hands trembling in his efforts to recover them. Since Joel had come
back, the whole world might be upset and it wouldn’t be any matter.
“So will I,” cried Joel, pawing wildly about in the straw scattered
on the floor. So the two boys worked like everything, and presently
were obliged to say that they had found all that they possibly could.
And then setting the big box carefully between them, they set to work
sorting out the good nails from the crooked ones.
“They’re ’most all crooked,” observed Joel, shifting a handful in one
grimy little palm, and peering into the big box.
“There’s some good ones,” said little Davie, carefully picking out one
as he spoke.
“I wish we could have the crooked ones,” said Joel. “P’r’aps Deacon
Blodgett’ll give ’em to us. I mean to ask him.”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t, Joe,” cried little David, in alarm; “you know
Mamsie told us never to ask for things.”
“Well, I’ll tell him we want ’em,” said Joel, patting a long crooked
nail fondly before he laid it aside, “to build our rabbit-house with.”
The Pepper boys had never had a rabbit, nor was there any expectation
that they ever would possess one, but since Joel had said they ought
to get a house ready, and perhaps then a rabbit would come, little
Davie had worked as hard as he could to achieve it. Every bit of board
was saved, and there were not many, because Polly had to have all that
would burn nicely in the stove, of course. But, O joy!--Mr. Atkins, the
storekeeper, finding all this out one day, presented the boys with some
old boxes. Nails were the hardest things to get, and every stray one
that came in their way was hoarded as a great treasure. But they came
in very slowly. And now here was the Blodgett big box, and Joel was not
to ask for a single crooked one!
“No, no, no!” Little Davie dropped his work to bring his hot face over
towards Joel’s. “You mustn’t tell him, Joel; Mamsie wouldn’t like it.”
“That isn’t asking,” said Joel, bobbing his black head obstinately, and
picking away furiously at the assortment of nails in his hand.
“Yes, it is,” said little Davie. “Oh, you mustn’t do it, Joe.”
“No, it isn’t either,” contradicted Joel, “and I shall tell him all
about our rabbit-house, Dave. So there, now.”
“Then I don’t want any rabbit,” declared Davie, slipping back to his
place on the floor, and wringing his hands.
“_Not want any rabbit!_” reiterated Joel, in amazement, and letting the
nails stream through his fingers.
“No, I don’t,” said Davie, quite pale and sitting very still, “want any
rabbit at all, Joel.”
“Then I don’t want any nails,” roared Joel,--“not a single smitch of a
one.”
“Oh, I am so glad,” said little Davie, his pale face breaking into a
smile, “’cause then, Mamsie won’t be sorry, Joel. She won’t, really.”
“And you’ll want a rabbit?” cried Joel, hanging on Davie’s lips.
“Yes, I will,” nodded David, “very much, if you won’t want the nails,
Joel.”
“I won’t want one of the old nails,” said Joel, diving vigorously into
the box-depths for a fresh handful.
“Boys!” called Ben, from below, “are you working up there?”
“Yes,” screamed Joel, quickly, and picking at the nails with all his
might.
But little David’s fingers got in each other’s way so much, over this
new panic, started by Ben’s voice, that he made very little headway,
and mixed up the pile of nails dreadfully.
“You’re putting in crooked ones,” said Joel, twitching out one from the
straight specimens. “Hah,--Hoh, just see that, Dave Pepper!”
“O dear me!” exclaimed poor little David, quite overcome with
mortification.
“I’ll pick ’em out,” said Joel, generously. “There,--there ain’t a
single bad one in, now.”
So David, after assuring himself that this was really so, began to
breathe easily once more, and the two pairs of small fingers kept
busily on at their task, till the first thing they knew, heavy steps
were heard ascending the crooked stairs and a long face appeared, its
keen gray eyes spying them at once.
“Well, boys!” said Mrs. Blodgett, walking along the floor of the loft,
“now you must come in to dinner.”
“_Dinner!_” screamed Joel, hopping up to his feet, and making nails fly
in every direction. Little Davie sat quite still, clasping his hands
silently, “Oh, are we to stay to dinner, Mrs. Blodgett?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Blodgett, her long face, with its high cheek bones,
taking on a smile. “I’m going to keep you to dinner. Come, Betsey is
peeling the potatoes, so you must hurry.”
“Did Mamsie say we’re to stay?” asked David, trembling with delight, so
that he could hardly get to his feet.
“No,” said Mrs. Blodgett, “but I expected you to stay, only the Deacon
forgot to say so, when he told Ben to bring you along to look over
those nails.”
“If Mamsie didn’t say we were to stay, we can’t,” said little David,
feeling the expected bliss dropping away from him at each step. Joel,
cantering over the crooked stairs, hadn’t heard, and he was singing at
the top of his joy, and telling everybody within hearing that they were
going to stay to dinner at Mrs. Blodgett’s, as he raced into the house.
Deacon Blodgett, wiping his face on the crash towel that hung by the
sink-room door, heard him as he came rushing in.
“So you be, Joel, so you be,” he cried, almost as much pleased. “Well,
now, Joe, come and wash up.” He set the tin basin he had hung up on its
nail, down again in the sink and pumped up some fresh water into it, as
Mrs. Blodgett, with little Davie, came in.
“Where’s Ben, Pa?” asked Mrs. Blodgett. “He wasn’t in the barn.”
“I sent him up to the wood-lot,” said the Deacon; “he’ll be along at
the right time. Dinner ready, Ma?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Blodgett hurried into the kitchen, where Betsey was making
a terrible clatter dishing up the hot things. At the good smells, Joel
plunged his face down to the tin basin, and splashed the water all over
his hot cheeks and into his eyes, then put out a hand blindly for the
crash towel on its nail. “Hurry up, Dave!” he cried.
“We ought not to stay,” said little Davie, huddling up to his side, the
Deacon having followed Mrs. Blodgett into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Blodgett said we must,” said Joel, mopping away like everything.
“Oh, what do you s’pose they’re going to have for dinner?” wrinkling
up his short nose in an effort to distinguish between the delightful
smells.
Little Davie tried not to smell at all, even burying his nose in one
hand, while he held to Joel’s jacket with the other. “Mamsie won’t like
it,” he said, when the door opened, and there was Ben, his ruddy face
now quite red. “Oh, boys! I ought to have told you to go home before,”
he cried, catching his breath, for he had run from the wood-lot every
step of the way.
“We are going to stay to dinner,” announced Joel, boldly; “Mrs.
Blodgett said so.”
“Well, you can’t,” said Ben, shortly “for Mamsie expects you home.”
Joel didn’t stop to think, but dashed wildly into the kitchen and up
against Mrs. Blodgett’s big blue-checked apron. “He’s going to send us
home, Ben is,” he gasped.
“What’s that?” Deacon Blodgett, catching the words, broke in. “Hey,
Ben?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ben, in the doorway, with little Davie hanging to his
hand, “the boys ought to go home, for Mamsie expects them.”
“Oh, let ’em sit down and eat,” said the deacon, sociably, “There,
Joel, stop feeling bad, you h’ain’t got to go home. Come, Ben, set
down, and here’s your chair, Davie.” He was dropping into his own,
while he talked.
“No, sir,” said Ben, firmly.
It seemed as if he could never get the words out, when he saw the
Deacon’s face. Maybe he wouldn’t give him any more work if he didn’t
mind him; for there was a little black cloud coming on the high
forehead. And Ben shivered from head to foot as he stood there.
“Set down, set down,” Deacon Blodgett, pointing with his fork, kept
repeating.
But Ben shook his head, while Joel sobbed in the depths of Mrs.
Blodgett’s big apron, and Davie hung helplessly to Ben’s hand.
“There, Pa, I guess I wouldn’t urge no more,” said Mrs. Blodgett, at
last. “Yes, you must go,” to Joel, loosening his hold on her apron,
“and some other time, maybe, I’ll ask your Ma beforehand to let you
stay.”
The Deacon jabbed a potato with his fork from the big dish of smoking
hot ones, and carried it to his plate without another word.
“And you can stay and eat dinner, Ben,” said Mrs. Blodgett.
“No,” said Ben, “thank you, Mrs. Blodgett, I’ve got my dinner same’s
ever; Polly put it up for me. It’s in the barn.” He kept talking,
hoping the Deacon would say something, but he didn’t even look up, and
Ben stifled a sigh, and went out after the two boys.
And after they had started for the “Little Brown House,” Mother Pepper,
not wishing them to work but half a day at a time helping Ben, he sat
down on a log of wood and ate his dinner. But he didn’t enjoy it very
much, for thinking of them with every mouthful.
“Well, dear me, what did make you so late?” cried Polly, as the two
boys walked into the kitchen. Then she hopped out of her chair, where
she sat over in the west window, pulling out basting-threads from one
of the coats Mrs. Pepper had finished that morning before she went down
to the parsonage to help the minister’s wife, and hurried to take out
the potatoes she was keeping hot in the oven. In that way she didn’t
see the two dismal little faces.
“Now, then, says I, haven’t they got hot little jackets, though!” sang
Polly, running over with the two baked potatoes wrapped in an old
towel; “hurry, and get into your chairs, boys, and I’ll cut you some
bread.”
And she flew into the pantry. “That’s fine,” she sang, rushing out with
it, when, catching sight of Joel’s face, “What _is_ the matter?” And
she set the plate of bread down hard on the table, and stared at them.
“We couldn’t stay to dinner,” said Davie, as Joel, contrary to his
usual custom, didn’t answer.
“_Couldn’t stay to dinner!_” echoed Polly.
“Oh, Polly!” Little Davie, finding it hard to keep up this one-sided
conversation any longer, and not willing to show Joel’s part in the
matter, now rushed to her, wailing, “Mamsie wouldn’t have wanted us
to,” and throwing his arms about her, he burst out crying as hard as he
could.
Now, all this time, Phronsie, who had come in tired from play, had
eaten her dinner very early, and Polly had tucked her into the trundle
bed for a long nap. So all was quite free in the old kitchen for the
good talk that Polly now set up with the two boys. And she soon had
one each side of her, and leaning over her lap, when, the whole story
once out, she comforted and coddled them quite as much as Mother Pepper
herself could have done, which is really saying a good deal. And so,
although the baked potatoes, waiting on the table got very cold, the
three little Peppers were bubbling over with happiness, and Joel really
forgot he was hungry, until Polly sprang up, nearly upsetting the two
small figures.
“Oh, my goodness me!” running over to the table and beginning to pinch
the brown jackets of the potatoes, “they’re as cold as two stones.”
“I like ’em cold,” declared Joel, rushing after her, and seizing one of
the potatoes. “Oh, ain’t they good!” tearing off the skin to scoop out
a mouthful.
“Put in some salt, Joe, do,” said Polly. But Joel couldn’t wait for
such small matters as salt, and he dug his spoon violently back and
forth in the potato jacket. “I’m going to eat it, every scrap,” suiting
the action to the word.
“No, no, Joe, you mustn’t,” commanded Polly, just in time, as the whole
of the potato skin showed signs of rapidly disappearing.
“I’m so hungry,” cried Joel.
“Well, if you are very hungry, you can eat some bread,” said Polly,
wisely, and wishing she had something nice for them after their
terrible disappointment about the beautiful dinner Mrs. Blodgett had
wanted to give them. But what was there? O dear me! Polly knew quite
well, without looking into the cupboard, just exactly how bare she
should find it.
“Now, I tell you, Joel and Davie, what I’ll do. There isn’t anything
else to eat, you know, but bread. You may have as much as you want
of that. I’ll tell you a story, if you’ll be good boys and eat
it.--Mamsie would let me, I know,” said Polly to herself, thinking of
the basting-threads not yet pulled out.
“Why, it’s the middle of the day, Polly,” said little Davie, in
astonishment, for Polly never was able to leave the work that always
seemed clamoring to be done, to tell stories to the children. That
enjoyment had to be put off till the twilight hour, when it was too
dark to see to do anything else.
“Yes, I know,” said Polly, recklessly, “but I’ll tell you one now,
Mamsie would say I could, if she were here.”
“Then I want it,” said little David, happily, and reaching out his hand
for a big piece of bread. And Joel began to cram down his slice as
quickly as possible to get the sooner to the story which he felt quite
sure would not be forthcoming until Polly saw the bread disappear, when
the door opened so suddenly that they all three jumped.
Deacon Blodgett’s round face appeared. “How d’ye do, Polly?” and
without further ado, he marched in, and laid a bundle on the table
wrapped in old newspaper, in between the potato skins and the plate of
bread. “Somethin’ Mrs. Blodgett sent, and I’ve got to go down to John
Hines’s, and if you’ll let Joel and David go with me, I’ll take ’em
along. They can tend to what’s in that bundle on th’ way.”
Joel had already torn off the old newspaper, little Davie quite willing
to sit still and watch the proceeding.
There was disclosed a much-worn clean napkin with a red border all
around it, and Joel’s frantic hands soon got this open, and there were
some of the slices of beef he had smelt just before dinner in the
Blodgett kitchen, and thick pieces of bread with,--really and truly
there was, and plenty of it,--butter spread all over them! And at
last--and didn’t Joel’s eyes stick out then, and even Davie held his
breath!--two little apple turnovers tucked in at the bottom!
“They can eat those in th’ wagon,” said Deacon Blodgett, when he could
be heard for the shouts sent out by Joel, and Davie’s crows of delight,
“if you’ll say, ‘Yes, they can go,’ Polly.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” cried Polly, saying it so fast, over and over, it
seemed as if she were never going to stop. “Dear Mr. Blodgett, they
can go, and oh, you are so good to ask them!” and it didn’t seem a
minute before they were all off and she was picking up the potato skins
and clearing the table neatly, as the rattle of Deacon Blodgett’s wagon
wheels died away in the road.
V
BAKING DAY
“Dear me!” said Jasper, standing on tiptoe and running his head well
within the old cupboard, “how perfectly fine! I wish we had one just
like this at our house,” he added enviously.
“Isn’t it!” cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, quite delighted that he
should so approve. “And we keep our very best dishes here.” She pointed
up to a blue willow plate, and one or two cracked cups and saucers on
the upper shelf.
“Good?” exclaimed Jasper, heartily; “I should say it was! I just love
it all, Polly.”
“Phoo!” cried Joel, crowding in between, “that’s nothing. We’re going
to have ever so many more; the shelves’ll be all rammed, crammed full.”
Little Davie who couldn’t possibly get nearer than the outside edge of
the group, stared with all his might.
“What do you mean, Joel?” gasped Polly, hanging to the door of the old
cupboard.
“We are,” declared Joel, delighted to see the impression he had
made, and pushing his way out to the middle of the kitchen to thrust
his hands in his little trousers’ pockets and strut up and down the
old floor, “and they won’t be such old things neither. They’ll be
spick-span new, every single one of ’em; plates and plates _and_
plates--yes, sir!”
“Joel Pepper!” exclaimed Polly, deserting Jasper and the old cupboard
to rush over and seize his jacket sleeve, “what are you talking about?
We aren’t ever going to have anything new.”
“We are, too,” declared Joel, and facing her.
“O dear me!” cried Polly, “what _do_ you mean?”
“We’re going to have everything new,” declared Joel, confidently.
Then he took his little brown hands out of his trousers’ pockets and
waved them triumphantly around the old kitchen. “We’re going to have a
sofa like the minister’s for Mamsie, and Dave and me’s going to have a
table and a gimlet and some jack-knives, and--and a piano. Oh, Polly,
you’re going to have a piano,” and Joel pranced about joyfully, “and
our ship’s going to bring ’em!”
“_Our ship!_” echoed Polly, faintly, while Jasper ran over to this
exciting centre of things, joined by little Davie. Phronsie alone
remained gazing up into the old cupboard.
“Um!” nodded Joel, “and they’re coming here, and going to bring ’em.
And Mirandy Peters is going to have some ships coming, too; I heard her
mother tell her to wait for ’em. I did, truly, Polly, just the other
day, when I went to work there, and they gave me some dinner, ’cause
the dog eat mine up. And then Mrs. Peters told me to wait for it. So
there, now!”
“O dear me!” cried Polly. Then she sat right down on the old floor and
little Davie sank by her side. “Oh, Jappy, do tell him that folks don’t
really have ships.”
“See here, Joel,” called Jasper.
But Joel, delighted that now he had explained everything to the
complete satisfaction of Polly and the others, had dashed off and
was now spinning around the old kitchen, whooping and shouting as if
driving a pair of the most unmanageable steeds. “And I’m going to
have a horse just like Mr. Beggs’s. No, it’s going to be like Mr.
Tisbett’s, and,--”
“Oh, Joey,” cried little Davie, getting up from the floor to run after
him, “do have it like dear Mr. Beebe’s horse; do, Joey,” he begged.
“Phoo! Mr. Beebe’s horse can’t go any,” said Joel, scornfully,
slackening his speed a bit.
“But he’s so nice,” pleaded David, with tears in his eyes; “please,
Joel, I’d rather have one like dear Mr. Beebe’s.”
“Well, then, I’ll give you one,” said Joel, magnificently, “but I’m
going to have mine like,--no, I’ll have two,--like Mr. Tisbett’s, and
I’ll have a stage and go, flapperty jickerty, down the hill, just like
this,--g’lang, there, git up!”--brandishing an imaginary whip. And away
Joel pranced, raising a dreadful make-believe dust, and making so much
noise there was no chance for any one else to be heard. And Davie, well
pleased since he was to have a horse exactly like dear Mr. Beebe’s,
raced and pranced after him.
“You can’t hear yourself think,” said Jasper, laughing to see them go;
“there’s no use, Polly, in trying to talk to him.”
“But just as soon as they stop a bit, oh, please, Jasper, tell him that
we aren’t going to have any ships coming in,” begged Polly, clasping
her hands; “it’s so very dreadful for him to be expecting them.”
“I’ll try,” nodded Jasper at her. “Don’t you be afraid, Polly, and
perhaps you will sometime have new things,” and he sat down on the
floor by her side.
“No,” said Polly, shaking her brown head, “we’re ever and always going
to live in this Little Brown House, Jasper King, and we don’t want new
things, only--” and her face fell.
“Well, you’ve got a new stove,” nodding over at it, said Jasper,
cheerfully; “that’s good, Polly.”
“Isn’t it?” cried Polly, radiantly, and her cheeks grew rosy again;
“dear Doctor Fisher gave us that, you know, Jasper.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jasper, who had heard the story many times, the
Pepper children never tiring of telling it over. “Well, and perhaps
some more things will come, Polly.”
“Oh, no,” said Polly, heaving a sigh, “they won’t, Jasper, and we don’t
want them, only--” she paused again.
“Only what, Polly?” begged Jasper, quickly; “tell me, Polly, do.”
He looked so very unhappy that she hurried to say, “Mamsie ought to
have a new chair to sew in.”
“I thought you were going to say, a piano,” said Jasper, abruptly.
“A piano!” cried Polly, springing to her feet. “Why, Jasper Elyot King,
I’m never going to have a piano in all this world!” and her brown eyes
opened their widest.
It was just at this moment that Joel paused to take breath and to let
his pair of horses exactly like Mr. Tisbett’s, go up hill comfortably,
and the words, “a piano” striking his ear, he threw down his reins, and
plunged over to Polly.
“Oh, play for us now,” he begged, for nothing beside Polly’s stories
ever gave so much joy as to hear Polly drum on the old kitchen table,
running her fingers swiftly up and down along its entire length, while
she hummed and sang the tune. “Play, Polly, do!” he teased.
“Oh, I can’t,” said Polly, with flushed cheeks.
“Please, Polly.” Little Davie, tired by driving a horse even exactly
like dear Mr. Beebe’s, jumped off from his wagon, and added his
entreaties, so Polly allowed herself to be pulled and pushed over to
the old table. “Well, what shall I play?” she said. “Oh, wait, I must
put the dishes away first.”
“Yes, clear off the piano,” said Joel, sticking out two ready little
arms to help; “that’s Polly’s piano,” he announced, just as if stating
an entirely new fact.
“No, no, Joe,” cried Polly, warningly, “I’ll do it,” and “I’ll help;
oh, let me,” begged Jasper.
So the two older ones put away the pile of clean breakfast dishes left
standing until the cupboard shelf--which Polly had just washed down,
should be dry,--was ready for them, which now being the case, they were
all neatly set in place.
“There, now, that’s all done,” said Jasper, rubbing his hands in great
satisfaction. “Come, Phronsie,” and Polly started to shut the cupboard
door.
“But I want to look at them,” said Phronsie, in gentle remonstrance and
putting up her hand to stop Polly.
“Oh, no, Pet,” said Polly, “you’ve seen them enough; come away, child.”
“But, I haven’t seen them enough, Polly,” contradicted Phronsie, “my
dear Mamsie’s dishes, and I want to look at them some more, I do.”
“Don’t you want to hear Polly play on the piano?” asked Jasper. “Come,
Phronsie, she’s going to.”
“Is Polly going to play on the piano?” asked Phronsie, her hand
dropping down and taking off her gaze from the old cupboard shelves.
“Yes, she is, Phronsie,” said Jasper.
“Then, I want to hear her play very much indeed,” said Phronsie,
turning away from the old cupboard, “and I can look at my Mamsie’s
dishes to-morrow.”
Joel, who had been clamoring for Polly to hurry and come, now set up a
dreadful racket on the old table as he drummed his impatience, “I’m a
soldier!” he cried. “Come on, Dave, I’m captain!”
“Oh, hurry, Polly,” cried Jasper, bursting into a laugh, “he won’t stop
until you play. Hold up, there, Joe,” he shouted, “Polly’s coming.”
“So I must,” laughed Polly, “or the house will come down.”
“Will the house come down, Polly?” asked little Phronsie, anxiously, as
she hurried over clinging to Jasper’s hand.
“Oh, no, Phronsie,” said Polly, quickly. “I shouldn’t have said so,”
she added reproachfully.
“Dear me, it couldn’t ever come down,” declared Jasper. “Why, it’s as
strong as anything. It’s going to last just forever.”
“And I’m going to live here, I am, just forever, too,” declared
Phronsie, hopping over the uneven floor.
“Well, now, what shall I play?” asked Polly, with quite an air, and
pushing the sleeves of her brown calico gown up further over her wrists.
“Oh, play that jiggy, wiggly piece,” said Joel, who never could
remember the names of Polly’s wonderful flights of melody.
“Oh, Joel, I don’t want that to-day,” said Polly, wrinkling up her
cheeks in disdain.
“That was splendid,” retorted Joel, “and I liked it when the organ man
played it.”
“Did another organ man come by here?” asked Jasper, in a whisper to
Polly.
“No,” said Polly, in a low voice, and her cheek turned pale at the
remembrance of the dreadful time when Phronsie followed one to see the
monkey.
Jasper drew a long breath of relief.
“He stopped at Mr. Beebe’s, one day when we were there, and dear Mrs.
Beebe gave him five cents to play for us,” finished Polly.
“Oh!” said Jasper, quite relieved.
“And I like that best of all,” Joel was saying in a loud injured voice,
“and Polly won’t play it.”
“Oh, I will, I will,” cried Polly, quite overcome with remorse, and
then Jasper ran over to bring a chair and place it in front of the old
table, and Polly sat down, and began with quite a flourish. And before
she got through, she forgot all about how she hadn’t wanted to play
that piece, and there she was singing away for dear life, and presently
she ended by gay little trills and a “bang,--bang!”
“Hooray!” cried Joel, capering about. “Now play another one, and we’re
going to dance. Come on, Phron!” trying to seize her hand.