“That’s it,” said Pat. “It kem out of an owld grocery-sthore front. It’s a sthore dure and not a hoose dure at all. What yez want, Mrs. Nelson, is to put a sthore behind that dure. The front room there is for that. Sure, the big, bay windy is there to show things in. Ye could sell all that comes from the garden, and hooks and eyes, and tay and coffee and sugar, and mebbe onything.”
“That’s it, mother,” shouted Rodney, but Pat had more to say and he went on:
“What yez want, now, is a counter and some shelvin’, and a whole lot of thim was thrown away from a place I know of, yisther-day. It’ll all go in, there, aisy, and the b’ye could paint it——”
“Fetch it right along,” said Rodney, and his mother repeated it.
“Fetch it along,” she said. “Why, we could keep a thread-needle store, and no rent to pay.”
“I’ll come and ’tend counter, too,” said Millie: “while you’re out and Rodney’s at work in the garden. Besides, he could carry newspapers——”
“I must go, now,” interrupted Pat, “but I’ll do that, at wanst, and by-and-bye yez can take out the middle partition, and have the whole flure in wan, and there’s your big sthore.”
He was off, leaving them to consider the matter, but the next remark was from Billy and it had a doubtful sound.
“Ba-a-ah-eh-beh!” he remarked.
The making of the new avenue and the laying of its neat, stone sidewalk, went rapidly on. It was already a thoroughfare, with wagons and foot passengers using it all the while. Only a few days later, Pat and Rodney spent an evening putting in the shelves and the counters. They would look shabby enough until they were painted, but there was a kind of promise in them.