Soon there was a busy time in Mrs. Golden"s store. Bunny was hammering and pounding away opening the oatmeal cases, and Sue was washing the window, having first taken out the few things Mrs. Golden had on display there--not that you could see them very well from the outside, however.
"Could I wash the other window, too?" asked Sue, when she had finished the first.
"Are you going to put oatmeal in both windows?" asked Mrs. Golden.
"Seems to me that will be too much. Wash the other window if you want to, dearie, but two of them filled with oatmeal----"
"Oh, we aren"t going to put oatmeal in _both_!" exclaimed Bunny, with a queer look at his sister. "We"re going to fix up the second window to make people come in and buy."
Mrs. Golden did not seem to understand exactly. She shook her head in a puzzled way and murmured that she was getting old.
And as the postman came along just then with a letter from Philip, she was soon so busy reading it that she paid little attention to what Bunny and Sue were doing.
The children worked hard and faithfully all morning, and promised to come back in the afternoon. When they left to go home to lunch, both windows were brightly shining, though there were a few streaks here and there where Sue had forgotten to wipe off the white, cleaning powder.
But they didn"t matter.
"I"ll pull the shades down," said Bunny, as he was leaving. "We don"t want people looking in the windows until we get "em all fixed up, and then we"ll surprise "em."
"Just as you like, dearie. Just as you like," said Mrs. Golden, in a dreamy tone. She was thinking of what her son had said in his letter.
Hurrying through their lunch as quickly as their mother would let them, Bunny and Sue hastened back to Mrs. Golden"s store. They told something of their plans at home, and Uncle Tad said:
"That"s a fine idea! I"ll stop down there later and see how it looks."
"Come on, Splash!" called Bunny to his dog, as he and his sister started back. "We want you!"
"And we must stop at Charlie"s house and tell him," said Sue.
"Yes, we will," Bunny agreed, and Charlie, when he heard the news, said:
"I"ll be at the store in about half an hour."
Certainly things were getting ready to happen.
Bunny and Sue found Mrs. Golden lying down on her couch in the back room when they reached the store again.
"I"m afraid I have another of my bad headaches coming on," she said.
"You lie down," said Sue kindly. "Bunny and I will tend store again, and we"ll start the special sale."
The windows were now dry and clean. All the old goods had been taken out, and Bunny and his sister were ready to put in the special display of oatmeal which was to be sold at a low price. Mrs. Golden told Bunny where to find some price cards to put in the window telling of the special sale. These cards were of a sort that most grocers keep on hand.
With the help of Sue, Bunny piled the boxes of oatmeal in the window.
They were stacked up as nearly like a fort as he could make them, and he knew how to do this, for he had often helped the boys build forts of snow. Here and there he left holes in the piled-up wall of oatmeal boxes.
"Oh, if you only had something like little cannons to put in the holes it would look more like a real fort!" said Sue.
Bunny thought this was a good idea, and looked around for something to use. He saw some round pasteboard boxes, the top covers of which were a dull black.
"They"ll look just like cannons," he said, as he fitted them in the holes of the oatmeal box fort. The window shades being down, no one could see from the street what was going on. Splash, the big dog, was content to sleep in the store while the children were there.
"Now for the other window," said Bunny to Sue, when the oatmeal was all in place, with the low price plainly marked on cards stuck here and there.
"We have to wait for Charlie," Sue said.
"He"s coming now," observed Bunny, looking from the door. No customers had come in while the children were busy fixing the window, and they were just as well satisfied. They hoped for a rush of trade when the shades were raised.
Charlie came in with the covered basket, and the next fifteen minutes were busy ones for the children. Mrs. Golden had fallen asleep and did not come out of the back room to see what they were doing.
"Well, we"re all ready now," said Bunny, at last. "Pull up the shades!"
He and Charlie did this. The sun shone in through the newly cleaned windows and lit up such a display as never before had been seen in Mrs.
Golden"s store.
CHAPTER XX
IN THE FLOUR BARREL
Slowly the heavy green shades, which hid what was in the cleaned windows from the sight of persons in the street, rolled up. Bunny Brown, his sister Sue, and Charlie Star waited for what was to happen next. They looked first at one of the windows in which they had made a display, and then at the other.
In one was the pile of oatmeal packages built up like a small fort, with holes here and there through which stuck round boxes, with black covers so that they seemed to be small cannon.
In the other window--but I can best tell you what was in that by telling you what happened.
The curtains had not been up very long, and the children were feeling rather proud of what they had done, especially Sue in making the gla.s.s so clean, when a boy who was pa.s.sing along the street stopped to look in one of the windows.
And the window he looked at was not the one where the oatmeal boxes were piled. It was at the other. This boy was soon joined by a second. Then a girl who had been running, as if in a hurry, came to a stop, and she stood near the two boys, looking in.
"The crowd is beginning to come!" remarked Charlie Star.
"But they aren"t buying any of the oatmeal," objected Sue.
"Never mind," Charlie went on. "These kids wouldn"t buy anything anyhow; they haven"t any money. Wait till the big folks come." Charlie spoke of the "kids" as if he were about twenty years old himself. He seemed to have become much bigger and more important since helping Bunny and Sue fix up Mrs. Golden"s windows.
And, surely enough, a few minutes later men and women began to stop to look at the windows of the little corner store. And the men and women at first looked not at the oatmeal but at the other window.
"It"s making a big hit!" said Bunny Brown. He had learned this saying at the time when he and his sister Sue gave a show.
By this time quite a crowd had gathered in the street outside, and there was some talk and laughter which was heard inside the store. It was even heard in the back room where Mrs. Golden had gone to lie down, and it aroused her from her doze.
"Well, children," she said, as she came slowly out, "have you got the windows washed, and the special sale of oatmeal started?"
"Yes, everything is all ready," answered Bunny, with a sly look at his sister and Charlie.
Then Mrs. Golden saw the crowd outside.