Then the lady left with her bread and thread. The children had waited on their first customer all alone.
In the next hour, during which the children remained in the store, they waited on several customers, and did it very well, too, not having to ask Mrs. Golden about anything, for which they were glad. Of course the things they sold were simple articles, easy to find, and of such small price that the men or women who bought them had the right change all ready.
Once a boy came in, and you should have seen how surprised he was when Bunny waited on him. He was Tommy Shadder, a boy Bunny knew slightly.
"Huh! you workin" here?" asked Tommy, as he took the sugar Bunny put in a bag, not having spilled very much.
"Sure, I"m working here!" declared Bunny. "That is, for a while," he added, for he knew he would soon have to go home.
"Huh!" said Tommy again, as he went out. "Huh!"
"Mail!" suddenly called a voice, and the postman entered the store.
"Where"s Mrs. Golden?" he asked, as he saw Bunny and Sue, whom he knew.
"She"s got a headache, and we"re tending store," Sue answered proudly.
"Oh, all right. Here"s a couple of letters for her. She"s been asking me for letters all week, and I didn"t have any for her. Now here are two."
He tossed them on the counter and went out into the sunlit street. Bunny looked at the two letters.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "One"s from Mrs. Golden"s son Philip. Maybe it"s about the legacy!" Bunny had seen the name Philip Golden in the corner of the envelope.
"Who"s the other from?" asked Sue.
"The Grocery Supply Company," read the little boy from the other envelope.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue.
"What"s the matter?" asked Bunny.
"Maybe that"s a bill," Sue said, for she had often been in her father"s office on the dock when the mail came in, and when he received a thin letter Mr. Brown would hold it up to the light, laugh, and say:
"I guess this is a bill."
Sue knew what bills were, all right, and she seemed to feel that bills coming to Mrs. Golden, who had little money, would be worse than those which came to her father"s office, for Mr. Brown never seemed to worry about the bills.
As the children looked at the letters on the counter, wondering whether or not to take them in to Mrs. Golden, she herself came out of the back room. She looked at the children and then at the letters.
"Oh, some mail!" she exclaimed. "I hope it"s from Philip about the legacy! If it is, I"m sure it will completely cure my headache, which is much better."
Eagerly Bunny and Sue watched to see Mrs. Golden open the letters.
CHAPTER XVIII
BUNNY HAS AN IDEA
Mrs. Golden read first the letter from her son, sent to her from the distant city. But if Bunny and Sue thought to see a look of joy spread over the store owner"s face they were disappointed.
"Did he--did your son send you the legacy?" asked Bunny, as the letter was folded and put back in the envelope.
"Well, no, not exactly," was the answer. "It seems there is some trouble about it. I hoped Philip could come home to help me, but he can"t, and it will be some time before we"ll get any money from that legacy--if we ever get it. Oh, dear! So many troubles!"
Mrs. Golden sighed and opened the other letter. Her troubles seemed to be more now, for she sighed again as she laid this letter aside. Sue could not help asking:
"Is it a bill?"
"Something like that, yes," answered the old lady. "It"s from Mr.
Flynt"s grocery company. It says if I don"t pay soon I"ll be sold out."
Mrs. Golden sighed again. The children did not know exactly what it was all about, but they knew there was trouble of some kind and they wanted to help. But they felt, too, that it was time they went home.
Mrs. Golden must have seen the worried looks on their faces, for she tried to smile through the clouds of her own trouble as she said:
"Never mind, my dears! Run along now, for I"m sure your mother will be getting anxious about you. You have been a great help to me. I guess I"ll find some way out of my troubles--I hope so, anyhow. Run along now!
It was good of you to help me."
So Bunny and Sue, taking the things they had bought, started out of the store.
"If she could only sell more things she"d have more money and then she could pay that grocery bill," said Bunny to his sister.
"Yes," agreed Sue. "We"ll tell daddy about it and see what he says.
Daddy has lots of money."
"But maybe he needs it," suggested Bunny. And very likely Mr. Brown did.
However, children of the ages of Bunny and Sue are not unhappy for very long at a time, and trouble seems to roll away from them like water off a duck"s back. On the way home they met some of their playmates, and in talking over a picnic that was to be held in a few days Bunny and Sue forgot about Mrs. Golden for a while.
"You stayed rather a long time," said Mrs. Brown, when Bunny and Sue finally reached home with the groceries she had sent them for.
"You said we could stay," said Bunny.
"And we helped Mrs. Golden by tending store," added Sue.
"Did you really tend store?" Uncle Tad asked, and he was much surprised when the children told what they had done.
"I guess she doesn"t do much business," remarked Uncle Tad. "She has a store on a corner, which is the best place for one, as people on two streets pa.s.s it. But I"m afraid she isn"t enough of a hustler."
"What"s a hustler?" asked Bunny, wondering if Mrs. Golden might be made into one.
"A hustler," said Uncle Tad, "is a person that does things in a hurry.
Some storekeepers are hustlers for business. If business doesn"t come to them they go after it. That"s how they sell things."
"How could Mrs. Golden sell more things?" Bunny questioned. "She"s got lots of things in her store--heaps and packs of "em--but she doesn"t sell much."