Annie Kilburn Part 8

"Southern, I suppose?" said Mrs. Munger.

"Well, not if you want to call 'em native," said Gates.

"Yes, I'll take two bunches of asparagus, and some peas."

"Any strawberries?--natives?" suggested Gates.

"Nonsense!"

"Same thing; natives of Norfolk."

"You had better be honest with _me_, Mr. Gates," said Mrs. Munger.

"Yes, I'll take a couple of boxes."

"All right! Want 'em nice, and the biggest ones at the bottom of the box?"

"Yes, I do."

"That's what I thought. Some customers wants the big ones on top; but I tell 'em it's all foolishness; just vanity." Gates laughed a dry, hacking little laugh at his drollery, and kept his eyes on Annie. She smiled at last, with permissive recognition, and Gates came forward. "Used to know your father pretty well; but I can't keep up with the young folks any more." He was really not many years older than Annie; he rubbed his right hand on the inside of his long shirt, and gave it her to shake. "Well, you haven't been about much for the last nine or ten years, that's a fact."

"Eleven," said Annie, trying to be gay with the hand-shaking, and wondering if this were meeting the lower cla.s.ses on common ground, and what Mr. Peck would think of it.

"That so?" queried Gates. "Well, I declare! No wonder you've grown!" He hacked out another laugh, and stood on the curb-stone looking at Annie a moment. Then he asked, "Anything else, Mrs. Munger?"

"No; that's all. Tell me, Mr. Gates, how _do_ Mr. Peck and Mr. Gerrish get on?" asked Mrs. Munger in a lower tone.

"Well," said Gates, "he's workin' round--the deacon's workin' round gradually, I guess. I guess if Mr. Peck was to put in a little more brimstone, the deacon'd be all right. He's a great hand for brimstone, you know, the deacon is."

Mrs. Munger laughed again, and then she said, with a proselyting sigh, "It's a pity you couldn't all find your way into the Church."

"Well, may be it _would_ be a good thing," said Gates, as Mrs. Munger gathered up her reins and chirped to her pony.

"He isn't a member of Mr. Peck's church," she explained to Annie; "but he's one of the society, and his wife's very devout Orthodox. He's a great character, we think, and he'll treat you very well, if you keep on the right side of him. They say he cheats awfully in the weight, though."

VIII.

Mrs. Munger drove across the street, and drew up before a large, handsomely ugly brick dry-goods store, whose showy windows had caught Annie's eye the day she arrived in Hatboro'.

"I see Mrs. Gerrish has got here first," Mrs. Munger said, indicating the perambulator at the door, and she dismounted and fastened her pony with a weight, which she took from the front of the phaeton. On either door jamb of the store was a curved plate of polished metal, with the name GERRISH cut into it in black letters; the sills of the wide windows were of metal, and bore the same legend. At the threshold a very prim, ceremonious little man, spare and straight, met Mrs. Munger with a ceremonious bow, and a solemn "How do you do, ma'am I how do you do? I hope I see you well," and he put a small dry hand into the ample clasp of Mrs. Munger's gauntlet.

"Very well indeed, Mr. Gerrish. Isn't it a lovely morning? You know Miss Kilburn, Mr. Gerrish."

He took Annie's hand into his right and covered it with his left, lifting his eyes to look her in the, face with an old-merchant-like cordiality.

"Why, yes, indeed! Delighted to see her. Her father was one of my best friends. I may say that I owe everything that I am to Squire Kilburn; he advised me to stick to commerce when I once thought of studying law. Glad to welcome you back to Hatboro', Miss Kilburn. You see changes on the surface, no doubt, but you'll find the genuine old feeling here. Walk right back, ladies," he continued, releasing Annie's hand to waft them before him toward the rear of the store. "You'll find Mrs. Gerrish in my room there--my Growlery, as I call it." He seemed to think he had invented the name. "And Mrs. Gerrish tells me that you've really come back," he said, leaning decorously toward Annie as they walked, "with the intention of taking up your residence permanently among us. You will find very few places like Hatboro'."

As he spoke, walking with his hands clasped behind him, he glanced to right and left at the shop-girls on foot behind the counter, who dropped their eyes under their different bangs as they caught his glance, and bridled nervously. He denied them the use of chewing-gum; he permitted no conversation, as he called it, among them; and he addressed no jokes or idle speeches to them himself. A system of grooves overhead brought to his counting-room the cash from the clerks in wooden b.a.l.l.s, and he returned the change, and kept the accounts, with a pitiless eye for errors. The women were afraid of him, and hated him with bitterness, which exploded at crises in excesses of hysterical impudence.

His store was an example of variety, punctuality, and quality. Upon the theory, for which he deserved the credit, of giving to a country place the advantages of one of the great city establishments, he was gradually gathering, in their fashion, the small commerce into his hands. He had already opened his bazaar through into the adjoining store, which he had bought out, and he kept every sort of thing desired or needed in a country town, with a tempting stock of articles before unknown to the shopkeepers of Hatboro'. Everything was of the very quality represented; the prices were low, but inflexible, and cash payments, except in the case of some rich customers of unimpeachable credit, were invariably exacted; at the same time every reasonable facility for the exchange or return of goods was afforded. Nothing could exceed the justice and fidelity of his dealing with the public. He had even some effects of generosity in his dealing with his dependants; he furnished them free seats in the churches of their different persuasions, and he closed every night at six o'clock, except Sat.u.r.day, when the shop hands were paid off, and made their purchases for the coming week.

He stepped lightly before Annie and Mrs. Munger, and pushed open the ground-gla.s.s door of his office for them. It was like a bank parlour, except for Mrs. Gerrish sitting in her husband's leather-cushioned swivel chair, with her last-born in her lap; she greeted the others noisily, without trying to rise.

"You see we are quite at home here," said Mr. Gerrish.

"Yes, and very snug you are, too," said Mrs. Munger, taking one half of the leather lounge, and leaving the other half to Annie. "I don't wonder Mrs.

Gerrish likes to visit you here."

Mr. Gerrish laughed, and said to his wife, who moved provisionally in her chair, seeing he had none, "Sit still, my dear; I prefer my usual perch."

He took a high stool beside a desk, and gathered a ruler in his hand.

"Well, I may as well begin at the beginning," said Mrs. Munger, "and I'll try to be short, for I know that these are business hours."

"Take all the time you want, Mrs. Munger," said Mr. Gerrish affably. "It's my idea that a good business man's business can go on without him, when necessary."

"Of course!" Mrs. Munger sighed. "If everybody had your _system_, Mr.

Gerrish!" She went on and succinctly expounded the scheme of the Social Union. "I suppose I can't deny that the idea occurred to _me_," she concluded, "but we can't hope to develop it without the co-operation of the ladies of Old Hatboro', and I've come, first of all, to Mrs. Gerrish."

Mr. Gerrish bowed his acknowledgments of the honour done his wife, with a gravity which she misinterpreted.

"I think," she began, with her censorious manner and accent, "that these people have too much done for them _now_. They're perfectly spoiled.

Don't you, Annie?"

Mr. Gerrish did not give Annie time to answer. "I differ with you, my dear," he cut in. "It is my opinion--Or I don't know but you wish to confine this matter entirely to the ladies?" he suggested to Mrs. Munger.

"Oh, I'm only too proud and glad that you feel interested in the matter!"

cried Mrs. Munger. "Without the gentlemen's practical views, we ladies are such feeble folk--mere conies in the rocks."

"I am as much opposed as Mrs. Gerrish--or any one--to acceding to unjust demands on the part of my clerks or other employees," Mr. Gerrish began.

"Yes, that's what I mean," said his wife, and broke down with a giggle.

He went on, without regarding her: "I have always made it a rule, as far as business went, to keep my own affairs entirely in my own hands. I fix the hours, and I fix the wages, and I fix all the other conditions, and I say plainly, 'If you don't like them, 'don't come,' or 'don't stay,' and I never have any difficulty."

"I'm sure," said Mrs. Munger, "that if all the employers in the country would take such a stand, there would soon be an end of labour troubles. I think we're too concessive."

"And I do too, Mrs. Munger!" cried Mrs. Gerrish, glad of the occasion to be censorious and of the finer lady's opinion at the same time. "That's what I meant. Don't you, Annie?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand exactly," Annie replied.

Mr. Gerrish kept his eye on Mrs. Munger's face, now arranged for indefinite photography, as he went on. "That is exactly what I say to them. That is what I said to Mr. Marvin one year ago, when he had that trouble in his shoe shop. I said, 'You're too concessive.' I said, 'Mr. Marvin, if you give those fellows an inch, they'll take an ell. Mr. Marvin,' said I, 'you've got to begin by being your own master, if you want to be master of anybody else. You've got to put your foot down, as Mr. Lincoln said; and as _I_ say, you've got to _keep_ it down.'"

Mrs. Gerrish looked at the other ladies for admiration, and Mrs. Munger said, rapidly, without disarranging her face--

"Oh yes. And how much _misery_ could be saved in such cases by a little firmness at the outset!"