“Well, I suppose he’ll get back when he’s good and ready. I do hope Jennie can come. If she doesn’t I’ll just have to shut up the store. ’Twon’t make much difference, though, I guess; what’s sold here in two days wouldn’t pay Jennie’s fare across. But I got everything ready if she should come. I marked things plain so’s she can tell how much to ask. I spent about three hours doing it, too.”
She looked proudly about the store and Chub and Harry, their gazes following hers, saw that almost everything in sight had been labeled in some way with the price. Usually small paper bags had been laid upon the article and the figures printed on the bag.
“It must have been a lot of trouble,” murmured Harry.
“So it was, but Jennie hasn’t got enough sense to look after the place if things aren’t marked right out plain. There he is, ain’t he?”
A buggy containing a small, freckled-faced boy drew slowly up at the edge of the sidewalk in front of the store. Mrs. Peel’s face fell.
“Jennie didn’t come!” she exclaimed. “Whatever shall I do? I ought to be starting for the station this very instant. I suppose she’s coming on the next train, but I can’t wait for her. I do think she might have come when I told her, after all the things I’ve done for that girl! But that’s the way of human nature, I suppose! Bennie Hooper, didn’t you see anything of her?”
“No’m,” answered the boy.
“You sure she didn’t get off and you didn’t see her?”
“Didn’t nobody get off,” answered Benny resentfully.