Read Ebook: Better than Play by Quiller Couch Mabel

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Ebook has 599 lines and 29723 words, and 12 pages

hed Bella, when another Saturday had come and gone, and her father had not again spoken of going to Norton. "Tom, I've a good mind to go myself next Saturday, and take some flowers, and try to sell them. Will you come with me? Do you think you could walk so far?"

Tom was indignant at this reflection on his manliness. "Walk it! I should rather think so! I can if you can, anyhow!"

"It's a good long way," said Bella reflectively; "p'raps we could get a lift home. I wonder if Aunt Emma will let us go? Oh, Tom, I wish she would. I shall hate it at first, but it does seem a pity to waste all my flowers, and I do want to earn some money to buy a hotbed and some more seeds; there's ever so many kinds I want to get."

To their great surprise, Aunt Emma agreed quite willingly to the scheme as soon as she was told of it. She saw nothing to object to in it, she said, and it never entered her head to think that the walk might be too long for either of them. "If Saturday turns out wet or rough, you needn't go," she said cheerfully.

"I should have to if I'd got customers waiting," thought Bella; but she did not argue the point; she was thankful to have won the permission she wanted, and too fearful of losing it, to run any risks.

How the four children lived through the excitement of the next few days they scarcely knew. For Charlie and Margery there was disappointment mingled with the excitement,--disappointment that they could not go too; but there was much that was thrilling, even for those who stayed at home, and they were promised that they should walk out along the road to meet the others at about the time they would be expected back.

Tom, on the whole, got the most enjoyment out of it all, because for Bella there was a good deal of nervous dread mingled with the excitement and pleasure.

"I do hope I meet with nice customers," she said to Aunt Maggie the day before, when she went down to ask her to help her re-trim her rather shabby Sunday hat for her. "I hope they don't speak sharp when they say they don't want any flowers."

"You generally find folks speak to you as you speak to them," said Aunt Maggie consolingly. "If you are civil, you will most likely meet with civility from others. Look, I've got a large shallow basket here that I thought would do nicely to hold your flowers and show them off prettily. The cover will help to keep them fresh. You'll have to be up early to gather them, child. And do give them a drink of water before you start. You'll find they'll last fresh twice as long. In fact, I believe it would be even better to gather them the evening before, and let them stand in water all night, then you would only have to arrange them in bunches before you start."

Bella thanked her delightedly, and ran off home with her new basket and her old hat, feeling as proud and pleased as any child in the land.

That night she went to bed early, but scarcely a wink did she sleep, and glad enough she was when the old grandfather's clock in the kitchen at last struck four. She got up then, and very quietly began to dress herself, after which she called Tom. It was early, but not too early, considering all that they had to do. For this once, at any rate, the flowers had to be gathered and arranged in bunches and given a drink. Bella and Tom had to dress themselves in their best, and make themselves look as neat and nice as possible, and walk the five miles and be in Norton in good time, for Aunt Maggie had told them that the ladies of the place would most probably be the best and most pleasant customers, and that as a rule they went out to do their shopping as soon as they could after breakfast.

"You ought to be there by ten at he latest," she had said, and Bella promised not to be later.

FIRST CUSTOMERS.

On such a beautiful morning, before the sun had grown too hot, walking was pleasant enough, and Bella and Tom, excited and very eager over their new experience, did not feel tired; and if they did wish the distance shorter, it was only that they might be on the scene of action more quickly.

For the first part of the way they had the road mostly to themselves, but as the morning advanced, and as they drew near to Norton, they were constantly being overtaken by carts laden with all sorts of people and things: live fowls in coops, calves, little pigs under nets, or a fat sheep fastened in at the back of a market cart. Many of the market carts had women seated in them, carrying large white baskets full of fowls and ducks, or eggs and butter, all carefully tucked away under snow-white cloths. There were smaller carts, too, full of vegetables and fruit; and one which particularly roused Bella's interest was a florist's cart laden with beautiful ferns and flowers in pots, and, alas! for her own little supply, boxes of cut flowers.

A wave of hot blood swept over her cheeks. Her pretty bunches, so daintily and carefully arranged, seemed to her suddenly to become poor and shabby and worthless beside that handsome show of hothouse geraniums and roses, maidenhair and other ferns, and her step grew slow as her spirits sank. How could she ever go on and face all the people, and show them her poor little store?

Tom looked round at last, to see what the matter was, but he only laughed when Bella told him. "Oh, well," he said cheerfully, "I don't suppose he began with a pony and trap, and who is to say that we shan't be driving one some day! My eye, Bella, wouldn't it be fine to have a little turn-out like that!" and he capered in the road with delight at the thought.

Bella's spirits rose again. "If I had a greenhouse," she said, "I dare say we could grow maidenhair ferns, and roses too. Tom, do you think it would cost a lot of money to build a greenhouse?"

"No," said Tom sturdily; "I believe we could build one ourselves if we'd got the stuff. Bella, I'm going to learn carpentering, you see if I don't, and then I'll be able to make lots of things, hot-beds and greenhouses, and hencoops, and wheelbarrows."

Bella laughed. "We seem to be going to do a lot--some day, but I think we shall be old men and women before that day comes." Tom's enthusiasm was very cheering, though. "There are lots of lovely flowers I can grow without a greenhouse," she said, more contentedly; "just think, Tom, of stocks and carnations and roses, and--and lavender. Oh, Tom, won't we have a load to bring, in time, if we can get people to buy them!"

They had reached the town by this time, and all Tom's attention was taken up by the busy crowds. "We'd better go to High Street first, hadn't we? That's where all the shops are, and the Market-house, and most of the people."

"We'd better uncover our baskets first, and show what we've got to sell, hadn't we? I don't think it's too soon, do you?"

Bella rested hers against the railings of a church they were passing at the moment, and lifting off the cover, and turning back the damp cloth, she carefully raised her pretty bunches, and arranged them to what she thought was the best advantage. Her spirits rose again at the sight of them, for they certainly were very lovely, and so sweet! There were bunches of sweet-peas of all colours, and some of white only, and pink only, and some of every shade of violet, from the deepest to the palest. There were roses too, and 'boy's love,' mignonette, stocks, and pinks.

"Oh, they are sweet!" exclaimed Bella, as she drew in great breaths of their fragrance. "I am sure I should want to buy them if I saw any one else selling them."

"Come on," said Tom impatiently; he could not see that it mattered much how the bunches were arranged.

They strolled slowly on again, Bella feeling very conscious now, and very shy. She was wondering how she must begin. Must she go up to people and stop them, and ask them to buy her flowers?

Tom was so taken up with watching a sheepdog guiding a flock through the busy street, he forgot all about his duties as a salesman.

"Do stand still a minute and watch," he pleaded, and Bella stood.

How long they had stood she never knew, when she was suddenly recalled to the present, and her duty, by a voice saying, "What a perfectly lovely show of flowers! and, oh, the scent!" and looking quickly round, she found two ladies standing beside her gazing at her basket.

"Are they for sale?" asked one of the ladies, looking at Bella with a pleasant smile.

"Oh yes, ma'am, miss, I mean," stammered poor, shy Bella, and, to hide her blushing cheeks, she bent and lifted out some of her flowers that the ladies might see them better.

"How much a bunch are they?"

"Tuppence each the big ones, ma'am, and a penny the little ones," stammered Bella. She longed to give them to the lady, and ask her not to pay any money at all for them. "Some are all shades of one colour, and some are mixed."

"It is wonderful," she heard one lady say softly to the other. "I gave a shilling in London a day or two ago for a much smaller bunch than this."

"Where do you get such beautiful flowers?" she asked, turning again to Bella with her pleasant smile.

"I grow them myself, ma'am," said Bella, with shy pride.

"Do you really? Well, you must be a born gardener, I am sure, and you deserve to get on. Mary,"--turning to her companion again,--"I will have pink sweet-peas of different shades for the dinner-table to-night, and then that point will be settled and off my mind. Nothing could be prettier. Can you,"--to Bella--"give me six bunches of pink ones? At least four of pink, and two of white?"

Bella turned over her store eagerly, and found the number wanted.

"I must have some of your mignonette," said the other lady, "for the sake of the smell, and a bunch of those roses too. How much each are they?"

"Tuppence the roses, and a penny the mignonette, ma'am," said Bella.

"There is my money," said the sweet-pea lady, handing her a shilling.

"And there is my threepence," said the mignonette lady. "Do you come every week with flowers?"

"I am going to try to, ma'am," said Bella. "This is the first time I've been."

"Well, if you will call at my house when you come, I dare say I shall often be glad to have some of your flowers."

Bella's face brightened. She was so glad she would have this kind, friendly lady to go to; it would be splendid, too, to have a regular customer. That was what Aunt Maggie had hoped she would get.

"I live in the house next to the church. Do you remember passing a church at the top of the street, just as you come in to Norton?"

"Oh yes!" Bella and Tom exclaimed together. "We stopped by it to arrange our flowers."

"Well, the house next to it is mine. You won't forget, will you? Mrs. Watson, No. I High Street."

"Oh no, we shan't forget," they both answered her earnestly. "As if we could," said Tom, as he watched their two customers disappearing down the street. "I wish we could meet with some more customers like them."

Half an hour went by without bringing them another of any kind. The fact was, they were so shy they stood back in a quiet corner, where they were hidden by the crowd from any likely customers.

"I'm afraid the flowers will begin to droop, if we don't sell them soon," said Bella at last; and the thought spurred her into going up to a house near by and knocking at the door.

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