“Oh, yes—all the candy in this corner.”

The two little girls studied the corner Maida indicated. For two or
three moments they whispered together. At one point, it looked as if
they would each buy a long stick of peppermint, at another, a paper
of lozenges. But they changed their minds a great many times. And in
the end, Dorothy bought two large pickles and Mabel bought two large
chocolates. Maida saw them swapping their purchases as they went
out.

The two pennies which the twins handed her were still moist from the
hot little hands that had held them. Maida dropped them into an
empty pocket in the money drawer. She felt as if she wanted to keep
her first earnings forever. It seemed to her that she had never seen
such _precious-looking_ money. The gold eagles which her father had
given her at Christmas and on her birthday did not seem half so
valuable.

But she did not have much time to think of all this. The bell rang
again. This time it was a boy—a big fellow of about fourteen, she
guessed, an untidy-looking boy with large, intent black eyes. A mass
of black hair, which surely had not been combed, fell about a face
that as certainly had not been washed that morning.

“Give me one of those blue tops in the window,” he said gruffly. He
did not add these words but his manner seemed to say, “And be quick
about it!” He threw his money down on the counter so hard that one
of the pennies spun off into a corner.