Benny Stitch's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

By morning the crowd had grown worse. Eight people packed the little shop. Their muddy boots crowded the bench with the painted birds. Two more waited on the lane, peering through the glass. Benny bent over his machine, elbows pinned to his sides. He could not reach his thread box. A woman pressed against the shelf and knocked a spool loose. He watched a fresh customer glance at the wall of bodies, then walk on. The room that had saved him was now driving people away. He set down his work. He could sew fast. He could not sew in a jam. The shop had one room. He could not make it bigger. Cosmo Fenn came through the door with a tray of frosted rolls. Benny's friend waved at every crowded face, calm as always. He set the tray on the bench. "You have too many people," Cosmo said. "And not enough day." "I can't fit them," Benny said. "I can't turn them out either." Cosmo looked at the wall. He looked at the shelves stacked with folded quilts and bright cloth. "Then don't hold them in here." He pointed a roll at the window glass. "Show them what waits. Let them come back for it." Benny understood. The crowd came to watch him work. They did not need to stand inside to do that. He needed the space, not the audience. He pulled a finished piece from the shelf. It was a quilt, pieced tight with small beavers gathered around a steaming cup. He hung it in the front window where all could see. Beside it he tacked a card: names in, orders on a list, come back at a set hour to collect. Then he stepped to the door. "I'll take every name," he called to the crowd. "But not with you standing on my thread. Give me your order at the window. I'll set your time." The crowd grumbled. Then the woman near the shelf shrugged and stepped outside. She read the quilt through the glass and smiled at the tea-drinking beavers. Others followed. They lined up at the window instead of the room. Benny wrote each name, each job, each pickup hour. The shop emptied. His machine sat clear again. Cosmo poured two cups from a kettle he'd carried in and handed one over. "Better," he said. He bit into a roll. "You made them wait outside. And you gave them something to look at while they do." Benny worked the rest of the day with room to move. By dusk his list held eleven names, and not one had left. The quilt in the window pulled walkers close. The bench held four who came only to eat rolls and watch. But eleven orders was more than one man could finish alone. He looked at his single machine and his own two hands. The crowd was solved. The workload was not.