“I generally pay ten cents a spool,” said the customer, “and I suppose that’s what it is here.  If it’s any more I can stop in the next time I pass.  That is, unless you can find out for sure.”

“Oh, I guess ten cents is all right,” said Sue, and she found out later that it was.

Then the lady left with her bread and thread.  The children had waited on their first customer all alone.

In the next hour, during which the children remained in the store, they waited on several customers, and did it very well, too, not having to ask Mrs. Golden about anything, for which they were glad.  Of course the things they sold were simple articles, easy to find, and of such small price that the men or women who bought them had the right change all ready.

Once a boy came in, and you should have seen how surprised he was when Bunny waited on him.  He was Tommy Shadder, a boy Bunny knew slightly.

“Huh! you workin’ here?” asked Tommy, as he took the sugar Bunny put in a bag, not having spilled very much.

“Sure, I’m working here!” declared Bunny.  “That is, for a while,” he added, for he knew he would soon have to go home.

“Huh!” said Tommy again, as he went out.  “Huh!”

“Mail!” suddenly called a voice, and the postman entered the store.  “Where’s Mrs. Golden?” he asked, as he saw Bunny and Sue, whom he knew.

“She’s got a headache, and we’re tending store,” Sue answered proudly.

“Oh, all right.  Here’s a couple of letters for her.  She’s been asking me for letters all week, and I didn’t have any for her.  Now here are two.”

He tossed them on the counter and went out into the sunlit street.  Bunny looked at the two letters.

“Oh!” he exclaimed.  “One’s from Mrs. Golden’s son Philip.  Maybe it’s about the legacy!” Bunny had seen the name Philip Golden in the corner of the envelope.

“Who’s the other from?” asked Sue.

“The Grocery Supply Company,” read the little boy from the other envelope.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Sue.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bunny.

“Maybe that’s a bill,” Sue said, for she had often been in her father’s office on the dock when the mail came in, and when he received a thin letter Mr. Brown would hold it up to the light, laugh, and say: 

“I guess this is a bill.”

Sue knew what bills were, all right, and she seemed to feel that bills coming to Mrs. Golden, who had little money, would be worse than those which came to her father’s office, for Mr. Brown never seemed to worry about the bills.

As the children looked at the letters on the counter, wondering whether or not to take them in to Mrs. Golden, she herself came out of the back room.  She looked at the children and then at the letters.

“Oh, some mail!” she exclaimed.  “I hope it’s from Philip about the legacy!  If it is, I’m sure it will completely cure my headache, which is much better.”