They had worked like slaves, according to Nancy, while Ted insisted he was too tired even to eat.

“But it’s going to be a grand success,” promised Ruth. “I can hardly wait until morning for the doors to open.”

“Sale now going on!” chanted Isabel, a friend of Ruth’s, who had come in to help. “Ladies and gentlemen! Step this way for your fish lines!” she called out, testing the possibilities of the next day’s special sale. “Here’s where you get your fish-hooks that never slip, and your tackle that always tacks, and as for sinkers—”

“You’ll sink, first shot,” Ruth interrupted, from her perch on the stepladder, where she was waving a Japanese lantern as if that flimsy article had anything to do with fishing tackle.

“Oh say! Look here! Who took my best reel?” cried Ted. “I want that for myself. It was in a dollar box—”

“Then it’s got to be sold,” called back Nancy. She was sitting on the counter counting fish lines, a dozen to each box.

“Sold nothing!” retorted Ted. “I’d like to know why I can’t have the best—”

“You can, Teddy dear,” Ruth told him. “You have been a perfect lamb to help us all afternoon, and I never did see two legs do more trotting than yours have done since Nancy locked the front doors and put us all to work like prisoners. You may certainly have the reel, and there’s a wonderful pole back of the empty cigar boxes—there on that first shelf. See it? It’s in a gray case—”

“Ruth Ashley! Whose store is this?” Nancy pretended to be very severe but her jolly little laugh filtered through the words in giggles and titters. “If you are going to give things away, why not start in with the perishables? There’s a basket of apples, Ted himself bought out of the general fund, and unless they can be sold as bait, I don’t see what we’re going to do with them.” She had counted out all the fish lines and was resting against the old-time candy glass case, now neatly filled with post cards and stationery supplies.

They had had a merry time getting the Whatnot Shop ready for the first special sale, and girl-like, had expended a lot of energy upon pretty effects in the arrangements of articles. Mrs. Brandon “chipped in” as Ted expressed it, and Nancy was able to supplement her stock considerably. She had also made a very attractive poster for the big front window, in fact, it was so attractive that Ruth put another sign right alongside of it which stated:

“We always sell our charity posters,” she insisted, “and they are never as pretty as this. Just look at that fish. What is he, Nancy? A cat-fish or a pickerel?”

“I’m totally ignorant of the varieties,” replied Nancy grandly. “But I like the flecks on his back so I made him up flecked.”

“The fellows will be here awfully early,” Ted warned the girls, “so you better be ready to sell, quick as the door’s opened.”

“We’ll be here,” sang out Ruth. “And Ted, be sure to tell them this is a strictly cash sale. No charging and no refunds. If you buy a fish pole and find it’s a curtain rod you’ve got to go fishing with the curtain rod. Nancy, here’s those fancy little colored bags to fool the poor fish with. Where do you want them put? Some place very safe, for they’re easily broken, you know,” Ruth cautioned.

“Right here in the show case,” Nancy directed. “They’re too cute to be stuck away on a shelf. Ted, you better run off and have some fun. I don’t want mother to think we’ve been stunting your growth. You know how particular she is about exercise.”

“Exercise!” repeated Isabel. “As if the poor child hasn’t been stretching every muscle to its utmost all afternoon. Take my advice, Ted, and lie down. I’ll make an ice bag out of an old bathing cap—”

But Ted was not waiting to hear Isabel’s kind, if foolish, offer. His merry shout as he rounded the corner, however, spoke decidedly against ice bags as well as couches.

“Let’s quit,” suggested Nancy. “Honestly girls, I thought housework was tedious, but I can’t see much difference. I believe I’ll be winding fish lines all night, I’ve got them tangled in my brain.”

“Then you’re the one for the ice bags,” pronounced Isabel. “I love to make them and I love to put them on pretty heads. Here Ruth, let’s put her on the couch. I think she looks a bit feverish.”

Kicking and protesting Nancy was forced to get down from “her perch,” and stretch out on the little leather couch in a favorite corner of the sun porch. Then, while Ruth literally held her there, Isabel cracked ice, put it in a green rubber bathing cap, that leaked like a sieve, tied it up most imperfectly, and presently clapped it on Nancy’s head.

“Oh, please! It’s leaking! I’m all wet. Isabel, you’re freezing my—my thinker!” yelled Nancy, as she struggled to free herself from her playful companions.

“That’s the idea,” replied Isabel. “We’ve got to freeze your thinker to make you forget your fish lines. Here now, dearie,” she mocked “lie perfectly still—”

“You’re spoiling my pretty new gown,” yelled Nancy, referring to the oldest and most faded gown she could find that morning, in preparation for the extra work.

But Isabel held the bag in the general direction of Nancy’s forehead, while little icy cold streams tinkled down her neck and into her ears. Ruth served as body guard, and almost kept Nancy on the couch, her feet, arms, and other “loose ends” hanging over untidily.

The store bell was jerked suddenly and violently.

“Oh me, oh my!” groaned Nancy, jumping up so as to smash the ice bag to the floor, cut its string loose and send the remaining chunks of ice flying. “I can’t go. Ruth, will you—”

“Love to,” chanted Ruth, starting off promptly.

“Look at the puddle,” bewailed Isabel, but Nancy interrupted her.

“No one, simply no one can come in to-day. Do run out, Belle and restrain Ruth. Just listen to her sweetest tones—”

Isabel went. She liked to “'tend store” and each possible customer represented to her, as well as to Ruth, a possible adventure.

“No, I’m not the proprietor,” Nancy heard Ruth saying.

“No, she really can’t see you,” was Isabel’s contribution.

A man’s voice, full, rich, persuasive, was speaking in so low a tone that his words did not convey meaning to the listening Nancy.

She listened! She crept nearer, and finally realizing that both Ruth and Isabel were not being able to dismiss the stranger, she attempted to right her rumpled self, to pat the unruly hair into place, and not knowing that her forehead looked like a beefsteak from the ice freeze, she sauntered out into the store.

“This is Miss Brandon,” announced Ruth as she entered. “She is the proprietor.”

Nancy found herself in the presence of a very important looking young man. His Panama hat was on the counter, his suitcase was on the floor, and he stood in the most attentive, courteous attitude, bowing as if she were meeting him in a reception room.

“I’ve heard of your store, Miss Brandon,” he said. “In fact, its fame has travelled far and wide, and I’m here representing a Boston firm of sporting goods. I would like you to see—”

“Really,” faltered Nancy, “this is only sort of a play store. We are doing it for a vacation experience.”

“Exactly the thing,” insisted the young man, who was not polite to the point of affectation but simply polite as a gentleman. “I know this territory pretty well, and you will possibly be surprised at the class of customers who will, doubtless, seek you out. The motor people come along here from Gretna Lake. There’s good fishing on that lake, and fishing supplies have a way of giving out suddenly when the inexperienced handle them. If you will let me—” he was tackling the suitcase.

“But you see,” protested Nancy, much embarrassed, “I really have no authority to—buy. Mother is not here—”

“You assume no obligation,” insisted the man. “As this is your store we are glad, in fact anxious, to leave you a sample line. If you sell them you make a very fair commission, if you do not I pick them up and try something else on my next trip.”

He opened the case, and presently was displaying a bewildering line of such fishing tackle and general sport supplies as Nancy had never dreamed of. Ruth and Isabel were fascinated. They suggested, in spite of their better judgment, that Nancy stock up with the pretty little trout flies, the feathery kind tied to fish hooks. Then Ruth thought they ought to have at least one box of the dry flies, the sort that floats without the hook, and before they knew it the salesman had deposited upon the counter, goods worth so much money, that Nancy could only gasp at the transaction.

“But I haven’t any place—”

“This little case, if I may suggest,” said the salesman, “is admirably suited. You could move your cards to the far end, couldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” chimed in Ruth, “and Nancy, just see the lovely window card!” She was holding up a big folder that had been neatly packed in, folded in sections, within the suitcase. “Why, it will be wonderful to have such goods, and I’m sure the summer folks from Breakneck Hill will just buy us out as soon as they hear we have such splendid stuff.”

“I think you are right,” replied the salesman. “But as you seem doubtful, Miss Brandon, I’ll return later and talk with your mother, if you wish.”

Nancy considered quickly. Her mother should not be annoyed with such details; also, the special sale was to be a matter left entirely with the girls and Ted. He was claiming and entitled to a share in certain articles. So she answered:

“I don’t think that will be necessary. Mother won’t object, I guess, if I don’t have to sign anything—”

“Nothing whatever,” she was assured.

“But how did you find out about us?” asked Isabel. “This is such a tiny store and it is on the back road, really.”

“The tiny store on the back road with the quaint name Whatnot Shop is more attractive than a big public place,” replied the salesman. He had handed Nancy his card and she saw that his name was W. S. Webster. “As a matter of fact, one of our firm was passing here in his car, and he left me the memorandum. But I’ve heard of the special sale of fishing tackle out on the Long Leigh road from perhaps a half dozen persons.”

The girls gasped, simultaneously. They were overwhelmed. If their fame had thus travelled afar, what would the day of the sale bring them?

“Very well,” stammered Nancy, trying once again to keep her wet dress out from her neck while she worried over the effect of that besprinkled garment. “I’ll be glad to do what I can with the goods, but really, I had no idea of going in for such, such important articles.”

“If you will let me say so,” remarked Mr. Webster in a gentlemanly way, “I think you girls have the right idea. So many putter around with art stuff these days, that they don’t realize the big chances they are missing in business. Some of America’s brainiest women are heads of our wholesale firms, and they make more money than movie queens,” he finished pleasantly.

When he was finally gone and the door well bolted this time, the three girls joined hands and danced around like a kindergarten class.

“Me for the movie queen!” sang out Isabel. “You, Nance and Ruthie, can sell fish hooks. Just watch this pose and see if I couldn’t pass in a beauty contest—”

There was a racket, a very noisy one, at the side door.

“It’s Ted!” exclaimed Nancy, apprehensively.

“And he’s got a crowd with him.”

“They can’t come in,” Nancy declared. “We are not going to show goods or take any advance orders.”

“Oh me, oh my!” cried Ruth. “No wonder the fine looking drummer said that the brainiest girls in America were in business.”

“He didn’t,” contradicted Nancy. “He said women.”

“Very well, Nancy. Just you wait. Go sit down on a big stump in the woods and wait. By and by you’ll be a woman.”

Then, in spite of all their eloquence, in marched Ted heading a parade of the “fellers.” And what could Nancy do but show them the arrangements.