“Well, we’re all ready now,” said Bunny, at last.  “Pull up the shades!”

He and Charlie did this.  The sun shone in through the newly cleaned windows and lit up such a display as never before had been seen in Mrs. Golden’s store.

CHAPTER XX

IN THE FLOUR BARREL

Slowly the heavy green shades, which hid what was in the cleaned windows from the sight of persons in the street, rolled up.  Bunny Brown, his sister Sue, and Charlie Star waited for what was to happen next.  They looked first at one of the windows in which they had made a display, and then at the other.

In one was the pile of oatmeal packages built up like a small fort, with holes here and there through which stuck round boxes, with black covers so that they seemed to be small cannon.

In the other window—­but I can best tell you what was in that by telling you what happened.

The curtains had not been up very long, and the children were feeling rather proud of what they had done, especially Sue in making the glass so clean, when a boy who was passing along the street stopped to look in one of the windows.

And the window he looked at was not the one where the oatmeal boxes were piled.  It was at the other.  This boy was soon joined by a second.  Then a girl who had been running, as if in a hurry, came to a stop, and she stood near the two boys, looking in.

“The crowd is beginning to come!” remarked Charlie Star.

“But they aren’t buying any of the oatmeal,” objected Sue.

“Never mind,” Charlie went on.  “These kids wouldn’t buy anything anyhow; they haven’t any money.  Wait till the big folks come.”  Charlie spoke of the “kids” as if he were about twenty years old himself.  He seemed to have become much bigger and more important since helping Bunny and Sue fix up Mrs. Golden’s windows.

And, surely enough, a few minutes later men and women began to stop to look at the windows of the little corner store.  And the men and women at first looked not at the oatmeal but at the other window.

“It’s making a big hit!” said Bunny Brown.  He had learned this saying at the time when he and his sister Sue gave a show.

By this time quite a crowd had gathered in the street outside, and there was some talk and laughter which was heard inside the store.  It was even heard in the back room where Mrs. Golden had gone to lie down, and it aroused her from her doze.

“Well, children,” she said, as she came slowly out, “have you got the windows washed, and the special sale of oatmeal started?”

“Yes, everything is all ready,” answered Bunny, with a sly look at his sister and Charlie.

Then Mrs. Golden saw the crowd outside.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed.  “I never knew oatmeal to be so popular.  I can sell it all, maybe!” Then she noticed that the crowd was mostly looking at the other window.