zen delicious hues, from
which the joy-dazzled agent might take his choice.
Seesaw Simpson was not in the syndicate. Clara Belle was rather a
successful agent, but Susan, who could only say "thoap," never made
large returns, and the twins, who were somewhat young to be thoroughly
trustworthy, could be given only a half dozen cakes at a time, and were
obliged to carry with them on their business trips a brief document
stating the price per cake, dozen, and box. Rebecca and Emma Jane
offered to go two or three miles in some one direction and see what
they could do in the way of stirring up a popular demand for the
Snow-White and Rose-Red brands, the former being devoted to laundry
purposes and the latter being intended for the toilet.
There was a great amount of hilarity in the preparation for this event,
and a long council in Emma Jane's attic. They had the soap company's
circular from which to arrange a proper speech, and they had, what was
still better, the remembrance of a certain patent-medicine vender's
discourse at the Milltown Fair. His method, when once observed, could
never be forgotten; nor his manner, nor his vocabulary. Emma Jane
practiced it on Rebecca, and Rebecca on Emma Jane.
"Can I sell you a little soap this afternoon? It is called the
Snow-White and Rose-Red Soap, six cakes in an ornamental box, only
twenty cents for the white, twenty-five cents for the red. It is made
from the purest ingredients, and if desired could be eaten by an
invalid with relish and profit."
"Oh, Rebecca, don't let's say that!" interposed Emma Jane hysterically.
"It makes me feel like a fool."
"It takes so little to make you feel like a fool, Emma Jane," rebuked
Rebecca, "that sometimes I think that you must BE one I don't get to
feeling like a fool so awfully easy; now leave out that eating part if
you don't like it, and go on."
"The Snow-White is probably the most remarkable laundry soap ever
manufactured. Immerse the garments in a tub, lightly rubbing the more
soiled portions with the soap; leave them submerged in water from
sunset to sunrise, and then the youngest baby can wash them without the
slightest effort."
"BABE, not baby," corrected Rebecca from the circular.
"It's just the same thing," argued Emma Jane.
"Of course it's just the same THING; but a baby has got to be called
babe or infant in a circular, the same as it is in poetry! Would you
rather say infant?"
"No," grumbled Emma Jane; "infant i
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