Chapter III: A Rude Shopkeeper

“I hope the beaver dam holds better than that one just above Roulsville,” Holly commented as they started off again. “We have to pass it on the way to school. I remember how it was last term. The boys and girls in the school bus quiet down fast if they happen to glance out the window and see those big pieces of broken concrete. A lot of them lost their homes when that dam broke, just the way you did, Judy. Did you go back afterwards to see if anything could be saved?”

“We went back too late, I guess. We didn’t find much of anything. There’s always some looting after a big disaster like that. People are too interested in making sure all their loved ones are safe to worry about their possessions.” Judy paused. She had been younger than Holly was now when the Bolton family’s home in Roulsville had been swept away in the flood, but it still hurt to think about it.

“Dad had to treat a lot of people for shock,” she continued as they drove past the Post Office, where Peter’s office was, and entered the outskirts of Farringdon. “Our house was turned over and one wall smashed in. I guess the furniture just floated away.”

“It would have to float somewhere, wouldn’t it?” Holly questioned.

“I suppose it would, but we never found it. Grandma wanted us to take some of her things,” Judy remembered, “but we thought it would be better to leave her house the way it was and buy everything new. Of course we couldn’t replace the beautiful fruitwood bench Dad had in his reception room or the lady table. That was a lovely period piece that had been in the Bolton family for generations.”

“What period?” asked Holly, who was something of an expert on antique furniture. She once had lived with a cousin who collected antique glassware.

“Empire, I believe.”

“Empire furniture is valuable. Usually it’s pretty solid, too. Why did you call it the lady table?” Holly wanted to know.

“That’s the name I gave it when I was a little girl. There were ladies carved on the legs. They held the marble table top on their heads. They had such quiet, patient faces.”

Now Judy was thinking back in spite of herself.

It had been exciting, furnishing the so-called Haunted House in Farringdon and exposing its “ghosts.” New furniture had been bought, and a few good antiques had been discovered in out-of-the-way shops. Dr. Bolton’s massive oak desk was one such piece. Judy’s dresser with the secret drawer was another. Buying it all by herself had been a real adventure. Only gradually had she come to realize their loss.

Judy’s thoughts broke off as she suddenly stopped the car. They had been driving through a small town to the north of Farringdon. A dingy row of gray houses lined the road. Some of their porches had been sheared off in order to widen the highway, and some had been made into shops. Judy had noticed one of the signs:

H. SAMMIS
Antiques, Used Furniture Bought and Sold

“And there’s a green car in the driveway!” exclaimed Holly. “Oh, Judy! Luck is with us after all. That boy may be inside right now trying to sell my typewriter!”

“Maybe it’s still in the car. Let’s have a look,” Judy suggested.

She parked the Beetle right behind the green car, blocking the driveway. No one seemed to be around so Judy and Holly carefully examined the interior.

“Empty! He’s probably trying to sell it. Come on inside,” Holly urged, pulling Judy along with her.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. He can’t get out while we’re parked there, and I want to take down his license number! There!” Judy announced when she had it. “Now we’ll go in like any other customers and pretend we want to buy something.”

“A typewriter!” agreed Holly. “We’ll just ask. Then, if we see mine, we’ll call the police.”

Judy shook her head. She didn’t think it would be that easy, but she was willing to go along with Holly just for the adventure. “If we don’t find your typewriter,” she told her, “we may find some old cards for my collection. Anyway, it will do no harm to go in and look around.”

“Look at all the lovely old glassware in the windows,” Holly pointed out as they walked around to the front of the shop. “There’s a blue glass hen just like the one Cousin Cleo has in her collection. And look at those chalkware lambs and that beautiful luster cream pitcher!”

Inside the shop it was hard to move around because of all the old furniture crowded into every inch of floor space. Judy had to move a chair to reach the cream pitcher Holly had admired. Before she could touch it, a voice barked at her.

“Careful there! You’ll have to pay for anything you break.”

“I have no intention of breaking anything,” replied Judy. “I just wanted to see that luster cream pitcher.”

“That’s eighty dollars!”

“Oh dear! I guess I don’t want it then. We really came in to look at typewriters. You do sell typewriters, don’t you?” Judy asked, looking around the shop to see if the driver of the green car had come in.

“New ones,” Holly added. Her typewriter was almost new.

“You came to the wrong place for a new typewriter. We sell anything and everything so long as it’s old.” The shopkeeper, a stout, balding man, looked at the two girls as if he considered them slightly stupid.

“I meant—almost new,” Holly stammered.

“Are you Mr. Sammis? Will you let us see what you have, please?” Judy asked.

He showed them a row of ancient typewriters in the back of the shop. They were all of the same make, and all were equally old and dusty.

“There aren’t any others?” Holly’s voice held disappointment.

“No, that’s all we have.”

His tone of voice plainly told the girls he wished they’d go, but Judy wasn’t ready to leave until she had done a little more exploring.

“I’m collecting old cards and calendars for a library exhibit,” she explained. “Do you have anything I can use?”

“In the box over there. But don’t be all day looking them over. Your car’s parked right in front of mine.”

Mr. Sammis had just seen it through the window.

“Oh, is that your car?” Judy asked innocently. “We saw a boy driving it this morning.”

“Impossible!” he snorted. “It’s been parked right where it is all day.”

Judy and Holly looked at each other. They could have made a mistake. Green cars were common, just as Horace had said. The typewriter wasn’t in the shop, and neither was the boy who had been seen driving a green car. Voices came from the upper floor, but they were indistinct. Then, suddenly, something was dropped with a loud thud. Holly jumped.

“My wife,” Mr. Sammis explained. “She’s always dropping things. Did you find anything you want?”

“Not yet,” Judy replied. She and Holly had been looking through the box of old cards. Near the bottom Judy found a little booklet marked _School Souvenir_.

“Here’s something for the September exhibit,” she said as she opened it.

“But that’s for the close of school,” Holly objected, reading over her shoulder. The illuminated verse read:

Oh! Swift the time has fled away
As fleeting as the rose
Since school began its opening day
Till now its day of close.

The verse was followed by the name of the teacher and pupils in some long-ago country school. Hugh Sammis was one of the names.

“Is this for sale?” Judy asked, sure he wouldn’t want to part with it.

He laughed, an unpleasant sort of laugh as if he were making fun of her. “It’s junk. I was going to throw it out. You can have it for a quarter.”

“I’ll take it then,” Judy decided. “It’s for the beginning of school, too,” she pointed out as she and Holly made their way back to the front of the shop.

“Careful there!” Mr. Sammis warned again.

It was his own elbow that knocked over the little table with the claw feet, but he looked at Judy as if she had done it. One foot with a claw clutching a glass ball fell to the floor. He picked it up and waved it in Judy’s face.

“Now see what you’ve done,” he charged unreasonably. “I told you you’d have to pay for anything you broke. Young people nowadays are all alike. Careless, blundering fools, the lot of them. Come in here for junk and break up my best furniture! This table is fragile—”

“I can see it is,” Judy interrupted. “The claw fell off because the table leg was already broken. I can see where it’s been glued. The top is warped, too. It looks as if it had been left out in the rain.”

“What if it was? Where else could I leave it when the roadmakers took half my house? I won’t charge you much for it. Only fifteen dollars.”

“Fifteen dollars! What are you talking about, Mr. Sammis? I’ll never pay for a table I didn’t break,” Judy declared with indignation.

“You won’t, eh? We’ll see about that. You’re Dr. Bolton’s daughter, aren’t you? I’ll just send him a bill for twenty dollars,” the shopkeeper announced with a satisfied chuckle. “Then, if he won’t pay his bill, I won’t pay mine.”

“But that isn’t fair!” Judy cried, her gray eyes blazing.

“No? Then I’ll make it twenty-five.”

“Let’s go before he puts the price any higher,” Holly urged, pulling at Judy’s arm.