proceeded to do in a trice, glad enough to stretch his legs.
"Here, David, give us your hand." And the stage-driver soon had
little David on the ground. "Now, Bill and Jerry, it's your
turn." And very soon Mr. Tisbett was busy in unbuckling straps
and tackling, to release the big horses, Joel in a wild delight
getting dreadfully in the way, and being, as he thought, an
immense help. Little David stood off and watched the proceeding,
longing to help too, but too timid to say so. The other boy
rushed up. "Oh, let me help!" he cried, thrusting a tousled head
in between the two busy with the harness.
The stage-driver shot him a keen look. "It will be time enough
for you to help in this ere job, Jim," he said, "when I ask you."
So Jim slunk off, to stare at a distance again. And at last the
horses were led off to the big barn to get their dinner of oats
and hay, and then Mr. Tisbett drew Joel and David away.
But this was a hard task, for Joel hung over Bill and Jerry in
delight, watching every mouthful. "Can't I climb up on his back
and sit there while he eats?" he begged, pointing at Bill, while
even little David much preferred the old barn with its sweet
odor, and the big haymows, to any other place.
"No, you can't," said Mr. Tisbett, answering Joel. "And you
ain't a-goin' to be in this barn. I can't leave you here alone.
Your Ma wouldn't like it. And besides, you've got to have
somethin' to eat. I always get my dinner here. So come along;
you're my company to-day, an' I told Mrs. Pepper not to put you
up anything to eat."
Strangely enough, at the mention of dinner, Joel still clung to
the hope of remaining with the horses. Seeing which, the stage-driver
wasted no more words, but picked an end of his jacket in his fingers
and bore him off. Once within the cosey little dining room, with
the green paper shades flapping in the summer breeze, and seated
at the table with the tavern-keeper's wife bustling around to lay
on the hot dishes, Joel thought differently, and had a hard time
to keep his tongue still. Little Davie watched everything silently,
with wide-open blue eyes.
"I'm goin' to hev ham an' eggs," said Mr. Tisbett. "Fried on
both sides, Mrs. Green, an' plenty of 'em."
"All right," said the tavern-keeper's wife, with a smile for the
jolly stage-driver who always made it pleasant for them all when
he took his dinner there once a week. "Now, what's these boys
goin' to have?"
"As good a dinner as you've got in the house, Mrs. Green," said
Mr. Tisbett, heartily; "these are the little Pepperses, and they
live over to Badgertown, Marm." He said this with an air much as
he might have announced, "This is the Lord Mayor of London," if
he had been called upon to introduce that functionary.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Green, much impressed, "I'll do my best.
Well now, I've got boiled dinner an' a raspb'ry shortcake. Do
you think they'd like that?" She appealed to the stage-driver.
"Yes sir-_ree_!" cried Joel, smacking his lips; "we don't
have anything but potatoes and salt for our dinner. Oh, David!"
he seized little Davie's arm tightly, "raspberry shortcake, she
said; that's what Polly was telling about she hoped we could
have sometime."
XVII
THE FIGHT AT STRAWBERRY HILL
"Now, then," exclaimed Mr. Tisbett, when dinner was over, and the
little Peppers declared they couldn't eat any more, "I'm a-goin'
to set out on th' porch a minute or two. I allers let Bill an'
Jerry rest a full hour," pulling out the big silver watch again.
"When I'm a man," cried Joel, leaning back in his chair, wishing
he could eat some more raspberry shortcake, "I'm goin' to have a
watch just like yours, Mr. Tisbett."
"I thought you were going to have horses just like Bill an'
Jerry," said Mr. Tisbett, in surprise.
"Oh, I am!" cried Joel, in alarm at being misunderstood;
"exactly like Bill and Jerry."
"You ain't goin' to have horses an' a watch!" cried the stage-driver,
keeping very sober. "You must choose between the two."
"Then I'll take the horses," decided Joel, quickly.
"You've got two, Mr. Tisbett," observed David, quietly.
"Eh? Oh, so I have!" cried Mr. Tisbett. "Well, p'r'aps we'll let
Joe have 'em both, then; that is, if he's a good boy. Well,
can't either on you eat any more? What a pity, an' Mrs. Green
has such good things."
The tavern-keeper's wife cried out that some way her raspb'ry
shortcake wasn't quite so light as what she had day before
yest'day. "La, Mr. Tisbett!" she exclaimed, smoothing her apron
delightedly, "if you'd only happened along then, 'twould 'a'
melted in your mouth."
"This suits me to a T," said Mr. Tisbett. "Now, Joel, if you and
David will play round here real pretty, an' be good boys, I'll
set on th' porch an' pass th' time o' day with the folks."
The little Peppers promising they would be as good as could be,
Mr. Tisbett slouched off to the big arm-chair, where he always
took his accustomed rest at Strawberry Hill while the horses
were put up in the barn. Joel ran back to tell Mrs. Green, "I
like you,--I do; you make awful nice things," and David echoed
the same, as they both scampered out of the house.
"I declare, they're as pretty-behaved children's I ever see,"
confided the tavern-keeper's wife to the rest of the family who
were at home, the tavern-keeper himself being away for the day.
"Poor things, although they were so hungry, an' they don't get
much to eat at home, they didn't grab an' pick at things." And
she made up her mind to put up a little bundle of her sugar
cookies for them to eat on the way back.
"I wish we could have taken some of the raspberry shortcake home
to Polly," mourned Davie, speaking out what had been running in
his mind all through the dinner. "She's never tasted any."
"Well, we couldn't," said Joel, with a qualm of conscience
because he hadn't thought of it before; "Mamsie's told us it
isn't nice to speak of taking things home. Hurry up, Dave," as
they raced on. "I know it," said little Davie. But he sighed,
nevertheless.
"Now where'll we go?" asked Joel, leaning breathless against the
big maple on the edge of the back dooryard.
"Mr. Tisbett said we were to play round here," said little Davie.
"Of course," assented Joel, in a superior way "Well, let's peek
in th' barn the first thing."
"Oh, Joe, we mustn't go in!" exclaimed little David, holding him
back. "Mr. Tisbett said we weren't to be in the barn."
"I know it," said Joel, twitching away. "I said peek, Dave. Mr.
Tisbett didn't say not to do that." So both boys got as far as
they could on the threshold of the big sweet-smelling barn,
without stepping over the sill, and craned their necks to get a
sight of the two black horses.
"I can't see 'em! O dear me!" cried Joel, grumpily. "I wish
there was a window we could climb up to."
"We can hear 'em eating," said little David, taking great
satisfaction in that.
"Hoh--what's that! I want to see 'em," Joel ran on discontentedly.
"O dear me! Mr. Tisbett wouldn't care if we just stepped in up
to that post."
"Yes, he would," cried Davie, in alarm lest Joel should really
step over.
"Let me alone," cried Joel, crossly. "O dear me! I can't see a
bit of 'em." And in a minute, without stopping to think, he
hopped over the door-sill and jumped into the barn.
Little David stood still in terror.
"Come here, Dave," called Joel, in glee, being careful not to go
beyond the big post, "you can see 'em just as good's can be.
Bill's got his mouth full of hay, an' he's bobbing his head, and
the wisps are tickling Jerry, an' he don't like it," and Joel
laughed heartily.
Suddenly somebody slapped David on the back, precipitating him
over the sill, and "Jim" ran in past him. "Helloa. What are you
doin'?" he asked Joel.
Joel looked at him, but didn't answer.
"I live here," said Jim, "over in Strawberry Hill. An' Mrs.
Green's my a'nt; and I've just come home from my grandmother's."
Joel said nothing as to this family history, but continued to
gaze at the horses. David picked himself up from the barn floor,
and hurrying out over the sill, began to dust his clothes, glad
that Joel had not seen him tumble in.
"I knocked him over," snickered Jim. "Hee-hee! Cry-baby!" and he
pointed to little David, whose face was quite red as he tried to
brush his best clothes clean again.
"I'm not crying," said Davie, indignantly, and raising his hot
face.
"You knocked him over!" cried Joel, boiling with wrath, and,
deserting the big post, he squared off toward the Strawberry
Hill boy, and doubled up his little brown fists. "Then you've
got to fight me."
"All right," said Jim, glad he was so much bigger. "I know a
place down in th' cow-pasture where I can lick you's easy's
not."
"You ain't a-goin' to lick me," cried Joel, sturdily, "I'm goin'
to lick you," while little David, sick with terror, screamed out
that he wasn't hurt; that he didn't care if Jim did push him
over, and for Joel to come back--come back! But Joel and Jim
were already halfway to the cow-pasture, and Davie, wild with
fright, stumbled over across the barnyard, and off to the house
to find Mr. Tisbett.
"He's just gone into th' house," said one of the farmers who
always took this hour, on the occasion of the stage-driver's
weekly visit, to come to the tavern porch and get the news.
"He'll be out in a minute or two. Sit down, sonny; you're
dreadful hot."
But David wrung his hands, and rushed into the tavern. The
dining room was dark and cool, all the dinner things being
carried out, except the pickle dish and the sugar bowl; and the
crumbs swept off from the table, and the green blinds pulled to.
He could hear the rattle of the dish-washing and the clearing-up
generally out in the kitchen, and he plunged in. "Where--where's
Mr. Tisbett?" he cried, his breath most gone, from fright, and
his little face aflame.
"Goodness me, how you scart me!" exclaimed the tavern-keeper's
wife, who, with another woman, was flying around to get the work
done up. "Oh, it's one of the Pepper boys. What's the matter,
dear?" with a glance at David's hot face. "What you ben
a-runnin' so for?"
"Joel." It was all David could say, as he pointed off where he
thought the cow-pasture was. "Somethin's happened to that other
boy. Didn't you say his name was--Joel?" said the other woman,
fastening very small but sharp eyes on David.
"Mercy me! you don't think it!" exclaimed the tavern-keeper's
wife, her ruddy face taking a scared expression. "Dear me! I
must call Mr. Tisbett. Mr. Tisbett!" she screamed, running, if
the speed she now exercised could be called by that name, for
it was more like waddling, out to the porch.
"He isn't there," gasped David, following her. "Oh, dear Mrs.
Green, please hurry and find him," he implored.
"I don't know no more'n the dead where he is, child," said Mrs.
Green, turning a perplexed face to David, after the old farmer
had said the same thing over again. "Mr. Tisbett's got the run
o' the place, an' likely as not, he's stepped to one o' the
neighbors," pointing to a small cluster of houses a quarter of a
mile away.
Little David groaned and clasped his small hands in distress.
"Then nothing can stop their fighting?" he exclaimed in despair.
"Fighting? Who's fighting?" demanded Mrs. Green, sharply.
"Joel and Jim," said David, glad to think he'd remembered what
Mr. Tisbett called the boy, yet sorry, as it flashed over him,
that the tavern-keeper's wife was his "a'nt."
"He pushed me down," and his face turned more scarlet yet.
But it was necessary to tell the dreadful thing, else Mrs.
Green would think Joel was to blame in beginning the fight.
But the tavern-keeper's wife had her own reasons for believing
differently. And without wasting her breath on words, except to
ask David, "Where?" she flung her dish-towel, which she had been
carrying in her hand, across her arm, and picking up her skirts,
she made remarkably good time across the barnyard by a shorter
cut, which she was familiar with, to the cow-pasture.
Jim saw her coming first, and much as he disliked on ordinary
occasions to see his "a'nt," he now hailed her approach with
secret delight, for the Badgertown boy was giving him all he
could do to protect himself. So he now shouted out, "My a'nt's
comin'. Stop!"
"I don't care," cried Joel, pommelling away. So Jim struck back
as well as he could, longing to hear Mrs. Green scream out,
"Stop!" which she did as soon as she had breath enough, and
shaking her dish-towel at them. "You wait there, Jim," she
commanded, on top of her call, as she came panting on; and Jim,
looking all ways for escape, saw there was no use in attempting
it. When she did reach him, she seized him and shook him till
his head seemed to wobble on his shoulders. Then, with a
resounding box on the ear, that seemed like a clap of thunder,
she paused to take breath.
"Oh," begged little David, "don't hurt him, dear Mrs. Green."
"Why did you stop us?" glowered Joel, wrathfully, turning his
bloody little nose up in scorn. "I could 'a' done that to him's
easy as not, if you'd let me."
Mrs. Green stamped her ample shoe on the ground. "You start for
home," she said to Jim, "an' tell your Pa if he lets you show
your face over here for a long spell, he'll settle with me."
Jim took one dive across the cow-pasture, scaled the fence, and
disappeared.
"Now you come along of me," said Mrs. Green. "Goodness land
alive! I'm all shook to pieces," and she started for the tavern.
"I'll wash your face," to Joel; "then I guess you ain't hurt
much," yet she regarded him anxiously.
"I ain't hurt a bit," declared Joel, stoutly, and wiping off the
blood with the back of one chubby hand. "And I could 'a' licked
him's easy as nothin'," he added regretfully.
"I wish I'd let you, before I took him in tow," said the
tavern-keeper's wife, hastily, getting over the ground as well
as she could.
"Mamsie wouldn't have liked it," cried little Davie, running on
unsteady feet by Joel's side, and looking at him sadly. "Oh, no,
she wouldn't, dear Mrs. Green."
"I don't s'pose she would now," said Mrs. Green. "Well, Jim's a
bad boy, if I am his a'nt. Like enough he'll git a trouncing
from his father," she added cheerfully, as some compensation.
"What is a trouncing?" asked Joel, suddenly, as they hurried on.
"The land alive, don't know what a trouncing is!" ejaculated the
tavern-keeper's wife. "It's a whipping, and Jim's father knows
how to give it good, I tell you."
Joel stood still. Little David stared in horror in Mrs. Green's
face.
"I don't want him to be whipped," said Joel, slowly. It was one
thing to fight it out with fists in the cow-pasture, but quite
another to go home to be whipped by a father.
"Oh, yes, he will," repeated Mrs. Green, in her cheeriest way,
and shaking her head at him. "You needn't fear, Joel, he'll
catch it when he gets home."
"But I don't want him to," declared Joel, loudly, not moving.
"He mustn't! Stop his father from whipping him! He shan't." And
before Mrs. Green could recover from her astonishment, he
plunged her deeper yet, by bursting into tears.
She gazed from him to David, still shaking her head helplessly. "Well, if I
ever!" she exclaimed, when she came out of it.
"And I shall just run and tell his father not to," blubbered
Joel, realizing if Jim was to be saved from that awful whipping,
he must be the one to do it. "Where does he live?" he cried,
emerging from his tears at the chance of action.
"Over there," answered the tavern-keeper's wife. "Well, if I
ever!" pointing to a yellow house. She kept ejaculating this
over and over, as she pursued her way to the house, thoughtfully
swinging her dish-towel.
Joel, with David at his heels, ran off across the cow-pasture,
tumbled over the fence, and followed the direction that Jim had
taken and that Mrs. Green had pointed, leading to the dingy
yellow house.
Long before they reached it, they could hear squeals that were
not pleasant to hear, and that made them quicken their pace,
to run around the house-place, and plunge almost into the face
of an untidy woman who hurried to the door.
"What d'ye want?" she demanded, as the two boys stopped panting
before her.
"Jim," gasped Joel.
"And his father," added little David, breathlessly
"They're both out there," said the woman, pointing with the hand
holding the dish-towel, to the dilapidated woodshed. "He's
gittin' a lickin', and Pa's a-givin' it."
The squeals were now so much worse that Joel gave a plunge that
carried him to the woodshed door, and little David, his heart in
his mouth at thought of Jim's father, followed as best he could.
Joel dashed in. "Oh, do stop!" he screamed.
Jim's father turned; he had a big stick in his hand. When little
David saw it he shuddered and sat down helplessly on the
woodshed floor, in among all the clutter and dirt. Jim, with his
knuckles twisted into his streaming eyes, whirled around from
under the big hand grasping his collar. When he saw Joel, he
screamed worse than ever. "Don't let him kill me, Pa," he roared,
huddling up to him.
Joel sprang up to a tall, big-shouldered man with a bearded face.
"Oh, sir," he cried, "please don't whip Jim any more--p'r'aps he
didn't mean to push David over, I don't b'lieve. Don't whip
him." He put out his little brown hand, and boldly seized the
stick.
"Hey?" roared the big man. "Well, I'm beat all to smithereens,"
and his hand holding the stick dropped to his side. Jim stopped
from sheer amazement, the roar dying in his throat.
"If you'll only let him go," said Joel, "I'd be much obliged,
sir," remembering how Mamsie said he should be polite when
asking a favor.
The big man grinned all over his bearded face. "I don't see but
what I've got to, you ask me so pretty," he said, showing nearly
every tooth in his head. "Well, Jim, you're let off for this
time. I hadn't only just begun," he added to Joel, as he hung up
the stick on a beam.
Jim bounded off, climbed a tree, and watched to see the boys go
away.
[Illustration: "OH SIR,' HE CRIED, 'PLEASE DON'T WHIP JIM ANY
MORE'"]
"What's your name?" asked his father, as Joel helped David to
his feet, and they started off.
"Joel Pepper," he answered, "and this is my brother David. Say
how do you do, Dave," he whispered, pulling his sleeve. But
little Davie was too far gone in distress to speak, only to
smile faintly. "And we live over in Badgertown in a little brown
house," continued Joel, feeling that he ought to make up for
David's silence.
"Oh!" said Jim's father.
"And we must go now," said Joel, keeping hold of David's jacket,
"'cause you see Mr. Tisbett may be wanting us"--very desirous of
getting away.
"Did ye come with Mr. Tisbett?" asked the big man.
"Yes, we did," said Joel. "Come on, Dave. We must go, sir. Good-by."
And pulling David along, he ran at a smart pace off toward the tavern.
Mr. Tisbett was standing on the porch, just starting for them,
when the two boys ran up. And in front of him was the tavern-keeper's
wife, telling the whole story as far as she knew it, the old farmer
hitching forward his chair to catch every word. When the
stage-driver saw them, he hemmed loudly, and made a sign for
Mrs. Green to stop.
"Well, now, I s'pose," he drawled, "it's about time to hitch up
them horses. Want to come and help, Joe and David?"
Joel gave a skip of delight and released Davie's jacket. "Oh,
whickety--yes!" he cried. Little David did not answer, but
smiled his pleasure, and the tavern-keeper's wife went into the
house to get her bundle of cookies ready.
But just as they got to the barn Joel hung back suddenly. "I
ain't goin' in," he said. Mr. Tisbett didn't hear him, but
marched on. Little David stopped in perplexity.
"No, I can't," said Joel, growing very sober, "'cause I was
naughty and went in. Mr. Tisbett doesn't know it. O dear me!"
"You can tell him," suggested David, thoughtfully.
"O dear, dear!" exclaimed Joel, just ready to cry, as he could
hear Mr. Tisbett lift down the harness, and call out, "Stand
still, there, Bill--good Jerry."
"Why, boys!" exclaimed the stage-driver suddenly, coming to
the door, the harness in his hand. "What on earth's the matter?
I thought ye was jest crazy to come in, Joel," he added
reproachfully.
Then Joel burst right out. "I've been naughty--and went in." And
he flung himself across the threshold, shaking with disappointment
at losing the best chance of the whole day.
Mr. Tisbett looked at Davie for explanation. So David, telling
it as well as he could, got through with the story finally.
"I can't say that ye warn't naughty, Joel," said the stage-driver,
slowly, "'cause ye were. But I'm a-goin' to let ye in, and besides,
I need ye to help me with them horses," and Mr. Tisbett began to
look very worried at once.
Joel sat very straight. "Oh, I'll help you, Mr. Tisbett," he
cried joyfully. And in a minute they were all three in the big
stall, and Joel was in the very midst of things, and even David
forgot his fright enough to lend a helping hand, and to feel his
importance, and presently the big black horses were led out of
the barn, and harnessed into the stage-coach.
"Now, hop up!" cried Mr. Tisbett, when he had gone carefully
around and around the big coach, to see that every strap and
buckle was in place, and had got down on his knees to be quite
sure the springs were all right. Then he gave David a lift up to
the box, Joel clambering up on the other side. "We'll drive up
to th' door," he said, "an' get th' passenger," for there was
one woman going over to Badgertown.
"Oh, let me drive!" begged Joel; "just up to the door, Mr.
Tisbett," he implored.
"We don't want to be upset under folks' noses," said Mr. Tisbett.
"Land! I'd rather 'twould happen where there warn't no one to
see, if 'twas going to."
"I wouldn't upset it for anything," promised Joel. "Please, Mr.
Tisbett."
But Mr. Tisbett sat down and gathered up the reins and drove
round with such a flourish that it never had been surpassed, it
seemed to the people on the tavern porch. And the one woman got
in with her basket, and the tavern-keeper's wife ran down the
steps and stood on her tiptoes and handed up to Joel the bundle
of cookies, begging them to come again. And the old farmer said
"Good day," and the woman with little sharp eyes, who had been
washing the dishes, hurried out, pulling down her sleeves, to see
them off. And away they rattled, with faces turned toward home
and Mamsie.
They had proceeded about a quarter of a mile, when Mr. Tisbett
suddenly asked, "Want to drive, Joel? Come along over here," and
he reached past David and took his hand. "Now, then, I'm goin'
to set in the middle a little spell," and before Joel could
recover from his astonishment, he found the old leather reins in
his brown hands. He was driving Mr. Tisbett's black horses!
XVIII
IN THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE
The delights of that day at Strawberry Hill never died out of
remembrance, as Joel and David went over it constantly, so that
the whole Pepper family soon felt that they had been of the
company in the stage-coach along with Mr. Tisbett. Only when
once the story was told of the trouble with Jim, as it was by
David, Mrs. Pepper decided that that should never be referred to
again. But her black eyes glowed when little David proudly
related how Joel had stopped the beating that Jim's father was
giving him, although the account was much delayed, Davie was in
such a tremble.
But the dinner! The two boys couldn't tell enough times to suit
themselves or their audience, about that wonderful meal.
"How did it taste?" asked Polly, as Joel finished the
description of Mrs. Green's raspberry shortcake, and smacked his
lips over it.
"Just like all the best things you ever tasted in your life,
Polly Pepper," he answered. "And the juice ran out all over it,
and there was sugar on top."
"Oh, Joel," cried Polly, incredulously, "not sugar on top, and
inside too!" and she paused to think how such a fine shortcake
could taste.
"Yes, there was," said Joel; "lots and lots of sugar, Polly
Pepper, was all sprinkled on top. Wasn't it, Dave?"
"Yes," said little Davie, and his mouth watered as he thought of
it.
"And sugar inside--was it sweet?" persisted Polly, still
standing quite still.
"As sweet as anything," declared Joel, positively, and bobbing
his stubby black head. "You can't think what a shortcake that
was, Polly, if you try ever so hard."
"Mamsie," cried Polly, suddenly, "do you suppose we'll ever have
one? Do you?"
"Maybe," said Mrs. Pepper, not looking into the brown eyes, but
keeping her own bent on her work; "but I wouldn't think of it,
Polly, if I were you. Things don't happen if you sit down and
fold your hands and watch for 'em."