Free The Law and Miss Mary by Dorothy Clark Page B

stipend for Ben. Mary held back a chuckle. The aged woman’s face held an expression of pure innocence, yet she had raised her voice loud enough to be heard throughout the store, and was watching the result out of the corner of her eyes. Another good idea.
    Mary wiped the smile from her face, lowered her lashes and shot a glance toward the corner. Mr. Simpson had straightened. He looked their way and a frown darkened his face. He brushed his hands together, sending some sort of dust flying into the air, and started toward them. Mary jerked her gaze back to the other women before he caught her watching him.
    “You mistook my conversation with Miss Randolph, Mrs. Lucas.” Mrs. Simpson lifted the hinged lid of a large wooden box and began to scoop tea into a small cloth bag. “Miss Randolph suggested that Mr. Simpson hire this young boy to carry baskets for our customers, but my husband has not agreed.” She shook the bag down, dropped the scoop and tied the neck of the bag closed with a length of cord, then paused with the bag poised over Mrs. Lucas’s filled basket. Her left eye closed in a quick wink. “Do you still wish these other items?”
    The elderly woman sighed. “No, only the things on my list, Martha. Put the tea back and take the others out, for they will make the basket too heavy for me.”
    Heavy footfalls thudded across the plank floor and stopped. Mr. Simpson scowled at his wife, took the package of tea from her hand and placed it in the basket. “There’s no need for that, Mrs. Lucas. I ain’t heard nothing about this boy carrying customers’ baskets, but it sounds all right.” He placed the wrapped piece of honeycomb his wife handed him in the basket and added the lemons. “The cost’ll be ten cents.”
    “Nonsense!” Mrs. Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “I came to buy groceries, not to be robbed, Elijah Simpson! I shall pay five cents.”
    The grocer added the molasses to the filled basket, then crossed his thick arms over his burly chest and stared down at the diminutive woman. “Seven.”
    There was a rustle of movement behind her. Mary took a quick glance over her shoulder. The customers had stopped browsing and had drawn close.
    “Stand your ground, Isobel!” A thickset woman with a jutting chin snapped out the words. “I should very much like someone to carry my basket, but I will pay no more than five cents. As you say, anything more is outright thievery!”
    There was a chorus of agreement.
    Mr. Simpson’s scowl deepened. He raised his hands. “All right, ladies. All right. The cost’ll be five cents.”
    Smiles spread over the faces of the assembled women at the grocer’s growled words. They gave each other small nods of satisfaction and turned back to their shopping, chatting over their victory as they went.
    Mary could have hugged Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. Simpson.
    “Pick up that basket and get moving, boy!” The grocer snarled the words and turned away.
    Mary’s elation flew. “Wait, Ben.” She took hold of Ben’s arm as he reached for the basket, and pasted a polite smile on her face as the surly grocer pivoted around to glare at her. “I think you are forgetting that Ben is not yet in your employ, Mr. Simpson. Shall we discuss his wages?”

    Sam leaped off the gangway, turned and fastened his gaze on the steamboat as the Independence gave notice of its departure with three quick blasts of its whistle. He ignored the movement of the laborers around him, and held his place. The danger point would come when the Independence swung around to head upriver. She would be close to the Washington then, and an agile man could jump from the deck of one steamboat to another, if given enough reason to do so.
    Sam tensed and focused his attention on the narrowing distance between the two boats. He figured the money Frank Gerard had been systematically winning from his victims at cards was reason enough for him to ignore the warning he had been given and try to make his way back to the