CHAPTER XXIXTHE STORY IN THE SHOE-SHOP
“MY! How he acts!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell, nervously drawing her shawl-ends closer over her lap. “Who is that boy, anyway?”
“Why, that’s David Pepper,” said the little shoemaker.
“David who?”
Mr. Beebe was craning his short neck to see through the small-paned window what progress David was making over the cobble-stones, and he didn’t pay much attention to the big woman sitting on the bench. So she got clumsily up to her feet and came over to him.
“Who’d you say that boy was?” she demanded.
“Pepper—David Pepper, I told you,” said little Mr. Beebe, turning away from the window.
“You said David—I didn’t catch the last name.”
“Well, it’s Pepper.”
“Pepper? Well, that’s a funny name. Who be his folks?”
“Now, Mis’ Goodsell,” exclaimed the little shoemaker in exasperation, standing quite still to regard her, “do you mean to say that you don’t know Mis’ Pepper? I thought all Badgertown knew her.”
“Well, my fam’ly ain’t Badgertown folks, you must remember,” said Mrs. Goodsell, getting back to the bench, and flapping the shawl-ends again across her lap, “an’ I don’t get over from Four Corners only once in a dog’s age. How am I to know your Pepperses, pray tell?”
“Well, you’ve missed gettin’ acquainted with an awful nice woman,” observed Mr. Beebe. “I tell you, we set by her in Badgertown, her an’ her childern.”
“Well, ef they’re as queer as that young one,” Mrs. Goodsell indicated with her large hand the departed small boy, “I guess I hain’t anythin’ to cry over ’cause we ain’t more acquainted.”
“Ef you mean ’cause David got scared an’ run off,” the little shoemaker stopped half across the shop on his way to begin a cobbling job, and faced her with a gleaming eye, “I can tell you why. ’Twas enough to make him run, I says, says I.”
“What was?” the big woman hitched forward on the bench. It was worth coming in from “Four Corners”—a journey she detested, to hear the little shoemaker go on like this, for generally he only passed the time of day, and then got down to the business of selling shoes.
“Why, when he heard that organ man strike up so suddint.”
Mrs. Goodsell turned and stared at the small-paned window, in a puzzled way.
“I don’t see nothin’ to that,” she said.
“Well, but there was a monkey.”
“S’posin’ there was—there warn’t nothin’ to that, neither.”
“Well, it might ’a’ ben like th’ other monkey—mebbe ’twas th’ same one!” the little shoemaker slapped his fat thigh, “I wouldn’t wonder; an’ David guessed it.”
“Ef you could stop talkin’ about your monkeys,an’ begin again, mebbe I c’d make head or tail o’ what you’re tryin’ to tell me, Mr. Beebe,” cried the big woman in irritation.
Little Mr. Beebe kept slapping his thigh, and declaring, “I do b’lieve Davie guessed it,” then he suddenly waddled over to the corner, got out a box of dilapidated shoes, picked out a pair, and sat down to work, “Yes, I verily b’lieve he guessed it.”
Mrs. Goodsell heaved a long sigh. It was no use to ask him to begin, for she knew he wouldn’t do it till he was ready—so she folded her large hands over the shawl-ends.
“You see,” said little Mr. Beebe, holding up a man’s shoe to thumb it critically, “it’s just this way, about David—O dear me! it beats all how th’ parson does wear out his shoes. I’m afraid that’s too far gone to mend.”
He set the minister’s shoe on his lap and regarded it mournfully.
“I guess I must be goin’,” Mrs. Goodsell made as if her mind were on “Four Corners.”
“No, no,” cried the little shoemaker, tearing off his gaze from the parson’s footgear, “I must tell you about Davie, for you ain’ta-goin’ away until you understand about th’ boy. You see, th’ littlest of th’ Pepper childern is a girl, an’ she ain’t much more’n a baby. You ought to see her!” He pushed up his spectacles and beamed at her.
“Never mind,” interrupted Mrs. Goodsell, “I know about babies. Had plenty o’ my own. Go on, Mr. Beebe.”
“Well,” the little shoemaker swallowed his disappointment at being held up in his description of Phronsie, “everybody in the little brown house looks out for everybody else. That’s th’ way they do; an’ although Mis’ Pepper is a hard-workin’ woman, it just beats all how pleasant they keep. You never’d know to look at ’em how they scrimp an’ pinch.”
The big woman unfolded her hands from the shawl-ends, and slowly regarded them. But she said nothing, and Mr. Beebe went on.
“Yes, they just hang together, an’ look out for each other.”
“I warrant so,” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell with a sniff, “an’ do nothin’ for nobody else.”
“There’s where you’re wrong.” Little old Mr. Beebe fairly snapped it out. “Ef there’sa fam’ly in Badgertown that does more for other folks, I hain’t, so far, heerd th’ name.”
“I thought you said they was obleeged to scrimp,” said Mrs. Goodsell.
“What’s that got to do with it?” The little shoemaker brought this out with such a roar that old Mrs. Beebe threw open the door into the shop. She was just mixing bread, and her sleeves were rolled up, and little flour dabs had flown up as far as her cap.
“Mercy me, Pa. I thought you was sick!” she exclaimed. “Oh, how do you do, Mis’ Goodsell.”
“I ain’t sick, Ma,” replied the little shoemaker, turning his round red face to her, “but I shall be unless you come in an’ ’xplain things about th’ Peppers.”
“What about th’ Peppers? There hain’t nothin’ happened to ’em!” cried Mrs. Beebe in alarm, and trotting in.
“My land, no!” declared the little shoemaker. “I wouldn’t be a-settin’ here so ca’m-like, ef any trouble had ’a’ come to them, Ma.”
“Oh, well, if they’re all right, I’ll come back as soon as I’ve mixed my bread,” and Mrs. Beebe trotted out again.
Little Mr. Beebe began to work briskly on the minister’s shoe. As long as Ma was coming back, it wouldn’t pay to get flustered. Meantime the big woman plied him with questions till she had a pretty fair idea of the little-brown-house people, and all their ages and names.
Then she drew out her big hands again from the shawl-ends and held them up, “They’ll tell the story. I’ve worked some in my life,” she said, “an’ I never got no time to do for other folks.”
“Prob’ly not,” said the little shoemaker drily. “Well, here’s Ma,” and he drew a long breath of relief.
Little Mrs. Beebe had put on a fresh cap, and was now tying the strings of a clean white apron around her ample waist, as befitted sitting down in the shop.
“Tell about how Phronsie run off after th’ monkey,” said Mr. Beebe.
“That always makes me feel bad whenever I tell it,” said Mrs. Beebe, with a sigh, “’cause it brings back what a dretful thing it was. Why, we thought we’d lost her!” She leaned forward suddenly in her chair, and the colorin her cheek like that of a winter apple, seemed suddenly to fade.
“You!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell, in astonishment. “Why, she warn’t noways related. Why did you take on about it, pray tell?”
“Don’t you understand,” began Mrs. Beebe.
“No, she don’t,” declared the little shoemaker irritably, “and what’s more, she won’t, ef you sh’d set there till the day o’ judgment.”
“But shemust,” Mrs. Beebe pointed off her words with the fingers of one pudgy hand marking them off on the palm of the other, “We all—everybody in Badgertown sets a sight by those Pepper childern, an’ Phronsie—well there,” she lifted up a corner of her apron and wiped her eyes.
“Well, go on,” said Mrs. Goodsell.
“An’ one day, we don’t ’xactly know how, Phronsie followed an organ grinder—he had a monkey an’ he stopped an’ played in th’ Peppers’ yard—th’ little brown house, you know.”
Mrs. Goodsell nodded. “Yes, go on.”
“An’ when he went down th’ road, Phronsie went after him. Polly had hurried back to work, an’ Mis Pepper was down tothe parson’s helpin’ Mis Henderson, an’ the boys was a workin’.”
“Seems to me, they was mighty little childern for all of ’em to be workin’,” broke in Mrs. Goodsell, incredulously.
“Th’ Peppers warn’t never too little to work,” the little shoemaker said quickly. “They was up an’ at it, I tell you, ’nstead o’ playin’.”
“Well, go on,” said Mrs. Goodsell.
“Oh, I can’t, hardly,” gasped little Mrs. Beebe, clasping her fat hands, “it brings it all back. You see, she—she didn’t come back, an’ then we all knew she was lost.” With that, Mrs. Beebe threw her apron over her head and burst out crying.
The little shoemaker deserted the parson’s shoe, and skipped over to her. “There, there, Ma,” he patted her cap with a soothing hand. “You know she didn’t stay lost. We got her back.”
“Well, I think you’re th’ queerest folks,” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell, “to carry on so over somethin’ that never happened, an’ besides ’twarn’t to your folks, neither.”
“’Twasour folks, I keep tellin’ you.” LittleMrs. Beebe brought her flushed face out from the apron and wiped off the tears. “Theywas‘our folks’ to all Badgertown. An’ ef Phronsie had ’a’—” and her mouth trembled.
“You see,” the little shoemaker hastened to say, “we was all a-lookin’ through th’ whole o’ Badgertown for her—an’ then to think ’twas an out-of-town one who found her, after all.”
“Who?” cried the big woman.
“A boy, an’ he didn’t live in these parts, neither—him an’ his big black dog got her away from th’ organ grinder an’ th’ monkey.”
“Is that so? Well, go on.”
“Yes,—now you tell th’ rest, Ma.” The little shoemaker ambled back to his work, and picked up the parson’s shoe again.
“Well, that boy was stayin’ over to Hingham,” explained Mrs. Beebe, pointing with her fat finger.
“Hingham don’t lay in that direction,” said Mrs. Goodsell critically, “it’s over there,” and she waved her big hand to the opposite corner of the shop.
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Beebe easily, “I ain’t partic’lar about Hingham now. I’m tellin’ about th’ boy, he was stayin’ there with his father.”
“Who was his father?” Mrs. Goodsell was for getting all the particulars, if she got any.
“Oh, he was an awful big man. I guess he was born big,” and Mrs. Beebe shuddered. “I hain’t seen him but twice. An’ then Badgertown seemed so little when he was drivin’ by, I was afraid he couldn’t get through. But the boy—” here a smile ran up Mrs. Beebe’s round face—“you never’d know from him that he was rich.”
“Was he rich?” asked Mrs. Goodsell in an awed tone.
“Rich?” the little shoemaker’s wife brought it out almost in a scream, “why he could buy us all up, an’ you Four Corners folks, an’ everywhere’s around for miles and miles.”
“You don’t say!”
“But th’ boy—why, he’d come over an’ play with th’ Pepper childern ev’ry chance hegot. You see th’ father didn’t care about havin’ young folks round, so Jasper got lonely.”
“Jasper?” interrupted the big woman.
“Yes, that was th’ boy’s name—Jasper King.”
“Oh! Well, go on.”
“He got lonely, I was sayin’, with nobody but his big dog for comp’ny, so over he’d come to Badgertown. You just ought to hear what times they had in th’ little brown house.”
Here Mrs. Beebe laughed. The little shoemaker laid down his work, and joined, both of them shaking their fat sides at the remembrance.
“I’ve heerd Polly tell about them times—I tell you, she’s the one to set off a story good,” chuckled old Mr. Beebe, “ain’t she now, Ma?”
“You’d ought to have seen ’em as I seen ’em—Pa an’ me both did,” said the shoemaker’s wife, “that boy with one o’ Mis Pepper’s big check apuns on tied around his neck, an’ rollin’ out bits o’ dough—an’ then stickin’ ’em into th’ old stove. That was before Dr. Fisher give ’em th’ new stove—an’ him as rich as Crocus.”
“Dr. Fisher rich!” cried Mrs. Goodsell, raising both hands. “Why, he’s as poor as Job’s turkey, an’ with them two old-maid sisters on his hands. Now I know you’ve ben stuffin’ me right along, Mis Beebe,” she added, in an injured tone.
“Oh, I didn’t mean Dr. Fisher was rich, I said th’ boy,” cried Mrs. Beebe, in a loud voice.
“Well, go on.”
“An’ then, he had to go—th’ boy did, for his father went back home, an’—”
“You hain’t told about th’ gingerbread boy, Ma,” old Mr. Beebe began to laugh again.
“That was th’ funniest of all,” said Mrs. Beebe, and she began to laugh, too.
“What was it?” cried the big woman impatiently. “You do so much laughin’, you an’ Mr. Beebe, it’s kinder slow work gettin’ along.”
“I know it, an’ you must ’xcuse me, Mis Goodsell,” said Mrs. Beebe, “but them childern—well, you see Phronsie always takes it to heart when she hears anybody’s sick, so she made a gingerbread boy an’ made ’em send it to Jasper’s father.”
“My goodness!—to a rich man—a gingerbread boy!” gasped Mrs. Goodsell.
“Yes, an’ you’d ’a’ thought ’twould ’a’ made him mad,” said Mrs. Beebe.
“Well, it did, didn’t it?” said Mrs. Goodsell, “agingerbreadboy!”
“Mad? Why, he just took to that gingerbread boy like a duck to water! An’ he come over to see Phronsie. An’ now you can’t think, they’re a-writin’ back an’ forth, Jasper an’ th’ childern.”
“Polly gits th’ letters,” said old Mr. Beebe.
“Yes, an’ they hope he’s comin’, an’ th’ father, over to Hingham again this summer,” said Mrs. Beebe. “Well, I could tell lots more, but I sha’n’t, ’cause I’ve got to get back an’ git on my other apun an’ red up my kitchen,” and she waddled off.
“It’s th’ most remarkable storyIever heerd,” said Mrs. Goodsell, getting off from the bench, seeing there was no more to be gained.
“So you see why David Pepper run so like lightnin’,” cried old Mr. Beebe, “he was afraid th’ organ man was goin’ down by th’little brown house, an’ he wanted to get home an’ see that Phronsie didn’t get took off.”
“Well, I don’t blame him,” said Mrs. Goodsell, with a nod from her large head, “an’ I don’t myself much like organ-grinders snoopin’ round. Why, there he is now—an’ th’ monkey’s comin’ in th’ door!”