She tried her hardest and, with the able assistance of Sim Crocker who was proving himself a treasure, did succeed in making February's sales larger than January's and those of March larger than either.
But she looked forward to April and the real spring with impatience.
She had a plan for the spring.
It was in March that she experienced a great satisfaction and gave Shadrach the surprise and delight of his life by collecting the firm's bill against Mr. Jeremiah Clifford. Mr. Clifford, it will be remembered, had owed Hamilton and Company one hundred and ten dollars for a long time. There was every indication that he was perfectly satisfied with the arrangement and intended to owe it forever. Mary had written, had called upon him repeatedly, had even journeyed to Ostable and consulted her friend Judge Baxter. The Judge had promised to look into the matter and he did so, but his letter to her contained little that was hopeful.
There is money there [wrote the Judge]. The man Clifford appears to be in very comfortable circumstances, but he is a shrewd [there were indications here that the word "rascal" had been written and then erased] person and, so far as I can learn, there is not a single item of property, real or otherwise, that is in his own name. If there were, we might attach that property for your debt, but we cannot attach Mrs. Clifford's holdings. All I can advise is to discontinue selling him more goods and to worry him all you can about the old bill. He may grow tired of being dunned and pay, if not all, at least something on account.
When Mary read this portion of the letter to her Uncle Shadrach his scorn was outspoken.
"Get tired!" he scoffed. "Jerry Clifford get tired of bein' dunned!
DON'T talk so foolish! Why, he gets fat on that kind of thing; it's the main excitement he has, that and spendin' a cent twice a day for newspapers. Did you ever watch Jerry buy a paper? No? Well, you go up to Ellis's some day when the mornin' papers are put out for sale and watch him. He'll drive up to the door with that old hoopskirt of a horse of his--that's what the critter looks like, one of them old-fashioned hoop-skirts; there was nothin' to them but framework and a hollow inside, and that's all there is to that horse.--Well, Jerry he'll drive up and come in to the paper counter, his eyes shinin' and his nerves all keyed up and one hand shoved down into his britches pocket. He'll stand and look over the papers on the counter, readin' as much of every one as he can for nothin', and then by and by that hand'll come out of his pocket with a cent in it. Then the other hand'll reach over and get hold of the paper he's cal'latin' to buy, get a good clove hitch onto it, and then for a minute he'll stand there lookin' first at the cent and then at the paper and rubbin' the money between his finger and thumb--he's figgerin' to have a little of the copper smell left on his hand even if he has to let go of the coin, you see--and--"
Mary laughed.
"Uncle Shad," she exclaimed, "what ridiculous nonsense you do talk!"
"No nonsense about it. It's dead serious. It ain't any joke to Jerry, you can bet on that. Well, after a spell, he kind of gets his spunk up to make the plunge, as you might say, lays down the penny--Oh, he never throws it down; he wouldn't treat real money as disrespectful as that--grabs up the paper and makes a break for outdoors, never once lookin' back for fear he might change his mind.
When he drives off in his buggy you can see that he's all het up and trembly, like one of them reckless Wall Street speculators you read about. He's spent a cent, but he's had a lovely nerve-wrackin' time doin' it. Oh, a feller has to satisfy his cravin' for excitement somehow, and Jerry satisfies his buyin' one-cent newspapers and seein' his creditors get mad. Do you suppose you can worry such a critter as that by talkin' to him about what he owes? Might as well try to worry a codfish by leanin' over the rail of the boat and hollerin' to it that it's drownin'."
Mary laughed again. "I'm afraid you may be right, Uncle Shad," she said, "but I shan't give up hope. My chance may come some day, if I wait and watch for it."
It came unexpectedly and in a rather odd manner. One raw, windy March afternoon she was very much surprised to see Sam Keith walk into the store. Sam, since his graduation from college, was, as he expressed it, "moaning on the bar" in Boston--that is to say, he was attending the Harvard Law School with the hope, on his parents' part, that he might ultimately become a lawyer.
"Why, Sam!" exclaimed Mary. "Is this you?"
Sam grinned cheerfully. "'Tis I," he declared. "I am here. That is to say, the handsome youth whose footfalls you hear approaching upon horseback is none other than our hero. Mary, you are, as usual, a sight to be thankful for. How do you do?"
Mary admitted that she was in good health and then demanded to know what he was doing down on the Cape at that time of the year. He sat down in a chair by the stove and propped his feet against the hearth before replying.
"Why! Haven't you guessed?" he asked, in mock amazement. "Dear me!
I'm surprised. I should have thought the weather would have suggested my errand. Hear that zephyr; doesn't it suggest bathing suits and outing flannels and mosquitoes and hammock flirtations?
Eh?"
The zephyr was a sixty-mile-an-hour March gale. Sam replied to his own question.
"Answer," he said, "it does not. Right, my child; go up head. But, honest Injun, I am down here on summer business. That Mr. Raymond, Dad's friend, who was visiting us this summer is crazy about the Cape. He has decided to build a summer home here at South Harniss, and the first requisite being land to build it on he has asked Dad to buy the strip between our own property and the North Inlet, always provided it can be bought. Dad asked me to come down here and see about it, so here I am."
Mary considered. "Oh, yes," she said, after a moment, "I know the land you mean. Who owns it?"
