Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WHITE BONNET When Susanna Poyner found herself alone in middle age with a tiny cottage of her own and an income to match, she got Christopher Ellery, the carpenter, to run a couple of shelves across the window of the best room. On these she arranged some packets of minor groceries, three or four bottles of sweets, a card of sham jewellery, and a pyramid of oranges, and so took her first timid dip in the great ocean of commerce. The splash she made was almost inaudible; the ripple of interest it spread around was of the faintest. A dozen windows in the village displayed a similar array of dusty bottles and packets, and the jesting stranger has been known to ask if the inhabitants had no other way of supporting themselves than by selling one another baking- powder and acid drops. Susanna herself was modest enough in her aspirations.
You see, she said to Christopher, as hehammered away,
I ben’t what you may call a laborious woman, but I can’t endure to be twiddling my thumbs all day; nor I ben’t no gossip, but I do like a bit of company; nor I ben’t no money-grubber, but I can’t support nature on kettle-broth, and sixpence a day won’t bring me much else. So there ‘tis: something to do, and somebody coming in now and again, and something gained by the end of the week, if 'tis only fourpence to buy half a pound of butcher’s meat for Sunday?that’s all I look for. Tisn’ much, Christopher ?
I’ve knowed people to look for more, admitted Christopher, twinkling.
Should think you might safely reckon ‘pon fourpence, or even fivepence, taking one week with another. Not all to once, you know. It take some time to work up a trade, b'lieve.
So much competition !
sighed Susanna.
There’s Mrs. Woon across the way. She don’t need to keep no shop, with her husband arn…
