Meanwhile the two guards at the door had become so entranced with the scene at the ribbon counter that they’d cast aside their duty: they acknowledged the duty, however, by tiptoeing to the region of the ribbons, flattering themselves that, if they were not heard, they would not be seen.
Miss Mittie swept a glance at the five young men ranged before her and then at the clock. It was ten minutes past closing-time, and the street door stood wide open! Dreadful! In her shy delight at the prospect of a strawberry festival, she’d forgotten her sacred trust in putting the store to bed. What would Mrs. Ingersoll say when she found it out?
With a quick, “Excuse me,” she slipped along behind the counter, those five cow-boys standing like gawks and watching her do it, and locked the door and put the key in her pocket. She took the key, naturally, so she could get in the next morning, and she was intending to let the young men out by a certain back way in order that nobody should know how remiss she’d been. Returning hurriedly, she said, “Thirty-seven dollars, please,” and stuck her pencil in her hair.
The young men had been exchanging disconcerted glances. Roddy dropped his ribbon on the counter. Figuratively speaking, he threw up the sponge then; but it was Hank Homans who first found a usable tongue.
“I guess we don’t want it, after all,” said he, depositing his armful beside Roddy’s.
She smiled at him a smile that nothing but calm that is calm all through can produce on earth, and said, “Thirty-seven dollars, please.”
“No—I guess we don’t want it,” corroborated Roddy, trying to appear self-confident while he bunched his ribbons together with decisive gestures that eschewed ribbons from his life forever.
For the fraction of a second she appeared to believe it; then she repeated, “Thirty-seven dollars,” and thrust the slip across the pile at him.
He turned red.
“I say—we don’t want it,” he stammered.