Nancy Brandon

The small kitchen was untidy. There were boxes empty and some crammed with loose papers, while a big clothes basket was filled-with a small boy, who took turns rolling it like a boat and bumping it up and down like a flivver. Ted Brandon was about eleven years old, full of boyhood's importance and bristling with boyhood's pranks.

His sister Nancy, who stood placidly reviewing the confusion, was, she claimed, in her teens. She was also just now in her glory, for after many vicissitudes and uncertainties they were actually moved into the old Townsend place at Long Leigh.

"You're perfectly silly, Ted. You know it's simply a wonderful idea," she proclaimed loftily.

"Do I." There was no question in the boy's tone.

"Well, you ought to. But, of course, boys-"

"Oh, there you go. Boys!!" No mistaking this tone.

"Ted Brandon, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. To be so-so mean to mother."

"Mean to mother! Who said anything about mother?"

"This is mother's pet scheme."

"Pretty queer scheme to keep us cooped up all vacation." He rocked the basket vigorously.

"We won't have to stay in much at all. Why, just odd times, and besides-" Nancy paused to pat her hair. She might have patted it without pausing but her small brother Ted would then have been less impressed by her assumed dignity, "you see, Teddy, I'm working for a principle. I don't believe that girls should do a bit more housework than boys."

"Oh, I know you believe that all-righty." Ted allowed himself to sigh but did not pause to do so. He kept right on rocking and snapping the blade of his pen-knife open and shut, as if the snap meant something either useful or amusing.

"Well, I guess I know what I'm talking about," declared Nancy, "and now, even mother has come around to agree with me. She's going right on with her office work and you and I are to run this lovely little shop."

"You mean you are to run the shop and I'll wash the dishes." Deepest scorn and seething irony hissed through Teddy's words. He even flipped the pen-knife into the sink board and nicked, but did not break, the apple-sauce dish.

"Of course you must do your part." Nancy lifted up two dishes and set them down again.

"And yours, if you have your say. Oh, what's the use of talkin' to girls?" Ted tumbled out of the basket, pushed it over until it banged into a soap box, then straightening up his firm young shoulders, he prepared to leave the scene.

"There's no use talking to girls, Ted," replied his sister, "if you don't talk sense."

"Sense!" He jammed his cap upon his head although he didn't have any idea of wearing it on this beautiful day. The fact was, Teddy and Nancy were disagreeing. But there really wasn't anything unusual about that, for their natures were different, they saw things differently, and if they had been polite enough to agree they would simply have been fooling each other.

Nancy smiled lovingly, however, at the boy, as he banged the door. What a darling Ted was! So honest and so scrappy! Of all things hateful to Nancy Brandon a "sissy" boy, as she described a certain type, was the worst.

"But I suppose," she ruminated serenely, "the old breakfast dishes have got to be done." Another lifting up and setting down of a couple of china pieces, but further than that Nancy made not the slightest headway. A small mirror hung in a small hall between the long kitchen and the store. Here Nancy betook herself and proceeded again to pat her dark hair.

She was the type of girl described as willowy, because that word is prettier than some others that might mean tall, lanky, boneless and agile. Nancy had black hair that shone with crow-black luster in spite of its pronounced curl. Her eyes were dark, snappy and meaningful. They could mean love, as when Ted slammed the door, or they could mean danger, as when a boy kicked the black and white kitten. Then again they could mean devotion, as when Nancy beheld her idolized little mother who was a business woman as well, and in that capacity, Nancy's model.

A tingle at the bell that was set for the store alarm, sent the girl dancing away from the looking-glass.

"Funniest thing about a store," she told herself, "there's always someone to buy things you haven't got."

The catch was on the screen door and, as Nancy approached it, she discerned outside, the figure of an elderly woman. It was Miss Sarah Townsend from whom her mother had bought the store.

"Oh, good morning, Miss Townsend. I keep the door fastened when I'm alone, as I might be busy in the kitchen," apologized Nancy.

"That's right, dear, that's right. And I wouldn't be too much alone if I were you," cautioned the woman who was stepping in with the air of proprietorship, and with her little brown dog sniffing at her heels. "Don't you keep your brother with you?"

"Ted? Oh yes, sometimes. But he's a little boy, you know, Miss Townsend, and he must enjoy his vacation." Nancy was making friends with Tiny, the dog, but after a polite sniff or two Tiny was off frisking about happily, as any dog might be expected to do when returning to his old-time home.

Miss Townsend surveyed Nancy critically.

"Of course your brother is a little boy," she said, "but what about you? You're only a little girl."

"Little! Why I'm much stronger than Ted, and years older," declared Nancy, pulling herself up to her fullest height.

The woman smiled tolerantly. She wore glasses so securely fixed before her deep-set eyes that they seemed like a very feature of her face. She was a capable looking, elderly woman, and rather comely, but she was, as Nancy had quickly observed, "hopelessly old-fashioned."

"We haven't anything fixed up yet," said Nancy apologetically. "You see, mother goes to business and that leaves the store and the house to me."

"Yes. She explained in taking our place that she was doing it to give you a chance to try business. But for a girl so young-Come back here, Tiny," she ordered the sniffing, snuffing, frisky little dog.

"If I'm going to be a business woman I've got to start in," interrupted Nancy. "They say it's never too early to start at housework."

"But that's different. Every girl has to know how to keep house," insisted Miss Townsend. She was busy straightening a box of spools that lay upon the little counter, but from her automatic actions it was perfectly evident that Miss Townsend didn't know she was doing anything.

"I can't see why," retorted Nancy. "Just look at mother. What would she have done with us if she hadn't understood business?"

Miss Townsend sighed. "Being a widow, my dear-"

"But I may be a widow too," breezed Nancy. "In fact I'm sure to, for everyone says I'm so much like mother. Do let me fix that box of spools, Miss Townsend. Someone came in for linen thread last night and Teddy looked for it. I'm sure he gave them a ball of cord, for all the cord was scattered around too." She put the cover on the thread box. "Boys are rather poor at business, I think, especially boys of Teddy's age," orated the important Nancy.

Miss Townsend agreed without saying so. She was looking over the little place in a fidgety, nervous way. Nancy quickly decided this was due to regret that she had given the place up, and therefore sought to make her feel at ease.

The little brown dog had curled himself up in front of the fireplace on a piece of rug, evidently his own personal property. The fireplace was closed up and the stove set back against it, out of the way for summer, and handy-by for winter.

Nancy smiled at the woman who was moving about in a sort of aimless restlessness.

"It must seem natural to you to be around here," Nancy ventured.

"Yes, after thirty years-"

"Thirty years!" repeated Nancy, incredulously. "Did you and your brother live here all that time?"

"Yes." A prolonged sigh brought Miss Townsend down on the old hickory chair that stood by the door, just out of the way of possible customers.

"Brother Elmer and I kept on here after mother died. In fact, so far as I was concerned, we might have gone on until we died, but there was a little trouble-"

"Just like me and my brother, I suppose," intervened Nancy, kindly. "We love each other to death, and yet we are always scrapping."

"In children's way, but that's different, very different," insisted Miss Townsend. "With me and Elmer," she sighed again, "it became a very, very serious matter."

"Oh," faltered Nancy. Things were becoming uncomfortable. That kitchen work would be growing more formidable, and Nancy had really wanted to settle the store. She would love to do that, to put all the little things in their places, or in new places, as she would surely find a new method for their arrangement. She hurried over to the corner shelves.

"I hope no one comes in until I get the place fixed up," she remarked. "Mother doesn't intend to buy much new stock until she sees how we get along."

"That's wise," remarked Miss Townsend. "I suppose I know every stick in the place," she looked about critically, "and yet I could be just as interested. I wonder if you wouldn't like me to help you fix things up? I'd just love to do it."

Now this was exactly what Nancy did not want. In fact, she was wishing earnestly that the prim Miss Townsend would take herself off and leave her to do as she pleased.

"That's kind of you, I'm sure," she said, "but the idea was that I should be manager from the start," Nancy laughed lightly to justify this claim, "and I'm sure mother would be better pleased if I put the shop in order. You can come in and see me again when I'm all fixed up," (this gentle hint was tactful, thought Nancy) "and then you can tell me what you think of me as the manager of the Whatnot Shop."

Miss Townsend was actually poking in the corner near the hearth shelf where matches, in a tin container, were kept. She heard Nancy but did not heed her.

"Looking for something?" the girl asked a little sharply.

"Looking?" Yes, that is-"Tiny keep down there," she ordered. "I can't see what has got into that dog of late. It was one of the things that Elmer and I were constantly fussing over. Tiny won't let any one touch things near this chimney without barking his head off. Now just watch."

As she went to the shelf back of the stove the dog sprang alongside of her. He barked in the happy fashion that goes with rapid tail wagging, and Nancy quickly decided that the dog knew a secret of the old chimney.

Miss Townsend pretended to take things out of the stove.

Again Miss Townsend pretended to take things out of the stove, and Tiny all but jumped into the low, broad door.

"Now, isn't that-uncanny?" asked the woman, plainly bewildered.

"Oh, no, I don't think so," said Nancy. "All dogs have queer little tricks like that."

"Do they? I'm glad to hear you say so," sighed Miss Townsend, once more picking up a small box of notions. "You must excuse me, my dear. You see the habit of a life time-"

"Oh, that's all right, Miss Townsend, I didn't mean to hurry you," spoke up Nancy. "But the morning goes so quickly, and mother may come home to lunch." This possibility brought real anxiety to Nancy. If she had only slicked up the kitchen instead of arguing with Teddy. After all the plagued old housework did take some time, she secretly admitted.

But Miss Townsend laid down the unfinished roll of lace edging, although she had most carefully rolled all but a very small end, walked over to Nancy, who was just attempting to dust out a tray, and in the most tragic voice said:

"Nancy, I think you really have a lot of sense."

Nancy chuckled. "I hope so, Miss Townsend."

"I mean to say, that I think you can be trusted."

"Well," stammered Nancy, forcing back another chuckle, "I hope so, to that too, Miss Townsend." She was surprised at the woman's manner and puzzled to understand its meaning. The dog was again snoozing on the rug.

"Let's sit down," suggested Miss Townsend.

"Oh, all right," faltered Nancy, in despair now of ever catching up on the delayed work.

"You see, it's this way," began the woman, making room for herself in the big chair that was serving as storage quarters for Teddy's miscellany. "Some people are very proud-"

Nancy was simply choking with impatience.

"I mean to say, they are so proud they won't or can't ever give in to each other."

"Stubborn," suggested Nancy. "I'm that way sometimes."

"And brother and sister," sighed Miss Townsend. "I never could believe that Elmer, my own brother, could, be so-unreasonable."

"Why, what's the matter?" Nancy spoke up. "You seem so unhappy."

"Unhappy is no name for it, I'm wretched." The distress shown on Miss Townsend's face was now unmistakable. Nancy forgot even the unwashed breakfast dishes.

"Can I help you?" she asked kindly.

"Yes, you can. What I want is to come in here sometimes-"

"Why, if you're lonely for your old place," interrupted Nancy.

"It isn't that. In fact I just can't explain," said Miss Townsend, picking up her hand bag, nervously. "But I'm no silly woman. We've agreed to sell this place to your mother and I'm the last person in the world to make a nuisance of myself."

"You needn't worry about that," again Nancy intervened, sympathetically.

"You are a kind girl, Nancy Brandon, and I guess your mother has made no mistake in buying the Whatnot Shop for you. You'll be sure to make friends, and that's what counts next to bargains, in business," declared the woman, who had risen from the big chair and was staring at Nancy in the oddest way.

"If I had a chance-" again the woman paused and bit her thin lip. She seemed to dread what she evidently must say.

"I'll be busy here tomorrow," suggested Nancy briskly, "and then perhaps you would like to help me. But I really would like to get the rough dirt out first. Then we can put things to rights."

"The fact is," continued Miss Townsend, without appearing to hear Nancy's suggestion, "I have a suspicion."

"A suspicion? About this-store?"

"Yes, and about my brother. He's an old man and we've never had any real trouble before, but I'm sorry to say, I can't believe he's telling me the truth about an important matter. That is, it's a very important matter to me."

"Oh," said Nancy lamely. She was beginning to have doubts of Miss Townsend's mental balance.

"No, Elmer is a good man. He's been a good brother, but there are some things-" (a long, low, breathful sigh,) "some things we have individual opinions about. And, well, so you won't think me queer if I ask you to let me tidy the shop?"

"Why-no, of course not, Miss Townsend."

"Thank you, thank you, Nancy Brandon," emotion was choking her words. She was really going now and Tiny with her. "And perhaps it would be just as well not to say anything about it if my brother should drop in," concluded the strange woman.

"Oh, do you suppose he will?" asked bewildered Nancy. "I mean, will he drop in?"

"He's apt to. Elmer is a creature of habit and he's been around here a long time, you know." The dark eyes were glistening behind the gold framed glasses. Miss Townsend was still preparing to depart.

Nancy opened the screen door and out darted Tiny.

"Good-bye, my dear, for the present," murmured Miss Townsend, "and I hope you and your mother and your brother will-be happy-here," she choked on the words and Nancy had an impression of impending tears. "We wouldn't have sold out, we shouldn't have sold out, but for Elmer Townsend's foolishness."

Back went the proud head until the lace collar on Sarah Townsend's neck was jerked out of place, a rare thing indeed to happen to that prim lady.

"Good-bye," said Nancy gently, "and come again, Miss Townsend."

"Yes, yes, dear, I shall."