THE PONY EXPRESS

Bunny Brown ran out of the storeroom, in his hand a hammer with which he had been opening the box of prunes.  Mrs. Golden gave a cry of alarm as she heard the clatter of the boxes falling around Sue.  Mr. Flynt joined Bunny in a rush to help the little girl.  As for George, he was so frightened by the sudden toppling of things from the shelf that a tune he had started to whistle died away and he got ready to run out of the store.

“Mercy sakes! what is going on in here?” cried Mrs. Clark, entering the store as the boxes ceased falling.  “Is anybody hurt?”

No one knew for a moment, as Sue had uttered no cry save the first frightened one.  But by the time Bunny and Mr. Flynt reached her the shower of boxes was over and the little girl took down her hands from over her head.

“Did anything break?” asked Sue, looking about her.  “Oh, dear, what a terrible mess!” she cried.

“Don’t worry about that, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Golden.  “What if a few boxes are broken open?  It’s you I’m thinking of.”

“Oh, I’m all right!” Sue said, and she laughed a little.

And when they came to look her over nothing worse had happened than that she had a few bumps and bruises.  And they were not very hard ones, for the boxes were of pasteboard and not wood.

And only one or two of the oatmeal packages were split open, so that not much was lost in that way.  So, take it all in all, the accident was a very little one, though it made a great deal of excitement for the time being.

“You oughtn’t to reach up for such high things, little girl,” said Mr. Flynt, when he had helped pick up the packages.

“No, sir, I guess I oughtn’t,” agreed Sue.  “But George wanted one and I thought I could get it.”

“You call me when you want things from a high shelf,” said Bunny, going back to the task of opening the box of prunes.  “I’m a good climber.”

“I wasn’t climbing, I was reaching,” answered Sue, as if that made a lot of difference.  “Here’s your oatmeal, George,” she added, and the whistling boy came back to the counter and got it.

Bunny and Sue stayed in the store for an hour or more after the fall of the oatmeal boxes.  Bunny finished opening the box of prunes, and he and Sue waited on several customers, for Mrs. Golden seemed to be quite busy talking to Mr. Flynt in the back room.  And it was not a pleasant talk, either, as Bunny and Sue guessed when they caught glimpses now and then of Mrs. Golden wiping tears from her eyes.

Finally the grocery man came out of the back room with Mrs. Golden.  He was saying, so that the children could hear: 

“Now you’d better take my advice, Mrs. Golden, and sell out your store here.  You’ll never make it pay, and you keep on owing us more money all the while.  I know you’re trying to do your best, but you must either pay us or we’ll have to take our things back and sell you out besides for the rest that you owe us.