A Round Dozen
A SMALL BEGINNING.
A LITTLE ground-floor room, a little fire in a small stove, burningdully as fires are apt to do at times when their blaze might be worthsomething in the way of cheer; out doors the raw gray of a spring thaw;on the window-seat two girls crouched together and looking out withfaces as disconsolate as the weather. Such was the picture presented atNo. 13 Farewell Street, three years ago last March.
Farewell Street was so named because of its being the customary route ofexit from the old cemetery, the point where mourners were supposed toturn for a last look at the gates which had just shut in the newlyburied friend; and this association, as well as the glimpse of tallcemetery fence, topped with mournful evergreens which bounded the view,did not tend to make the sad outlook any the less sad on that dismalday. For it was only a fortnight since Delia and Hetty Willett, thegirls on the window-seat, had left within those gates the kind oldgrandmother who for years had stood to them in the stead of father andmother both.
"The Willetts," as the neighbors called them, using the collectivephrase always, were twins, and just eighteen years old. Bearing to eachother even a stronger personal likeness than twins customarily possess,they were in other points curiously unlike. Delia was soft and clinging,Hetty vigorous and self-reliant. Delia loved to be guided, Hetty toguide; the former had few independent views and opinions, the latter wasbrimful of ideas and fancies, plans and purposes; some crude, somefoolish, but all her own. Yet, oddly enough, it was Delia, very often,who gave the casting vote in their decisions, for Hetty's love for herslender twin was a sentiment so deep and intense that she often yieldedagainst her own better sense and judgment, simply for the pleasure ofyielding to what Delia wished. Delia in return adored her sister, waitedon her, petted, consoled, "exactly as if she were Hetty's wife," AuntPolly said, "and the worst was they suited each other so well that noone else would ever suit either of them, and they were bound to die oldmaids in consequence!"
But eighteen can laugh at such auguries, and there was no thought orquestion of marriage in the minds of the sisters as they crouched thatafternoon close together on the old window-seat.
A very different question absorbed them, and a perplexing one; how theywere to live, namely, and to keep together while doing so, which meantpretty much the same thing to them both. Grandmother's death had leftthem with so very, very little. Her annuity died with her. There wasthe old house, the plain, worn furniture to which they had beenaccustomed all their lives, and about a hundred dollars a year! Whatcould they do with that?
"If one of us only happened to be clever," sighed Delia. "If I couldpaint pictures, or you had a talent for writing, how easy it would be!"
"I don't know as to that," responded Hetty. "Seems to me I've heard ofpeople who did those things, and yet didn't find it so mighty easy toget along. Somebody's got to buy the pictures after they're painted, youknow, and read the books, and pay for them." She spoke in an absenttone, and her brow was knitted into the little frown which Delia knewbetokened that her twin was puzzling hard over something.
"Don't scowl, it'll spoil your forehead," she said, smoothing out theobjectionable frown with her fingers.
"Was I scowling? Well, never mind. I'm trying to think, Dely. You can'tpaint and I can't write. The question is, What can we do?"
"That _is_ a question," said a voice at the door. It was Aunt Polly'svoice. She managed on most days to drop in and "give a look to them, thelonely little creeturs," as she would have expressed it.
"You're consultin', I see," she said, taking in the situation at aglance: the dismal room, the depressive and tearful cheeks of the twogirls, the lack of comfort and cheer. She twitched open the stove dooras she passed, threw in a stick of wood, twirled the damper, and gave abrisk, rattling shake to the ashes,--all with a turn of her hand as itwere,--attentions to which the stove presently responded with a briskroar. "Well, it's time you did. I was planning to have a talk with youbefore long, for you ought to settle to something. Pull the blind down,Dely, and, Hetty, you light the lamp, and come to the fire, both ofyou, and let's see what we can make of it. It's a tangled skein enough,I don't deny it; but most skeins are that, and there's always a rightend somewhere, if the Lord'll give us sense enough to get hold of it andkeep on pulling out and winding up."
Presently the girls were seated close to Aunt Polly's rocking-chair. Theroom looked more cheerful now with the lamplight and the yellow glowfrom the stove, and both were conscious of a sense of hopefulness.
"Now--what _can_ you do?" demanded Aunt Polly, whirling round in herchair so as to face them.
"We hadn't got so far as that when you came in," replied Hetty; "Isuppose we must do what other people do in the same circumstances."
"What's that?"
"Teach something, or sew, I suppose."
"Sewing's slow starvation, in my opinion, unless you've got a machine,which you haven't, and not much better then. What do you know that youcan teach?"
"Not much," replied Hetty, humbly, while Delia added hesitatingly, "Wecould teach children their letters, perhaps."
"I presume you could," responded Aunt Polly, dryly. "But, though youmayn't know it, perhaps, there are about fifty women in this town can dothe same, and who mean to do it, what's more. And most of 'em have gotthe start of you in one way or another, so what's your chance worth? No,girls, sewing and teaching are played out. They are good things in theirway, but every woman who's got her living to earn thinks of them thevery first thing and of nothing else, and the market is alwaysoverstocked. My advice to you is, to _think up something you can dobetter than other people_--that's what gives folks a real chance! Now,what is there?"
"There isn't anything I can do better than other people," cried thedismayed Delia. "Nor Hetty either--except make gingerbread," she added,with a faint little laugh. "Hetty beats everybody at that, grandmotheralways said."
"Very well; make gingerbread then. That's your thing to do," said AuntPolly.
Hetty looked at her with incredulous eyes.
"You're not in earnest, are you?" she said.
"I am. In dead earnest."
"But, Aunt Polly, _gingerbread_! Such a little thing as that! Who everheard of a girl's doing such a thing?"
"All the better if they never did. A new trade has a double chance. Asfor the 'little,' great things often come from small beginnings.Fortunes have been made out of gingerbread before now, I'll be bound, orif not that, out of something no bigger. No, Hetty, depend upon it, ifyour gingerbread is _best_, folks will want it. And if your teaching orsewing is only second best, they won't. It's the law of human nature,and a very good law, too, though it cuts the wrong way sometimes, likeall laws."
"Aunt Polly, you're a genius!" cried Hetty, warmed into sudden glow bythis vigorous common sense. "I _can_ make good gingerbread, and it'sjust as you say, neither of us know enough to teach well, and we areboth poor hands at sewing, and we should have a much better chance if wetried to do what we can and not what we can't. Why shouldn't I makegingerbread? Dely'd help me, and if folks liked our things and boughtthem, we could live and keep together. We could make a kind of shop ofthis room, couldn't we? What do you think?"
"'Tisn't a bad place for such a trade," said Aunt Polly, slowly,measuring the room with her eyes. "Being on a corner is an advantage,you see; and there's that double winder on the street gives a first-ratechance to show what you've got to sell. I never did see no use in thatwinder before. My father, he had it cut for a kind of a whim like, andwe all thought it was notional in him; but, as they say, keep a thinglong enough and a use'll turn up. It's a sort of a gain for you, too,having the house so old-fashioned. Folks has a hankering for suchthings, nowadays--the Lord knows why. I hear 'em going on about it whenI'm out tailorin', calling ugly things 'quaint,' and lovely, becausethey're old. Hetty,"--with sudden inspiration,--"here's an idea for you,be 'quaint'! Don't try for a shop, keep the room a room, and make it asold-fashioned-looking as you can, and I'll bet a cookie that yourgingerbread'll be twice as p
opular with one set of folks, and if it'sfirst-rate gingerbread, the other set who don't care for old things willlike it just as well."
What a bracing thing is a word in season! Aunt Polly's little seed ofsuggestion grew and spread like Jack's fabled bean-stalk.
"Your light biscuits always turn out well," said Delia.
"And my snaps. Grandmother liked them so much. And you're a good hand atloaf bread, you know. Aunt Polly--I seem to smell a fortune in the air.We will begin at once, just as soon as I can get a half-barrel of flourand put an advertisement in the paper."
Hetty had a ready wit, and Aunt Polly's hint as to "quaintness" was notlost upon her. The advertisement when it appeared the next day but oneran thus:--
"After Monday next, the Old-Time Bakery, corner of Farewell and MartinStreets, will be prepared to furnish, to order, fresh bread, buns,biscuits, and grandmother's gingerbread, all home-made."
People smiled over the little notice, but the odd wording stuck in theirmemories as odd things will, and more than one person went out of hisway during the next week to take a look into the wide, low window,within which, on a broad, napkin-covered shelf, stood rows of biscuits,light and white, buns, each glazed with shining umber-brown, and loavesof gingerbread whose complexion and smell were enough to vouch fortheir excellence. Acting on Aunt Polly's suggestion, Hetty had set forthher wares on plates of the oldest and oddest pattern which could befound in grandmother's closet. A queer, tall pitcher flanked them oneither side, and round the window-frame she had twined the long,luxuriant shoots of a potted ivy. Altogether the effect was pretty, andno one need be told that the pitchers had for years been consecrated tothe reception of yeast and corks, or that the plates had long since beenrelegated to kitchen use as too shabby for better occasions.
"Hain't ye no white chany?" inquired their first customer, an old woman,as she slowly counted out the pennies for half a dozen biscuit. "Itwould kind of set your cakes off."
"We used what we had," replied Hetty, diplomatically. "But I hope yourbiscuits'll taste just as good as if they came off a white plate."
This old woman, two others, and a little boy were the only customersthat first day.
"'Tisn't a bit a good beginning," declared Delia, pouring the moneyreceived out of an old-fashioned china tea-caddy which Hetty hadunearthed in an up-stairs closet and brought down to serve as a till."Two dozen biscuits, that's twenty-four cents, a loaf of gingerbread,and about half the buns. That's fifty-three cents in all. What did yousay the materials cost?"
"About seventy cents. But then we have our supper and breakfast out ofthem, and nearly half the stock to sell at a reduced rate to-morrow. Weshan't lose anything, I reckon, but we shan't gain much either."
"Rome wasn't built all in a minute. You'll do yet," remarked Aunt Polly,who had dropped in to hear the result of the first day's sales.
But two days--three--a week, went by, and still trade did not materiallyimprove, and it took all Aunt Polly's wise saws and hopeful auguries tokeep their spirits up. Each day showed the same record, no loss, butalmost no gain. Toward the end of the second week matters mended. Mrs.Corliss, the wife of a wealthy manufacturer, having an errand inFarewell Street, happened to pass the little window, and herbric-a-brac-loving eyes were caught at once by its unusual appearance.She stopped, studied the whole arrangement from the ivy wreath to theold pitchers; a recollection of the droll little advertisement overwhich she had laughed a few days previously, came over her. "I declare,this is the very place," she said to herself; and opening the door sheentered, precisely as Hetty came from the kitchen through the oppositedoor, a handkerchief tied over her shiny hair, a white apron with alittle ruffled waist protecting her print gown, her cheeks flushed rosypink with heat, and in her hands a tray full of crisp, delectablysmelling ginger-snaps.
"A real study--like a Flemish picture," Mrs. Corliss said afterward. Shefell in love at once with the quaint room, the pretty sisters, the oldchina, stayed twenty minutes nibbling ginger-snaps and looking abouther, bought a dollar's worth of everything, "on trial," as she said, andswept out, leaving a wake of rose-colored hope in the air--and Delia andHetty executing a wild waltz behind her back, for joy and gratulation.
"Luck has turned--I know, I feel it," declared Hetty.
Luck _had_ turned. Mrs. Corliss raved to everybody she knew about theroom, the twin-sisters, and the excellence of the gingerbread. It becamea fashion to go to Farewell Street for buns and biscuits. Hetty andDelia had to work early and late to fill their orders, but what was that"to sewing their fingers off for a bare living"? Hetty said; and toilwas sweetened now by a gradually increasing profit. At the end of thefirst six months they had not only "lived and kept together," but had alittle sum laid by, which, as Aunt Polly advised, was treated as"business capital," part of it being invested in the purchase of anawning for the window and an extra stove to increase their bakingcapacity. Very rarely were there any stale things left now to be soldnext day at half-price, the regular orders and chance custom consumingall.
"We shall have to hire a boy to carry things round, I actually believe,"declared Hetty. "Mrs. Malcomb and Mrs. Sayres both said that they wouldorder our bread regularly if we could send it home."
"I've been expecting that would be the next step," remarked Aunt Polly,"and I guess I've got just the boy you want, in my eye. It's WidowMcCullen's lad--Sandy, as they call him. He's a good little chap, andit'll be a real help to his mother to have him earning a trifle."
So Sandy McCullen was regularly engaged as "bread-boy," and businessgrew brisker still.
"Aunt Polly, we've got to another notch," said Hetty, at the end of thefirst year. "You don't happen to know of a girl, do you, who could helpus in the baking? Delia and I can't keep up with the orders. She gets sotired every now and then that she can't sleep, and that worries me sothat I lie awake, too."
"That'll never answer; no, I don't know of any girl, but there's a nicekind of an oldish woman, if she'll do, that I'd like to recommend.Yes--I mean myself," she went on, chuckling at Hetty's amazed look."It's come to me more than once lately that it'd be sort of good andrestful to make a change, and not go on tailorin' forever, all the restof my days. I used to be a master hand at bread and pie-crust, too, whenI was your age, and I've a little saved up which can go with thebusiness if it's needed; and, if you girls say so, we'll just make akind of family firm of the thing. How does it strike you?"
"Oh, Aunt Polly, the very thing, only it seems too good to be true. Doyou really mean it? We did so hate the idea of a raw girl to whom weshould have to teach everything, and who would spoil half she made forthe first month, and I've fought it off as long as I could. Why, it willbe like having grandmother come back, to have you living with us.There's the west room all ready. Dear me! How delightfully things seemto turn out for us always!"
"That wasn't your view always, it seems to me," rejoined Aunt Polly. "Ayear ago you was pretty down in the mouth, if I don't mistake.Gingerbread is good for something, you see."
"The Old-Time Bakery" still goes on in Farewell Street, but it has grownfar beyond its original proportions. If you were to visit it to-day youwould find a room double the size of the former, and which has been madeby taking down a partition wall between the sitting-room and a sparebedroom and throwing them into one. There are two windows on the streetnow, one full of bread, biscuits, and buns, the other stored withHetty's now famous gingerbread, and with delicious-looking pumpkin-piesand apple-tarts with old-fashioned flaky crust, which are Aunt Polly'sspecialty and have added greatly to the reputation of the establishment.Still it is not a shop. Hetty, with wary good taste, has scrupulouslypreserved the "quaint" look which first gave character to the littleenterprise, and by judicious rummaging in neighbors' garrets hasacquired sundry old-time chairs, bottles, jugs, and platters, which helpin the effect. Everything is scrupulously clean and bright, as allthings must be where Aunt Polly supervises; but the brightest things inthe room are the faces of the twin sisters. They have tested and provedthei
r powers; they know now what they can do, and they taste thehappiness of success.
I tell their little story, in which is nothing remarkable or out of theway, for the sake of other girls, who, perhaps, are sitting to-day withfolded hands and puzzling and wondering, just as Hetty and Delia did,over what they are to do and how to set about it. I do not mean at allthat these girls should all make gingerbread--that indeed would be"overstocking the market," as Aunt Polly would say, but only that theyshould hearken to her word of wisdom, "find out what they can do _best_,and do that," whatever it is, secure that good work, and hearty strivingwill win some measure of success soon or late, even if its beginningsare small and insignificant as a gingerbread loaf or a batch ofbiscuit!