About Harriet  by Clara Whitehill Hunt

What Harriet Did on Tuesday

W HEN Harriet woke on Tuesday morning it was not raining any more. As soon as she saw the bright sunshine she hopped joyfully out of bed and called to her mother:—

"We shan't have to stay in the house all day to-day, shall we, Mumsey?"

"No, indeed," said Mother; "and that is very fortunate, for you and I have ever so many errands to do this morning."

So, as soon as breakfast was over, the dishes washed and the beds made, the postman and the janitor and the iceman and the milkman attended to, Harriet and her Mother started out on their errands. Harriet carried her beautiful pink sunshade which Aunt Grace had given her. Mother carried her shopping-bag in one hand and that left her other hand free to hold Harriet's when they crossed the streets where automobiles and grocers' and butchers' wagons went whizzing by.

It was not a long walk to the street where the shops were. The errands this morning were not downtown errands to the great, huge department stores. Harriet's Mother wanted groceries and meat and fruit, not dresses and coats and shoes and furniture. There was a long avenue which had a row of all sorts of small shops down each side of it, and a trolley ran through the middle of the avenue.

Mother and Harriet stopped first at Mr. O'Rourke's grocery store. As soon as they went into the door, one of the clerks named Jans Jorgensen came forward to wait upon them. Jans had very light hair and bright red cheeks. Harriet liked him very much, and he thought Harriet was the nicest little girl who came into the store.

Mother ordered of Jans a dozen of the freshest eggs, two pounds of Mr. O'Rourke's best butter, a pound of seedless raisins, and three and a half pounds of sugar. She told Jans not to have the things sent over to her house until noon, because she did not expect to get home until then. As they started to go away, Jans went to a basket and chose the largest and prettiest peach he could find to give to Harriet. Harriet thanked him very prettily, and Jans smiled a broad smile to see his little friend so delighted.

Next Harriet and her Mother stopped at Mr. Schlachter's meat market. Mr. Schlachter was a great, big man, tall and broad and fat. When Harriet first saw him she was a very little girl and he gave her a great fright, though of course he did not mean to do so. Mr. Schlachter had stood behind his counter, with a great sharp knife in one hand and the long knife-sharpener in the other, and he looked so big and his face was so red that Harriet thought he was the ogre whose picture was in her Jack-and-the-Beanstalk story. She screamed with fright and hid her face in her Mother's skirts so that Mother did not buy any meat that day, but she took Harriet home at once. Then Mother explained that Mr. Schlachter was a good, kind man, with little girls of his own who loved him, and that there weren't really any ogres except in story books. So now Harriet was not afraid of Mr. Schlachter, but she did not like him as well as Jans.

Perhaps she would have liked him better if she had had a little dog or a cat at home, because Mr. Schlachter was very generous about feeding animals. Not far from his shop there was a big stable where lived two spotted coach dogs,—just like Peter Spots in the book about "Fighting a Fire,"—and these dogs thought Mr. Schlachter was the best kind of a friend. Harriet often saw the dogs and patted them when she went to the meat market.

Harriet's Mother ordered a chicken and she told Mr. Schlachter also not to send it till noon. Then they walked on to the fruit store.

The fruit store belonged to a dark-haired man who had come far across the great ocean and a great sea from the brave little country of Greece. In fact, most of the people who sold things along the avenue had come from far-away countries. Father and Mother always had a story for everything, and Harriet had heard many an old wonder tale that the fathers and mothers of Mr. Sorakês's country told to their little children. Perhaps the reason why the shopkeepers liked to wait upon Harriet's Mother was because she was interested in their countries and talked to them about their far-away homes.

Mr. Sorakês's window always looked as pretty as a flower garden. He knew just how to arrange his dark-red cherries and pale-yellow lemons, his rosy-cheeked apples and huge bunches of California grapes, his boxes of dates and figs, his many-colored jars of jelly, his walnuts and almonds and berries, and—oh! more delicious things than Harriet could ever count. She always stayed outside the shop while Mother went inside and she gazed into the great glass window enjoying the colors and trying to name the different kinds of things, but there was always some new name to learn.

Mother ordered a box of strawberries and a dozen of lemons from Mr. Sorakês, and then they went on to their next stopping-place.

This was not a shop for selling things to eat. It was a tiny little place where an Italian cobbler mended shoes. Mother had left a pair of her shoes here a few days before for Mr. Sarrachino to put new soles and heels upon them. Mr. Sarrachino gave Harriet a bright smile and he bowed low to Harriet's Mother. He was always a very polite and cheerful man. He had a whole row of dark-eyed little boys and girls of his own who lived in the rooms back of his shop. He worked hard at his bench from early morning till late at night, because there were so many hungry mouths to feed, but you never saw him cross or surly. He was so proud to have his boys and girls go to the fine public schools and learn to be good Americans that he did not care how hard he worked to feed and clothe them. Harriet's Mother gave most of Harriet's outgrown clothes to the Sarrachino babies, and at Christmas time Harriet always filled a big stocking full of toys and goodies for the family.

When they had inquired about the latest baby, Mrs. Sarrachino was called from the back room to show the little fellow. She came in smiling, with little Giuseppe in her arms, and Harriet's Mother praised the baby's mother for keeping her baby so clean.

It was hard work to care for so many children, but Mrs. Sarrachino was quick to learn, and the school nurse had told her how important it was to keep house and children clean and to feed the children properly; and their teachers said that the bright-eyed little Sarrachinos were the cleanest little Italians in the whole school.

After bidding good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sarrachino, who stood bowing and smiling till they had left the shop, Harriet and her Mother walked along the avenue quite a distance before they came to Mother's next errand place. They stopped and looked into many of the windows on the way. The florists' windows were lovely, but not so fine as they were in winter, because in June many people have flowers in their own gardens, and in the winter ladies go to more balls and to the opera and they give dinner-parties, so in winter the florists sell more flowers.

Harriet always liked the bakeshop windows, but Mother seldom bought anything from a bakery. She knew it was better for little girls and schoolteacher fathers to eat home cooking, and Mother was a fine cook. This morning Harriet could hardly tear herself away from the bakery window, because there was a huge wedding cake in the middle of it, and on top of the white frosted cake was a wedding party! There was the tiny bridegroom in a black coat, and there was the bride with her long white veil, and there was a candy wedding bell hung above the bride and groom, and the cake was gay with pink-and-white candy flowers. Oh, it was a beautiful sight! Harriet decided at once to have a doll wedding some day at home.

There were delicatessen shops, too, on the avenue, which Harriet liked. You could buy a whole cooked meal in one of these shops—a pot of baked beans, or a roast of beef, slices of cold ham, potato salad and other kinds of salad, bread and butter and pie and pickles and cheese and doughnuts. The windows made a person hungry just to look at them, but Mother hardly ever bought anything here, either, except cream cheese.

Next they passed a cleaner's window. That means a place where people take the kind of waists and dresses and skirts that cannot be washed in a tub of water, but which the cleaner can make look almost as good as new by some other ways of cleaning than using soap and water. Even feathers and gloves and satin slippers are made to look fresh and new by these wonderful people.

Harriet did not usually care to look into the cleaner's window, because grown people's clothes aren't very interesting, but to-day she caught sight of something that made her stop her Mother and cry out:—

"Oh, Mother, see! There's a Mother Goose dressing-gown almost like the one Grandma made for me when I was a little girl!"

Sure enough, there was a little blue kimono hanging in the window, and on its collar and sleeves and down the front and around the hem of it were lots of Mother Goose children—Little Boy Blue with his horn, Miss Muffett and her spider, Simple Simon, Jack and Jill, and the rest.

Harriet was delighted, but her Mother laughed and said:—

"Do you remember how you cried the first night you saw your kimono because Boy Blue's head was cut off? Grandma had not noticed, when she turned the hem, what happened to Boy Blue's head, so I had to rip the hem and restore his head before you would wear the pretty dressing-gown."

"Yes, I remember," said Harriet, and she laughed a little, but then she looked sober. Even though she was now so big she did not like to think of a picture Boy Blue without a head; and she looked very carefully at the dressing-gown in the window and was glad to see that all the children on it were quite whole.

Next Mother stopped at Mr. Levy's, the tailor's, to ask him to send for a suit of Father's that needed to be mended and pressed. Mr. Levy made new suits and coats and skirts, and he could also mend and smooth out wrinkled clothes till they looked almost like new ones.

There were only two more errands to do. One was at the branch post-office in the drug store, where Mother bought stamps and postal cards. Harriet wanted some ice cream from the soda fountain part of the drug store, but Mother said No, not in the morning and so near lunch-time.

Last of all they went to a little shop where the woman sold all sorts of materials for doing pretty needlework. There were embroidery silks and needles and scissors; there were embroidery patterns to stamp on towels and napkins and tablecloths, on little girls' white dresses and ladies' pretty waists; there were knitting-needles and worsted for making sweaters and scarfs and bedroom slippers; and there were lots of other things. During the winters in the city Mother was too busy for fancy work, but there were long days in Maine when she had plenty of time to knit as well as to go picnicking and sailing and swimming; so that this morning Mother bought materials for making a white-and-blue porch jacket for Aunt Maud.

At last all the errands were done and Mother and Harriet went home. After lunch Harriet was so tired that she took quite a long nap. Then they sat on a Parkway bench once more until it was time for Father, and dinner, and then for story-telling.

Harriet's visit to Mr. Sarrachino's shop made her think of the story of a little Italian marionette named "Pinocchio," so, although Father had read it to her many, many times, she called for it again, and once more she and Father laughed and laughed about the bad little wooden boy who, after many funny adventures, decided to be good and was then changed into a really, truly, live boy.

And after hugs and kisses and goodnight prayers, Harriet sailed off to Dreamland again.

So that is the end of the Fifth Story about Harriet and what she did on Tuesday.