Nancy Brandon, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  BELATED HASTE

  Instinctively Nancy sought a sheltered corner of the ice cream room. Shewas greatly embarrassed to have come along the road with a stranger whomshe knew nothing about, and now she was determined to leave him alonewith Teddy. There must be something odd about him, to have drawn thatremark from the girls. Nancy looked at him critically from her placebelow the decorated looking glass, and decided he did appear queer toher.

  "But I'm just starved," she told herself, "and I've got to havesomething to eat." The girl in the gingham dress, with a great widemuslin apron, took an order for cake and cream and a glass of milk.Fortunately, Nancy had her purse along with her. That much, at least,she had already learned about being a business woman.

  Teddy was chatting gaily with the man down near the door. They seemed tobe having a great time over their stories, and Nancy rightly suspectedthe stories concerned Ted's favorite sport, camping.

  She ate her lunch rather solemnly. Everything seemed to be going wrong,but the escape from fire, with the frying meat on a shallow griddle, wassurely something to be thankful for.

  Oh, well! Only half a day had been lost, and she really couldn't havedone more when Miss Townsend took all that precious time with herlamentations.

  Miss Townsend! Nancy sipped the last of her milk as she reflected on thelittle dog's interest in the old fireplace. Of course, Miss Townsendwould come again, and Tiny would always be along with her. And Nancyhadn't yet told Ted about that experience.

  "Just buying a country store didn't seem to mean buying a lot of freaksalong with the bargain," Nancy speculated. "And now here's Mr. Baldy whowants to be called after Uncle Sam, going right in back of my counterand helping himself--"

  "Ready, Sis!" called out Teddy, as he waited for Mr. Sanders to pay hisbill.

  "You go along, Ted," called back Nancy. "I've got to stop some place,but I'll be there in time to open the door for you."

  Ted never questioned one of those queer decisions of Nancy's. He knewhow useless such a thing would be; so off he went with the man in theshort sleeved shirt, while Nancy tarried long enough to give them a fairstart.

  Then, easily finding a way through the fields, she raced off herself,although getting through thick hedges and climbing an occasional railfence, proved rather tantalizing.

  In front of the store she found Mr. Sanders just leaving Ted. They wereboth talking and laughing as if the acquaintance had proved highlysatisfactory, but it irritated Nancy.

  "Now, I suppose, _he'll_ come snooping around," she grumbled. "Well,there's one thing certain, I'm not going to keep an old-fashionedcountry store. No hanging around my cracker barrels," she told herself,although there was not, and likely never would be a cracker barrel inthe Whatnot Shop.

  Once more left to themselves, the burnt dinner was not referred to, asTed helped at last to clear up the disordered kitchen. Not even the lostpotatoes came in for mention as brother and sister "made things fly," asmost belated workers find themselves obliged to do.

  "Here, Ted, get the broom."

  Ted grabbed the broom.

  "No, let me sweep. You empty those baskets of excelsior."

  "Where?"

  "Where?"

  "Yes. Can we burn it?"

  "No, never. No more fire for us," groaned Nancy. "Just dump the stuffsome where."

  "But we can't, Sis," objected Ted. "Mother 'specially said nothing couldbe dumped around."

  "Well, do anything you like with it, but just get it out of the way,"and Nancy's excited broom made jabs and stabs at corners without quitereaching them.

  Ted was much more methodical. He really would do things right, if onlyNancy would give him a chance. Just now he was carefully packing theexcelsior in a big clothes basket.

  "You know, Nan," he remarked, "Mr. Sanders is awfully funny."

  "How funny?" asked Nancy crisply.

  "Oh, he knows an awful lot."

  "He ought to, he's bald headed," answered Nancy, implying there-by thatMr. Sanders was an old man and ought to be wise.

  "Is he?" asked Ted innocently.

  "For lands sake! Ted Brandon!" exclaimed Nancy. "Can't you think whatyou're saying? Is he what?"

  The thread of the argument thus entirely lost, Ted just crammed away atthe excelsior.

  "I'm just dying to get at the store," said Nancy next. "I want to fixthat all up so that mother will buy more things to put in stock."

  "She's going to bring home fishing rods. I'm goin' to have a corner forsport stuff, you know," Ted reminded the whirl-wind Nancy.

  "Oh, yes, of course, that's all right. But we'll have to see whichcorner we can spare best. The store isn't any too big, is it?"

  "Big enough," agreed the affable boy. "And I'll bet, Nan, we'll haveheaps of sport around here this summer. There's fine fellows over by thebig hill. That's more of a summer place than this is, I guess."

  "Where does your friend Uncle Sam live?"

  "You mean Mr. Sanders. Why, he didn't say, but he went up the hilltoward that old stone place."

  "Yes. I wouldn't wonder but he would live in an old stone place," echoedNancy sarcastically.

  "Why, don't you like him?"

  "Like him?"

  "I mean--do you hate him?" laughed Ted. His basket was filled and he wasgathering up the loose ends of the splintered fibers upon a tin cover.

  "I don't like him and I don't hate him, but I do hope he won't comesnooping around _my_ store," returned Nancy.

  Teddy stopped short with a frying pan raised in mid air. He swung it atan imaginary ball, then put it down in the still packed peach basket.

  "Now, Nan," he protested, "don't you go kickin' up any fuss about Mr.Sanders. He always came around here; he's a great friend of theTownsends."

  "Ted Brandon!" Nancy flirted the dust brush at the gas stove, "do youthink I am going to take all that with this store? Did we buy all theTownsends' old--old cronies along with the Whatnot Shop?"

  "There's someone," Ted interrupted, as the store bell jangled timidly.

  "Oh, you go please, Ted," begged Nancy, who had glimpsed girls' skirtswithout. "I'm too untidy to tend store this afternoon."