When Mary-'Gusta was seventeen a great event took place. The happening which led to it was trivial enough, but the results were important and far-reaching. They led to the second great change in her life, a change as important as that brought about by her memorable "visit" to South Harniss.
She was a girl in years still, but tall for her age, and in thought and manner almost a young woman. Her management of her uncles and Isaiah was now complete. They no longer protested, even to each other, against the management and, in fact, gloried in it. The cook and steward accepted her orders concerning the daily marketing and he and she audited the monthly bills. The white house by the shore was a different place altogether now and "chicken-pox tablecloths" and tarnished silver were things of the forgotten past. At the store she had become almost a silent partner, and Hamilton and Company's "emporium" was, thanks to her judgment and tact, if not yet an up-to-date establishment, at least a shop where commodities to be sold were in places where they might be seen by prospective purchasers and readily located by the proprietors.
She spent a good deal of her time, except in school hours, at the store and much of the buying as well as the selling was done by her.
The drummers representing New York and Boston wholesale houses knew her and cherished keen respect for her abilities as a selector and purchaser of goods.
"Say," said one of these gentlemen, after a lengthy session during which his attempts to work off several "stickers" had been frustrated by Mary-'Gusta's common sense and discernment--"Say, that girl of yours is a wonder, do you know it? She's the sharpest buyer I ever run across on my trips down here. I don't take a back seat for anybody when it comes to selling goods, and there's mighty little I can't sell; but I can't bluff her. She knows what's what, you hear me!"
Shadrach, to whom this remark was made, chuckled. "You bet you!" he declared, with enthusiasm. "Anybody that gets ahead of our Mary-
'Gusta has got to turn out afore the mornin' watch. She's smart.
Zoeth and me ain't aboard the same craft with her."
"I should say not. And you can't get gay with her, either. Most girls of her age and as good a looker as she is don't object to a little ragging: they're used to it and they like it--but not her.
She isn't fishing for boxes of candy or invitations to dances. That line of talk means good-by and no sale where she is. Business and just business, that's all there is to her. How long are you goin' to keep her here?"
"How long? Why, forever, I hope. What are you talkin' about?"
The drummer winked. "That's all right," he observed. "You want to keep her, I don't doubt: but one of these days somebody else'll be wanting her more than you do. Mr. Right'll be coming along here some time and then--good night! She's young yet, but in a couple of years she'll be a queen and then--well, then maybe I'll stand a better chance of unloading those last summer caps the house has got in stock. Girls like her don't stay single and keep store; there's too much demand and not enough competition. Gad! If I wasn't an antique and married already I don't know but I'd be getting into line. That's what!"
Captain Shadrach was inclined to be angry, but, although he would not have admitted it, he realized the truth of this frank statement.
Mary-'Gusta was pretty, she was more than that, and the line was already forming. Jimmie Bacheldor had long ago ceased to be a competitor; that friendship had ended abruptly at the time of David's narrow escape; but there were others, plenty of them.
Daniel Higgins, son of Mr. Solomon Higgins, the local lumber dealer and undertaker, was severely smitten. Dan was at work in Boston, where he was engaged in the cheerful and remunerative business of selling coffins for the American Casket Company. He was diligent and active and his future promised to be bright, at least so his proud father boasted. He came home for holidays and vacations and his raiment was anything but funereal, but Mary-'Gusta was not impressed either by the raiment or the personality beneath it. She treated the persistent Daniel as a boy and a former schoolmate.
When he assumed manly airs she laughed at him and when he invited her to accompany him to the Cattle Show at Ostable she refused and said she was going with Uncle Zoeth.
Dan Higgins was not the only young fellow who found the store of Hamilton and Company an attractive lounging place. Some of the young gentlemen not permanent residents of South Harniss also appeared to consider it a pleasant place to visit on Summer afternoons. They came to buy, of course, but they remained to chat.
Mary-'Gusta might have sailed or picknicked a good deal and in the best of company, socially speaking, if she had cared to do so. She did not so care.
"They don't want me, Uncle Shad," she said. "And I don't want to go."
"Course they want you," declared Shadrach, stoutly. "If they didn't want you they wouldn't ask you, 'tain't likely. And I heard that young Keith feller askin' you to go out sailin' with him this very afternoon."
"You didn't hear his sister ask me, did you? There, there, Uncle Shad, don't worry about me. I'm having a good time; a very much better time than if I went sailing with the Keiths."
"What's the matter with the Keiths? They're as nice folks as come to South Harniss."
"Of course they are."
"Well, then! And you're as good as they are, ain't you?"
"I hope so. Uncle Shad, why don't you wear a white flannel suit in hot weather? Mr. Keith, Sam's father, wore one at the church garden party the other day."
The Captain stared at her. "Why don't I wear--what?" he stammered.
"A white flannel suit. You're as good as Mr. Keith, aren't you?"
"I guess I am. I don't know why I ain't. But what kind of a question's that? I'd look like a plain fool tagged out in one of them things: anyway, I'd feel like one. I don't belong in a white flannel suit. I ain't no imitation dude."
