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Her sense of her own shortcomings became all the more poignant when the little cavalcade, with Missy still ignominiously footing it in the rear, had to pass the group of loafers in front of the Post Office. The loafers called out rude, bantering comments, and Missy burned with shame. Then Arthur Simpson appeared in Pieker's doorway next door and grinned. "Hello! Some steed!" he greeted Tess.
Yet, after she was in her little white bed, in smiling dreams she saw herself, smartly accoutred in gleaming boots and pepper-and-salt riding-breeches, galloping up to Pieker's grocery and there, in the admiring view of the Post Office loafers and of a dumbfounded Arthur, cantering insouciantly across the sidewalk and into the store!
Then startling, compelling, tantalizing, came the Idea. Why not ride openly back into Cherryvale, right up Main Street, right by the Post Office? All those old loafers would see her who'd laughed the day she tumbled off of Ned. Well, they'd laugh the other way, now. And Arthur Simpson, too. Maybe she'd even ride into Pieker's store! that certainly would surprise Arthur.
And still so when, blithe and debonair, she galloped up Main Street, past piazzas she pleasurably sensed were not unpeopled nor unimpressed; past the Court House whence a group of men were emerging and stopped dead to stare; past the Post Office where a crowd awaiting the noon mail swelled the usual bunch of loafers; on to Pieker's where, sure enough, Arthur stood in the door!
And, patting Gypsy's glossy neck, she headed her mount directly toward the sidewalk and clattered straight into Pieker's store. Arthur had barely time to jump out of the way. "Holy cats!" he again invoked fervently. Then: "Head her out! She's slobbering over that bucket of candy!"
If one can't be fashionable and frivolous one can still be pious. In this noble missionary spirit she managed to be in the kitchen the next time Arthur delivered the groceries from Pieker's. She asked him to attend the opening session of the revival the following Sunday night.
That Summers boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery was with her. He once wanted Missy to go walking with him and I had to put my foot down. She doesn't seem to realize she's too young for such things. Her brown furs will do her for this season and next season too!" Mother put on a stern, determined kind of look, almost hard.
Such unexpected shortness and sharpness from father made her feel suddenly wretched; he was even worse than mother. "Who is he, anyway?" he exploded further. Missy's lips were twitching inexplicably; she feared to essay speech, but it was mother who answered. "He's that red-headed boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery." "Arthur's a nice boy," Missy then attempted courageously.
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