CHAPTER V.IN OLD TRINITY.
“FLOWERS? Flowers? Chrysanthemums? Any, madam?”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five cents apiece.”
“Girl, you must be crazy! I’ll give you ten.”
Beatrice turned on her heel with all her native dignity and some that she had prepared for this especial occasion; having confided her intention to the newspaper-woman on the corner, who also occasionally sold flowers, and received the advice to “not be beat down by nobody. Some is ladies an’ some is trash, what goes a shopping on th’ Aveny, an’ you jest hold on patient,—the right one’ll come along an’ take the hull lot, mebbe. Some woman ’at’s goin’ ter give a party er sunthin’ is the most like ter buy; er young gells. Young gells is good customers, if they happen ter have any money. Good luck go with you, honey; an’ I don’t want ter see you bringin’ home a single posy!”
With this good-speed sounding pleasantly in her unaccustomed ears, the novice at flower selling set her face westward with her basket on her arm and her small brother presumably following her; though, as he was sometimes in sight but oftener not, she had doubts on the subject.
“Anyway I only wanted him for company. It seems so—so sort of dreadful to do this. I tremble every time I open my mouth, and I am afraid I shall not sell a single blossom, except at the flower-shop. I hate to go there, though! It seems so mean to sell things that have been given you, and when you can have no chance to explain, though, of course, I wouldn’t explain anyway. Robert!”
“Hi! Here am I!”
“Why can’t you walk along beside me respectably? Eh?”
“Wull, wull—why, Bon! what makes you look that way?”
“What way?”
“Just as if you was a-goin’ ter cry.”
“I don’t. I’m not. I—I hate it!”
“What makes you, then?”
“I hate other things worse, like Mother’s pale face over her work. I don’t mean I hate, but— Oh! I thought it would be easy, last night whenwe talked it over, and it isn’t. I expect every minute to meet some of the ‘Conservatory girls,’ then I should about die of mortification.”
“Well, I’m beat! If girls ain’t the queerest things! A wantin’ ter do things an’ not a wantin’ ter at the same time. Here, give me a bunch. I’ll show you. This is the way! Flowers!Flowers!Here they go! Nicest an’ puttiest chrysms in the city! Cheap at seventy-five cents! Only one place in town where a feller can get ’em! Here, young feller! Don’t you want a button-holer?”
“Too dear!” replied the good-natured clerk whom Robert had intercepted on his way down town.
“H’m-m. You don’t seem to succeed any better than I do, Bob. Chrysanthemums! The rarest shade in the city!”
The two amateur flower-sellers had soon traversed all the distance between their home and the very corner where their stock had been purchased, and yet not one blossom had been exchanged for the desired cash that was to buy the oyster dinner. When they came to the place where Bonny had met Mr. Brook she paused, undecided whether to cross into the next block or to take her stand there; but was finally decided to do the latter bythe fact that a well-dressed woman had paused to examine the cluster of flowers and to admire them. She would even have bought one apparently, but as she opened her purse, Bonny gently mentioned the price, and the purse was closed with a snap.
“Sev-en-ty-five-cents! I think you must be new to the business, or you would never ask such an absurd amount as that! H’m-m. Seventy-five cents for one chrysanthemum!” And the woman with the plethoric pocket-book had passed on.
“I’m going into the store. I can’t bear this!” cried poor Beatrice, feeling utterly discouraged as her bright castle in the air fell tumbling in ruins. “They will take them, anyway, I’m sure. The clerk said yesterday to a customer that he could not supply the demand for blossoms of this shade. Come on, Bob! The worst he can do is stare a little, and it’s none of his business, certainly.” Thus swallowing her pride, which she felt was silly enough, Beatrice led the way into the shop which she had visited in Mr. Brook’s company the day before.
Robert followed, whistling gayly. Anything which kept him from school was matter of rejoicing to him, and though he realized that they were having very hard luck he felt no more shamein selling posies than newspapers; but his hilarity was suddenly checked by the dandified salesman calling out sharply: “Out of here, boy! We can’t have any boys in here!”
“I should like ter know why not? What yer givin’ us?” demanded Bonny’s “darling,” with all the roughness and assurance of a regular street gamin.
“Hush, dear! Here, let me take yours, too. You just step outside and wait for me till I come. I won’t be a minute now,” whispered the sister, persuasively.
But “Humpty-Dumpty’s” blood was up. What were stores for if not for people to enter? How did that unmannerly clerk know but that he, Robert, wanted to buy out all the stock piled upon those loaded counters? He’d show him! One man was as good as another, in this world.
“No, I won’t wait, neither. I’m a-goin’ where you go, an’ I’m goin’ ter stay as long as I like. Say, boss! How much fer them roses, yonder?”
“Clear out of here, you impudent little scalliwag! You wish to buy no roses.”
“No. But I wish to sell some chrysanthemums, sir,” interposed Beatrice, gently. “These flowers were purchased here yesterday. I should like to resell them to you.”
The dapper young man who had glanced admiringly at the pretty girl on the occasion of her previous visit, under Mr. Brook’s escort, now stared at her superciliously. “Bought here? Ah! Well, we never take second-hand goods, you know. And flowers are an article that could not be handled a second time, even if we did. Is that all?”
“But, sir, you told a lady, yesterday, that you could not supply the demand for this color. I have kept these very carefully. See? They are not withered in the least.”
“Impossible, Miss. If that boy belongs to you, you had better take him outside before he gets into any further mischief. He has knocked down a pile of baskets already, and if he damages—”
Poor Bonny did not wait to hear the conclusion of the matter. With a desperate fear at her heart that her small and independent brother would be the cause of some dreadful trouble, she seized him firmly by the collar and forced him before her out of the shop.
The door closed behind them with the dull thud which baize-muffled doors give, and it seemed to her sounded the knell of her “flowery hopes,” as she herself grimly expressed it.
“Well, I say, Bon! I did think you had somesnap! What’d a feller do if he hadn’t no more grit’n a girl, I’d like to know? Here, come on, I’ll show you. Let’s go over to the hotel there. That’s the Fifth Avenue, where rich folks stays. I’ve sold papers for Jeemsy there, sometimes. They’s a decent crowd goes in an’ out. Mebbe they ain’t all so horrid stingy as they ’pear ter be on this side. But, Bon! We’ll have ter come down on the price. They ain’t nobody, ’less he’s jest another such old man as Mr. Brook, goin’ ter pay such a pile as that fer posies—second-hand ones, too.”
“Robert, where did you get all this wisdom, and you but eight?”
“Oh! I’ve been around,” said Robert, with an inimitable little swagger, which brought a fleeting smile to Beatrice’s face.
“All right. Let’s try the hotel, that is, if the people will let us. I think I have heard that the curbstone merchants—as we are now, dear—have each a self-appropriated place with which he allows nobody else to interfere. We may get upon somebody’s ‘stand,’ but if we do, from our morning’s experience, I don’t fear but we shall be so informed.”
They did take their places opposite the entrance to the hotel, and so respectable and quiet-lookingwere they that nobody molested them; and as they were the only flower-sellers upon that corner they did after a while exchange some of their wares for cash; but it was, as Robert had advised, at a great reduction, and Beatrice was heartily discouraged. Worse than that, a feeling of regret that she had undertaken this thing without her mother’s knowledge and consent began to trouble her as it had not done while the first enthusiasm of unselfishness lasted.
“I wish—I wish I had not slipped out of the house, as if I were doing something wrong!” murmured the girl, half aloud.
“Hey?” asked Robert. “Ain’t it getting cold? Ginger! My toes is ’most froze. This ain’t half the fun newspapers is. A feller can keep warm that way. He can jump on street-cars, and off when the conductor catches him. Let’s go home!”
“You go, dear, if you are cold. I am not. That is I—I— No, I will not give up beaten this way. I will sell these flowers if—”
“You can!” interjected Robert, just in time to prevent Bonny’s making a very rash vow.
She substituted a rather forced laugh for the vow, and again urged her brother to go and leave her. “There is no need for us both to be miserable.Besides, if you should take cold I should never forgive myself. Do go; there’s a dear, and I am ever and ever so grateful to you for what you have already done.”
“No, sir-ee. I guess I’ve got grit if you haven’t. But if you don’t mind I’ll just run around the block ter start my toes up, an’ I’ll be back so’s you can run, too.”
Off bounded the child, and, small as he was, Beatrice felt no fear that he would be lost even in a neighborhood of which he knew so little; but as she watched him out of sight, a voice spoke in her ear.
“What lovely, lovely chrysanthemums! Are they for sale, miss?”
“H’m-m. She doesn’t think I look like a regular flower-girl,” thought Bonny, complacently, and answered promptly: “Yes, madam. They are, as you have noticed, a very peculiar shade.” Then she raised her eyes, and met—those of the richest girl in her class at the Conservatory, the very one who was to sing with her at the next reception.
“Goodness! Miss Beckwith! Beg pardon! I did not notice. I thought it was a flower-girl standing here.”
Beatrice gasped, tried to smile, felt her faceflame, and her courage—or temper, she didn’t know which—rise at the same time. “There is no mistake, Miss Agnew. Iam, temporarily, a flower-girl. These chrysanthemumsarefor sale. But I have had rather bad luck. They prove to be a more expensive sort than most passers-by care for.”
Miss Agnew’s own color rose a little. She was a gentle, high-bred girl, and she saw at once that there was something out of the common in her classmate’s action. If the flowers had cost all there was in her purse, she would have taken some of them then. “Indeed? I have never seen any like them, except at the show last week. How much are they?”
“They cost seventy-five cents each, yesterday, and I was told they were prize flowers. They are—anything I can get for them—now!”
“Oh! I don’t call that high! I often have to pay a dollar or more for roses at holiday time. Of the sort I like. I think these would just suit Mamma. I will take a dozen, please. I was sorry you were not at class to-day. The Professor went over our duet with me, and I gathered some new ideas from him. He is very anxious it should be a success; and naturally I am. Will you be there next lesson?”
“Yes, I think so. At least, I shall not be absent for the same reason as to-day,” said Beatrice, with a return of something like her natural manner.
“That’s good! I can sing so much better with you than with anybody else,” remarked Miss Agnew, smiling pleasantly, nodding cordially, and passing onward immediately.
“Well! I’m in for it now! If Helen Agnew is inclined to tell, the whole class can ‘point the finger of scorn’ at me to-morrow. But how cold it is! How warmshelooked! She had evidently been having luncheon at this great hotel, for she came out, or rather she walked along with a ‘rocky’-looking old gentleman, using a toothpick. I suppose he was her father. How nice it must be to have a father! And think of being able, a school-girl, out of one’s own pocket money, to buy a dozen chrysanthemums for one’s mother—at such a price! Yet, after all, selling them for one’s mother may be just as noble. I’ll ‘play pretend’ it is, any way. And I am quite refreshed. I’ll ‘buckle tae’ with a good will now! There are only twenty-five left; and—”
Beatrice fell to ruminating. She forgot that she was on a street corner, presumably to sellflowers. She paid no attention to the rude pushes and jostles that she received, but swayed this way and that, accommodating her slight person to the needs of the crowd, till one more urgent pedestrian than the others suddenly caught the handle of his walking-stick in that of her basket and ruthlessly tore it from her grasp.
Beatrice aroused herself with a scream. “My flowers! Oh, my flowers! Please, please, don’t tread upon them, people! Please give me time to—”
“Eh! Bon, what’s the matter? Who took ’em? This chap?” demanded Robert, who had returned, and eagerly catching hold of the wrong person. “Look a here, man! You’d better look out how you steal my sister’s chrysms! I’ll let you know I— Ginger! There’s the old fellow himself!”
Alas! the inevitable crowd! Nobody can utter a sound above the natural, but dozens of itching ears must pause to learn why.
“Beg pardon, Miss. It was an accident. I am extremely sorry. Are they injured? Ah! I see. Hopelessly. The price, please, I will make good the loss; but I am in a hurry— Yes, Dolloway, directly. Keep close to me, Dolloway. I’ll look out for you. Eh? Hey? What?”
Bonny was stooping to gather up her ruined treasure, but something in the voice startled her, a peculiar softness of ther’s, and a broad inflection of thea’s.
“It is the corner of Fate!” cried the girl, recklessly, and lifted herself face to face with Mr. Chidly Brook.
“Why, Miss Beckwith! It is, indeed!”