that sold fishing supplies. They didn’t buy anything very often, but they would stand for hours in wistful admiration.
The girls went to the drug store to buy picture postcards to send home to Katy’s folks, and Mom and Aunt Claire went to the grocery store.
Grandma, Davey, and Butch started off down the block to a large old-fashioned country store that sold odd lots of almost everything imaginable. You could buy anything from nuts and bolts to flowered chintz. You could buy rubber boots, embroidery cotton, lemon squeezers, and imitation Christmas trees, and sometimes they would all be piled up on one counter.
Mr. Seaman, the proprietor, remembered Grandma from other summers and welcomed her as an old friend.