A small crowd of men was collecting outside the door and Bet was afraid. She went toward the back room, hoping to be able to enlist the help of the one she had been talking to. Just as she did so, the door was thrust open, and Bet, shoving the other girls in front of her, exclaimed in a whisper, "What will we do?"
But as she turned at the door, she saw a tall figure, who grabbed the ruffian by the collar and invited him outside.
"Oh it's Phil!" exclaimed Bet hysterically. "Now we're all right!"
After Phil had persuaded the men in the crowd to leave, he returned to the room to find the first caller making ready to go. "I don't know anything about bicycles. Anyway it's steady work I want. There's no money in odd jobs."
"What under the sun is it all about?" demanded Phil anxiously as more men began to collect.
"We put a sign in the window asking for a man to help on the repair work!" said Bet.
"Then get it out as quick as you can. You'll have a line here soon."
"How are we going to get someone to help, then? Dad thought it would be a good idea to hire men who are out of work."
"He probably expected you to call up the Chamber of Commerce and get a man. They know everybody who needs work."
"Oh dear, what a lot of things one has to learn when they go into business!" mused Kit. "I thought we were doing just right."
That afternoon the bicycle was being repaired by old Bill Colby, a fine old man who lived with his invalid wife in a small shack on the back street. He took such pride in his work that the bicycle looked like new when he finished it. And the pay warmed his heart. The girls were generous.
During the next two weeks, the back room of Shirley's Shop looked as if there had been a revolution in toyland. Dolls without heads, others without arms or legs, eyeless ones, big and little were strewn about the room, while doll carriages minus wheels, kiddie cars, battered and streaked, awaited the skillful hand of the old man.
One afternoon shortly before Christmas as he was leaving Bet said, "We will have a Christmas package to send down to Mrs. Colby."
The old man's face flushed with pleasure. "Mother is bedfast with rheumatism," he said, "and it would do her a power of good if you would run in and see her sometime. She'll like the present too, but she gets very lonely."