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So they passed Aunt Maria.

“Don’t go any farther, Aunt Maria,” Cynthia called, sobbingly, back to her. “You sit down on the wall and rest.”

But Aunt Maria shook her head, she could not speak, and kept on.

It was quarter-past three when they reached the Rose house and the store. The store was in the front of the house, and the Rose family occupied the rear portion. The house stood on a street corner, so a good deal of it was visible, and the whole establishment had a shut-up air; not a single farmer’s wagon stood before the store. However, as Mr. Lennox drove up, a woman’s head appeared at a window; then a side door opened, and she stood there. She had on a big apron, and her face was flushed as if she had been over the stove; she held a great wooden spoon, too. She began talking to the Lennoxes, but they paid no attention to her–their eyes were riveted upon the store door. There was a speck of white against its dark front, and suddenly it moved. It was Fidelia’s white tier.

“Why, there’s Fidelia!” gasped Cynthia. She jumped out, not waiting for her father to turn the wheel, and ran to the store door. The bandbox rolled out and the lid came off, and there was her wedding-bonnet in the dust, but she did not mind that. She caught Fidelia. “Oh, you naughty little girl, where have you been all this time?” cried she.

Fidelia’s eyes took on a bewildered stare, her mouth puckered more and more. She clung to her sister, and sobbed something that was quite inaudible. It was quite a time before her father and mother and Cynthia and Mrs. Rose, surrounding her with attention, could gather that the import of it all was that she had knocked and knocked and nobody had come to the door.

“Knocked!” gasped Mrs. Rose; “why, the poor little lamb! Here Mr. Rose and Sam have been away all day, an’ I’ve been makin’ currant-jell’ out in the kitchen. An’ there’s the bell on the counter, that customers always ring when there ain’t anybody round. I’ve been listenin’ for that all day. It’s been so hot, an’ everybody hayin’, that I don’t suppose a soul but her has been near the store since nine o’clock this mornin’, and there she’s stood an’ knocked. I never heard anything like it in my life. See here, Pussy, haven’t you been asleep?”

Fidelia shook her head in a sulky and down-cast manner, but there was a suspiciously flushed and creasy look about her, and they agreed that it was more than probable that a nap on the store steps had softened and shortened her vigil.

Mrs. Lennox had her up in the wagon on her lap. She took her Shaker bonnet off, and smoothed her hair and kissed her. “She thought she’d got to knock, I s’pose,” said she. “I ought to have told her she didn’t have to when she went to a store. Poor little soul! mother won’t send her to the store again till she’s bigger.”

“I knocked an’ knocked,” wailed Fidelia, piteously.

She looked cross and worn out. Mrs. Rose ran into the house, and brought out a plate of cookies and a mug of milk, and then Fidelia sat in her mother’s lap and ate and drank and felt comforted. But after the raisins had been finally purchased, Cynthia’s bonnet picked up out of the dust and shaken, the little squeaking wagon stowed under the seat of the buggy, and the team turned around, Fidelia set up a grievous and injured cry: “My candy! my candy! I ‘ain’t–got my candy!” And she held up to view the copper cent still clutched in her moist little fist.

“Poor little lamb, she shall have her candy!” cried Mrs. Rose. Fidelia had never seen such a handful of candy as Mrs. Rose brought out from the store. There was a twisted red-and-white stick of peppermint, pink checkerberry, clear barley–a stick of every kind in the glass jars in Mr. Rose’s store window. And Mrs. Rose would not take Fidelia’s one penny at all; she bade her keep it until she came to the store again.

Aunt Maria was almost up to the store when they left it, and it was decided that she should remain and make a call upon Mrs. Rose while Mr. Lennox carried the others home, then he would return for her. Aunt Maria folded her green umbrella and sank down on the door-step, and Mrs. Rose brought her a palm-leaf fan and a glass of ginger water. “I ‘ain’t walked a mile before for ten year,” gasped Aunt Maria; “but I’m so thankful that child’s safe that I can’t think of anything else.” There were tears in her eyes as she watched the wagon-load disappearing under the green branches of the elm-trees. And Fidelia, in her mother’s lap, rode along and sucked a stick of barley candy in silent bliss. Griefs in childhood soon turn to memories; straightway, as she sucked her barley candy, Fidelia’s long and painful vigil at the store door became a thing of the past.