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Fame’s Little Day
by
“I guess I shall put on my other dress,” said Mrs. Pinkham, rising, with quite a different air from that with which she had sat down to her morning meal. “This one looks a little out o’ style, as Sarah said, but when I got up this mornin’ I was so homesick it didn’t seem to make any kind o’ difference. I expect that saucy girl last night took us to be nobodies. I’d like to leave the paper round where she couldn’t help seein’ it.”
“Don’t take any notice of her,” said Abel, in a dignified tone. “If she can’t do what you want an’ be civil, we’ll go somewheres else. I wish I’d done what we talked of at first an’ gone to the Astor House, but that young man in the cars told me ‘t was remote from the things we should want to see. The Astor House was the top o’ everything when I was here last, but I expected to find some changes. I want you to have the best there is,” he said, smiling at his wife as if they were just making their wedding journey. “Come, let’s be stirrin’; ‘t is long past eight o’clock,” and he ushered her to the door, newspaper in hand.
II.
Later that day the guests walked up Broadway, holding themselves erect, and feeling as if every eye was upon them. Abel Pinkham had settled with his correspondents for the spring consignments of maple sugar, and a round sum in bank bills was stowed away in his breast pocket. One of the partners had been a Wetherford boy, so when there came a renewal of interest in maple sugar, and the best confectioners were ready to do it honor, the finest quality being at a large premium, this partner remembered that there never was any sugar made in Wetherford of such melting and delicious flavor as from the trees on the old Pinkham farm. He had now made a good bit of money for himself on this private venture, and was ready that morning to pay Mr. Abel Pinkham cash down, and to give him a handsome order for the next season for all he could make. Mr. Fitch was also generous in the matter of such details as freight and packing; he was immensely polite and kind to his old friends, and begged them to come out and stay with him and his wife, where they lived now, in a not far distant New Jersey town.
“No, no, sir,” said Mr. Pinkham promptly. “My wife has come to see the city, and our time is short. Your folks’ll be up this summer, won’t they? We’ll wait an’ visit then.”
“You must certainly take Mrs. Pinkham up to the Park,” said the commission merchant. “I wish I had time to show you round myself. I suppose you’ve been seeing some things already, haven’t you? I noticed your arrival in the ‘Herald.'”
“The ‘Tribune’ it was,” said Mr. Pinkham, blushing through a smile and looking round at his wife.
“Oh no; I never read the ‘Tribune,'” said Mr. Fitch. “There was quite an extended notice in my paper. They must have put you and Mrs. Pinkham into the ‘Herald’ too.” And so the friends parted, laughing. “I am much pleased to have a call from such distinguished parties,” said Mr. Fitch, by way of final farewell, and Mr. Pinkham waved his hand grandly in reply.
“Let’s get the ‘Herald,’ then,” he said, as they started up the street. “We can go an’ sit over in that little square that we passed as we came along, and rest an’ talk things over about what we’d better do this afternoon. I’m tired out a-trampin’ and standin’. I’d rather have set still while we were there, but he wanted us to see his store. Done very well, Joe Fitch has, but ‘t ain’t a business I should like.”