“A store,” she whispered to herself, “my uncle’s store in Chicago. He gave me this address. He must be in the business of stealing trunks and selling their contents!” She felt, of a sudden, all hollow inside, and dropping like an empty sack, half sat upon a partially emptied trunk.
“Miss! Why do you do this?” The bearded man who now spoke was almost apologetic in his approach. “Why do you do this in my store? Many years I, Nicholas Fischer, have sold goods here and never before have I seen such as this!”
“Nich—Nicholas Fischer!” The girl’s eyes widened. “Then you are Nicholas Fischer. And this is your store? STORE!” she fairly screamed.
She wanted to rise and flee, but she was half stuck in the trunk and her wobbly legs would not lift her out, so she said shakily:
“I did it be—because that’s my trunk. I—I am Grace Krowl, your niece who came from Camden Center, Kansas, to help you keep your store. But I won’t, I won’t stay a moment. I’ll never, never, never help a thief!”
“You?” The bearded man’s face was a study. Surprise, mortification registered themselves on his face. “Grace Krowl, my niece,” he murmured. “Her trunk! It is her trunk! A thief it is she says I am—I, Nicholas Fischer, who never stole a penny! Tell me, what is all this?” He stared from face to face as if expecting an answer. But no answer came.
And then a slow smile overspread his face. “Now I begin to understand,” he murmured. “It is all a mistake, a terrible mistake!
“Ladies,” he said, turning pleading eyes on the group of customers, “will you please put back into that little trunk everything you have taken out? And if any have paid for a thing, I will repay. It is my niece’s trunk. It is one terrible mistake.” He began rocking backwards and forwards like one in great pain.
“A thief, she said,” he murmured. “But who would not have thought it?” His eyes took in the half-empty trunks all about him, then he murmured again, “Who would not have thought it?”
Four hours later, just after darkness had fallen, this same girl, Grace Krowl, found herself walking the most unusual street in America, Maxwell Street in Chicago. She found it interesting, amusing, sometimes a little startling, and always unspeakably sad, this place where a strange sort of bedlam reigns.