CHAPTER XIX.
THE COURT'N OF SKIM CLARK.
By this time the summer was well advanced, and the rich people at the Wegg farm had ceased to be objects of wonder to the Millville folk.

The girls were still regarded with curious looks when they wandered into the village on an errand, and Mr.Merrick and Major Doyle inspired a certain amount of awe; but time had dulled the edge of marvelous invasion and the city people were now accepted as a matter of course.
Peggy McNutt was still bothering his head over schemes to fleece the strangers, in blissful ignorance of the fact that one of his neighbors was planning to get ahead of him.
The Widow Clark was a shrewd woman.

She had proven this by becoming one of the merchants of Millville after her husband's death.

The poor man had left an insurance of five hundred dollars and the little frame building wherein he had conducted a harness shop.

Mrs.Clark couldn't make and repair harness; so she cleared the straps and scraps and wax-ends out of the place, painted the interior of the shop bright yellow, with a blue ceiling, erected some shelves and a counter and turned part of the insurance money into candy, cigars, stationery, and a meager stock of paper-covered novels.
Skim, her small son, helped her as far as he was able, and between them they managed things so frugally that at the end of eight years the widow still had her five hundred dollars capital, and the little store had paid her living expenses.
Skim was named after his uncle, Peter Skimbley, who owned a farm near Watertown.