Booth Tarkington

“ Moreover, the mystery of what they had done in the barber-shop and in the harness-shop was actually dismaying; they were his colleagues in age and his inferiors in sex; and yet all upon a sudden, this morning, they appeared to deal upon the adult plane and to have business with strange grown people. Laurence was unwilling to give them the slightest ground for a conceited supposition that he took any interest in them, or their doings, but he made up his mind that if they went into another shop, he would place himself in a position to observe what they did, even at the risk of their seeing him. ”

“ A child is a player, and an actor is a player; and both “play” in almost the same sense—the essential difference being that the child’s art is instinctive, so that he is not so conscious of just where reality begins and made-up drama ends. Daisy and Elsie were now representing and exaggerating their two mothers, with a dash of aunt thrown in; they felt that they were the grown people they played they were ”

“ Daisy said, “I jus’ never get a minute to myself. Even my shopping, it’s all for the fam’ly.”
“So’s mine,” Elsie said promptly. “Mine’s every single bit for the fam’ly, an’ I never, never get through.”
“Well, look at me!” Daisy exclaimed, her hands fluttering in movements she believed to be illustrative of the rush she lived in. “My fam’ly keep me on the run from the minute I get up till after I go to bed. I declare I don’t get time to say my prayers! To-day I thought I might get a little rest for once in my life. But no! ”

“ I never get time to even sit down, my dear!”
Daisy shook her head ruefully. “Well, goodness knows the last time I sat down, my dear!” she said. “My fam’ly say I got to take some rest, but how can I, with all this terrable shopping to do?”
“Oh, my dear!” Elsie exclaimed. “Why, my dear, I haven’t sat down since Christmus!”
Thus they enacted a little drama, improvising the dialogue, for of course every child is both playwright and actor, and spends most of his time acting in scenes of his own invention—which is one reason that going to school may be painful to him ”

“ She came out to the sidewalk, and the two turned toward the city’s central quarter of trade, walking quickly and talking with an accompaniment of many little gestures. “I rilly don’t know how I do it all,” said Elsie, assuming a care-worn air. “I got so much shopping to do an’ everything, my fam’ly all say they wonder I don’t break down an’ haf to go to a sanitanarian or somep’m because I do so much.”
“Oh, it’s worse’n that with me, my dear!” said Daisy. “I declare I doe’ know how I do live through it all! Every single day, it’s like this: I haf to go shopping all day long, my dear!” ”

“ Laurence whispered.
He followed them; but now his lips moved not at all, and there was no mumbling in his throat. He stared at them amazedly, in a great mental silence.
“What wears me out the most,” Daisy said, as they came into their own purlieus again, “it’s this shopping, shopping, shopping, and they never have one single thing!”
“No, they don’t,” Elsie agreed. “Not a thing! It just wears me out!”
“F’instance,” Daisy continued, “look at how they acted in that las’ place when I wanted to see some orstrich feathers. Just said ‘What!’ about seven hundred times! ”

“ His feeling about them was indefinite and hazy; yet it was certainly a feeling incredulous but awed, such as any one might have about people well known to him, who suddenly appear to be possessed of supernatural powers. “Honest, d’you b’lieve there’s a blind tiger in there?” he asked of the man who had confirmed the strange information.
“Sure!”
“Honest, is one in there? Do you honest——”
But no one paid him any further attention. ”

“ Daisy explained. “You an’ grandma an’ Aunt Clara, you always keep sayin’, ‘I believe I’ll go shopping.’ I want to, too.”
“What would you do?”
“Why, I’d go shopping the way you do. I’d walk in a store an’ say: ‘Have you got any unb’eached muslin? Oh, I thought this’d be only six cents a yard! Haven’t you got anything nicer?’ Everything like that. I know, mamma. I know any amount o’ things to say when I go shopping. Can’t I go shopping, mamma?”
“Yes, of course,” her mother said, smiling. “You can pretend our big walnut tree is a department store and shop all you want.” ”

“ Daisy inquired. “I mean all about Henry’s class an’ usin’ her mouth so full freely. Who was?”
“Run out!” the barber shouted. “Run out!”
“Well, I declare!” Daisy exclaimed, as she and Elsie followed his suggestion and emerged from the shop. “It’s just this same way whenever I go shopping! I never can find the things I want; they act almos’ like they don’t care whether they keep ’em or not.”
“It’s dreadful!” Elsie agreed, and, greatly enjoying the air of annoyance they were affecting, they proceeded on their way. No one would have believed them aware that they were being followed ”

“ As for an “ottomatick” or a “revolaver,” he knew that neither maiden would touch such a thing, for he had heard them express their aversion to the antics of Robert Eliot, on an occasion when Master Eliot had surreptitiously borrowed his father’s “good ole six-shooter” to disport himself with in the Threamers’ garage. ”

“ The man’s became a squawk as another explosion took place; he added an incomplete Scriptural glossary in falsetto; and Elsie began to be nervous.
“That’s awful big firecrackers they’re usin’,” she said. “I guess we ought to go home, Daisy.”
“Oh, they’re just kind of quarrellin’ or somep’m,” Daisy explained, not at all disturbed. “If you listen up our alley, you can hear coloured people talkin’ like that lots o’ times. They do this way, an’ they settle down again, or else they’re only in fun. But I do wish these people’d come, because I just haf to finish my shopping!” ”

“ I haf to go shopping!”
“So do I, my dear! I haf to look at—— Well, what do you haf to look at when we go in the stores?”
“Me? I haf to look at everything! There isn’t a thing left in our house. I haf to look at doilies, an’ all kinds embrawdries, an’ some aperns for the servants, an’ taffeta, an’ two vases for the liberry mantelpice, an’ some new towerls, an’ kitchen-stove-polish, an’ underwear, an’ oilcloth, an’ lamp-shades, an’ some orstrich feathers for my blue vevvut hat. An’ then I got to get some——”
“Oh, my dear! I got more’n that I haf to look at,” Elsie interrupted. ”

“ A man owes it to himself not to git no forty-four in his gizzard by takin’ and pushin’ into a place where somebody’s usin’ a forty-four. A man owes it to himself to keep out o’ trouble unless he’s got some call to take and go bullin’ into it ”

“ Laurence said, speaking louder. “I want to ast you somep’m.”
“‘Dess lem me tell you, if you fixin’ show me some class,’” the barber went on; “‘if you fixin’ show me some class,’ I say. ‘Dess lem me tell you if——’”
“Listen!” Laurence insisted. “I want to ast you somep’m.”
For a moment the barber ceased to manipulate his customer and gave Laurence a look of disapproval. “Listen me, boy!” he said. “Nex’ time you flatten you’ face on nat window you don’ haf to breave on nat glass, do you? Ain’ you’ folks taught you no better’n go roun’ dirtyin’ up nice clean window?” ”