“Got most forty minutes,” growled Bennie.
“Well, I like to be in plenty of time.”
“It don’t take but fifteen minutes,” said Bennie. “Get ap, Cæsar!”
The buggy wobbled around the corner, Mrs. Peel waving an excited black-mittened hand to the two on the sidewalk, and disappeared. Chub and Harry looked at each other and laughed.
“Isn’t she a dear!” gasped Harry.
“Funniest ever. Let’s go in and look around the shop.”
[CHAPTER XVIII]
KEEPING STORE
It was a queer little store. There was a window on each side of the front door, a window which peeped out onto the tiny side yard and the brick walk, and the sweet-williams, and a window directly opposite which, had the shutters been open, would have given a view of the houses across the road and the river beyond. At the back of the store was a door which led into a good-sized yard extending along the backs of the store and the living house. There were a few bedraggled shrubs here and a row of hollyhocks nodded along a stretch of the high board fence which inclosed the space. A door in the fence, securely padlocked, led onto the road. For the most part the back yard was given over to barrels and packing cases, but in one corner a tiny shed housed two green tanks labeled respectively “Gasolene” and “Kerosine.”