gly slow. On some days they had two
orders; some days, none at all. Of an evening, before they could sink
into the sunset-colored peace of the rose-arbor, they had to convince
themselves that they couldn't really expect any business till the
summerites had begun to take their vacations. There was a curious
psychological fact. It had always been Father, the brisk burden-bearer,
who had comforted the secluded Mother. He had brought back to the flat
the strenuousness of business. But inactivity was hard on his merry
heart; he fretted and fussed at having nothing to do; he raged at having
to throw away unused bread because it was growing stale. It was Mother
who reminded him that they couldn't expect business before the season.

Mid-June came; the stream of cars was almost a solid parade; the
Portygee maid brought the news that there were summer boarders at the
Nickerson farm-house; and the Applebys, when they were in Grimsby Center
buying butter and bread, saw the rocking-chair brigade mobilizing on the
long white porches of the Old Harbor Inn.

And trade began!

There was no rival tea-room within ten miles. Father realized with a
thumping heart that he had indeed chosen well in selecting Grimsby Head.
Ten, twelve, even fifteen orders a day came from the motorists. The
chronic summerites, they who came to Grimsby Center each year, walked
over to see the new tea-room and to purchase Mother's home-made
doughnuts. On June 27th the Applebys made a profit of $4.67, net.

As they rested in the rose-arbor at dusk of that day, Father burst out
in desperate seriousness: "Oh my dear, my dear, it is going to go! I was
beginning to get scared. I couldn't have forgiven myself if I'd let you
in for something that would have been a failure. Golly! I've been
realizing that we would have been pretty badly up against it if the
tea-room hadn't panned out right. I'd have wanted to shoot myself if I'd
been and gone and led you into want, old honey!"

Then, after the first of July, when the Cape Cod season really began,
business suddenly fell away to nothing. They couldn't understand it. In
panic they reduced the price of tea to five cents. No result. They had
about one customer a day. They had not looked to Grimsby Center for the
cause. That they might personally attend to business they had been
sending the maid to the Center for their supplies, while they stuck at
home--and wore out their hearts in vain hoping, in terrified wonder as
to