humor indeed. “I’ve taken the pigs to t’other shed, so you can set to
work at once.”
“I shan’t,” said Joel, wrathfully, and the color flying all over his
cheek, “do it ever; not a single thing.”
“You won’t?” cried the old man, in a passion, and he raised his stick.
But as Joel looked at him without even so much as a glance from his
black eyes at the stick, he thought better of it, and his hand carrying
it, dropped to his side. “You engaged to come and do my work,” he
snarled.
“I didn’t,” said Joel, stoutly, “say I’d come and do your pig-pen; so
there, now.”
“You’re a pretty boy,” said Old Mr. Peters, shaking with wrath and at
the prospect of losing him; “what kind of a mother have you got, I’d
like to know, to bring you up like that?”
“She didn’t bring us up,” cried Joel, his black eyes blazing, and
advancing on him so furiously that the old man stepped involuntarily
back against the barn.
“No, I sh’d say not,” he cackled.
“And you aren’t going to say anything about my mother,” declared Joel,
doubling up his small brown fists, and throwing back his head.
“Stop--get off,” said Old Man Peters, edging farther away; “well, she
didn’t teach you to keep your promises,” he sneered.
“She did--she did,” cried Joel, wildly, “and you’re a bad old man, and
I hate you.”
“Well, I sh’d s’pose if you think so much of her, you wouldn’t want to
worry her,” said Mr. Peters, seeing his advantage. “How’d she like it
to have you go home and say you’d shirked your work, hey?”
Down went Joel’s angry little fists to his sides, and his black head
dropped.
“An’, beside, see,” said the old man, now quite elated, “that if you go
home, an’ say you wouldn’t do my work, like enough she won’t ever let
you take another job. Then, says I, Joel Pepper, where’d you be?”
Where Joel would be in such a dreadful state of affairs was more than
he could say. And by this time he was beyond reasoning, so he dropped
down to his knees on the edge of the dreadful mess in the pig-pen and
began to crawl over under the sill of the barn.
“I’ll throw you a broom an’ a shovel,” said the old man, in great glee.
And presently that was done, a worn down broom and an old shovel with
a broken handle tumbled in, and then, after minute directions how the
work was to be done, Mr. Peters stumped back to the house.
“Well, I’ve set that lazy boy to work,” he said, rubbing his hands in
delight as he sat down in the kitchen.
“What’s he doin’?” asked Mrs. Peters, rolling out pie-crust on the
baking table. It didn’t in the least look like what Mrs. Deacon
Blodgett considered worthy to cover her “apple filling,” Mr. Peters not
allowing any such waste of lard and other necessary material. But it
was called “pie” and as such had to be made regularly--so many a week.
“Never you mind,” Mr. Peters stopped chuckling to emit the sour
reprimand. Then he sank back in his big chair and rubbed his hands
again harder than ever.
Mrs. Peters exchanged a glance with her daughter, who caught the last
words, as she was coming into the kitchen, her dust-pan in her hand.
“Hush, don’t say nothin’,” she said as Miranda passed her to throw the
sweepings into the stove, and she shook her head over in the direction
of Mr. Peters in the big chair.
“I’ll find out for myself,” determined Miranda, and going out with her
dust-pan for another accumulation. “Beats all what makes Pa act so like
Kedar; what’s he ben up to, I wonder.”
Meantime, Joel worked on like a beaver; not only his hands and face
were grimy, but his clothes were smeared from head to foot, while as
for his shoes, well,--they were so covered with mud and straw and
the general mess of the old pen, that no one would have known that
they were shoes. But after he was fairly at work, Joel thought nothing
of all this, but pegged away, his face streaming with perspiration,
one happy thought running through his mind,--“I’m earning money, and
helping Mammy,”--and he actually forgot his dinner, tucked away by
Polly, in the paper bundle that he had carried under his arm, and set
down carefully by the side of the barn before beginning his work. It
was only when he heard a voice that he looked up.
“O my!” it was a boy considerably bigger than Joel looking over the
pig-pen rail.
“What you doin’?”
“Working,” said Joel, shortly. He didn’t like this boy, and Mamsie
didn’t approve in the least of him, so Joel had strict orders, whenever
they met in the village on errands to the store, to keep as good a
distance off as possible. So now he bent over his work again.
“Hah! he goin’ to pay you?” demanded the boy, pointing with a dingy
thumb toward the house.
At the word “pay,” Joel straightened up. “Yes,” he said, feeling very
big and important.
“How much?” the boy looking over the railing cried eagerly, his green
eyes glistening.
“I don’t know,” said Joel.
“Hah, hah, hah! You _are_ a greeny,” cried the other boy. Then he
doubled up with laughing, and slapped his patched knee.
“Stop your laughing,” cried Joel, lifting a face that would have looked
very red, could it have been seen for the mud.
At this, the other boy laughed harder than ever.
“If you don’t stop laughing, I’ll come up and punch you,” cried Joel,
forgetting all about Mamsie and what she had told him, and he lifted
black, wrathful eyes that snapped vengeance.
But the other boy, preferring to keep on laughing, did so, until he
rolled on the mangy grass, holding his sides, only to hop to his feet,
when he saw a small but determined figure advancing dangerously near.
“I’m going to punch you,” announced Joel, his fists in two hard little
knots; “I said I would.”
“Hah!” began the other boy, but he hadn’t time to finish, for Joel,
having announced his intentions, did pitch in, and the visitor, who
began by thinking it an easy matter to whip the smaller boy, was now
principally occupied in trying to see how he could best avoid the hard
thwacks the sturdy little fists were dealing him.
“Ma! Ma!” cried Miranda, at last spying them as she was shaking out
her dust-cloth. “There are two boys fighting down by th’ barn,” she
screamed over the stairs.
“Oh, you don’t say so,” cried Mrs. Peters back again. “Dear me, I hope
they won’t go near th’ Pepper boy. If anythin’ sh’d happen to him, his
Ma never’d forgive me.”
“It _is_ th’ Pepper boy who’s fightin’, Ma,” proclaimed Miranda,
running her head out of the window; “oh, goodness me!” Then she pulled
it in, and hurried over the stairs.
“You go right straight out an’ separate them boys,” commanded old Mrs.
Peters, in a dreadful state of mind. “Here, take th’ broom, Mirandy,
and tell ’em--I d’no what you will tell ’em, but you git ’em apart
anyway.”
Miranda, having a pretty good notion of her own what she would say when
she got there, sped over the grass, waving her broom as she went.
“Here, you,” at last, as she reached the spot, her long light braids of
hair streaming out behind, and her breath almost gone, “stop!” and she
shook her broom at them. “O dear me, Joel Pepper, I _am_ s’prised!”
“There, you see,” exclaimed the other boy, getting up from the grass
where Joel had just neatly deposited him underneath himself, “what she
says.”
“Oh, it’s you, Jim Potts, is it?” said Miranda, with a look of scorn.
“Well, if you ever let me see you here again, I’ll pitch into you
myself. Get out!” and she shook her broom at him, and not caring to
make the acquaintance of Joel any further, he slunk away, first calling
to a yellow dog, nosing around the barn.
“You take that miserable dog away,” screamed Miranda Peters after him;
and the dog seeing the broom, for which household implement he had no
special fondness, at once set into a lively run in which his master
joining, they were soon lost to view.
“If ever I see such a sight in my life as you be, Joel Pepper,”
exclaimed Miranda, with extreme disfavor. “My, and phew! What have you
been doin’?” She wrinkled up as much nose as she possessed, and pulled
her calico gown well away, to be sure it couldn’t possibly hit any part
of his muddy clothes.
“Cleaning out the pig-pen,” said Joel, pointing a very grimy finger at
it.
“Cleanin’ out th’ pig-pen!” exclaimed Miranda Peters. “O my, _and_ O
my! What will Mrs. Pepper say?”
“Oh, don’t tell Mamsie,” pleaded Joel, crowding up closely to her.
“Oh, you get away!” cried Miranda, edging off, and whipping her gown
tighter than ever around her feet; “don’t you dars’t to come no nearer,
Joel Pepper. Well, first I must clean you up,” and she took up the
broom she had dropped in her agitation.
“Oh, I’m going back,” said Joel, preparing to descend again to his work.
“You come right straight here,” commanded Miranda, shrilly, “an’ don’t
you stir one step into that nasty hole. O dear me, I’m afraid as death
of what Mrs. Pepper’ll say.”
“I must finish it,” Joel began.
“You come here,” and back he had to go, and then she swept him all over
with her broom, knocking off the clinging straws and pig-pen litter,
all the time exclaiming: “O dear me! What _will_ Mrs. Pepper say!”
“Mamsie wouldn’t want me to stop my work,” said Joel, wrathfully, who
didn’t like this sort of proceeding at all.
“You be still.” Miranda whirled him about picking at his sleeve
gingerly, wherever she could find a place least besmeared, “That ain’t
your work, an’ Pa ought to have ben ashamed to set you at it. O dear
me, what a scrape he’s got us into,” she said to herself; “for Ma an’
me has got to get this boy clean enough to go home. Oh, mercy, do stand
still,” she said aloud.
“My mother won’t want me to leave my work,” said Joel, loudly, at her,
his black eyes flashing, “and I ain’t going to, so there.”
“Well, you keep still; I’ll give you some work to do.”
“Will you?”
“Yes, yes, do stand still; oh, mercy, what a mess!”
“What shall I do?” demanded Joel, smiling now. It was all right since
he was going to work, and carry home some money to Mamsie. “Say, Miss
Miranda, what’ll I do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Do be still,” she twitched him into position again.
“You said you had some work for me,” said Joel, loudly. “You said so,
your very own self.”
“Well, so I will give you some,” promised Miss Miranda, pushed into a
corner. “There, you’re brushed, all I can get off of the nasty stuff.
Now, you must come into th’ house.”
“Will you give me the work, then?” asked Joel, determined to have that
settled before starting.
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, wait, I’m going to get my dinner,” for the first time this now
coming into his mind, and he ran off to the side of the barn, where he
had tucked his paper bundle.
“Why, where,--” he began, getting down on all fours. Then he sprang up.
“It’s gone!” he shouted, with a very red face, over to Miss Miranda.
“What’s gone?” she screamed back.
“My dinner,--my whole dinner; and Polly did it up.”
Joel by this time was prancing about and shaking a piece of brown paper
violently, but no dinner appeared. It was gone as completely as if
there never had been any in the bundle.
“What was in it?” asked Miranda, leaning over to scrutinize the empty
paper.
“My dinner!” choked Joel, waving the paper wrathfully.
“Well, what was it?” said Miranda, contemptuously.
“Bread.”
“Bread! O dear me, well, I wouldn’t cry about that,” said Miranda.
“I’m not crying,” declared Joel, passionately.
“And was that all?”
“No, there was a potato and nice, nice salt.”
At this, Joel, remembering how he had seen Polly put it up, and how
very hungry he was at this present moment, turned away and began to
sob, trying to keep it all back, so that Miss Miranda shouldn’t see.
“There, I wouldn’t feel bad, Joel,” she said, not unkindly; “I’ll give
you some dinner. I s’pose Jim Potts’s dog eat it up.”
All the sorrow went out of Joel’s face, and he whirled about, dashing
off the tears from his black eyes. “I’ll punch him for that,” he said.
“No, you won’t, either,” said Miranda, and picking his sleeve again.
“You let that Jim Potts alone, Joel Pepper. He’s a bad boy, an’ as for
that poor dog o’ his, he’s hungrier ’n you be. Come along, an’ I’ll
give you some dinner.”
And presently Joel was seated before a plate on which were scraps
of cold corned beef, very red and stringy, it is true, but tasting
perfectly delicious, and a little pile of cold cabbage and potatoes.
He wasn’t in the kitchen, it is true, because neither Mrs. Peters nor
Miranda thought it the least desirable that Mr. Peters should meet him.
But in the wash-shed, back of the big tubs, he sat on a little stool,
and ate away with only one thought--“Oh, how good it was! And wouldn’t
it be prime if they could ever have such splendid things at the Little
Brown House for dinner!”
“We must give him something to eat before we clean him up, Ma,” Miranda
had whispered out in the kitchen, after closing the wash-shed door,
“for he’s half starved. My, what _will_ Mrs. Pepper say, an’ how could
Pa git us in such a scrape!”
But after the last morsel was carefully scraped from his plate,
Miranda, remarking that it looked as if it had been washed, Joel
straightened up and clamored for work again.
“What’ll we put him at?” she whispered, carrying out the plates and
knife and fork to the kitchen sink.
“My land, I’m sure I don’t know,” said old Mrs. Peters, helplessly.
“There’s enough work, goodness knows, in th’ house to do, but nothin’
to set a boy on. It beats me, Mirandy.”
“Well, there’s some that’s got to be found,” said Miranda, decidedly.
“Meanwhilst, we’ll just whip off his clothes, an’ I’ll run ’em through
th’ tub.”
“What’ll he put on?” cried the old lady, aghast.
“Why, there’s John’s things up in th’ attic,” said Miranda; “I’ll run
up and fetch ’em.”
Which she did, and although John, when he left home to go to sea, was
a lad twice the size of Joel Pepper, and his garments left behind had
been hanging in the garret ever since, to the great delight of the
moths, Joel not only made no objections to being inducted into them,
but his face actually shone with pleasure at the prospect. Now, he was
big, indeed!
“I can roll up your sleeves,” said Miss Miranda, reassuringly, as the
well-worn edges dangled over his hands.
“Did John roll ’em up?” asked Joel, regarding her movements with
suspicion.
“No, of course not,” said Miranda, briskly, “but he was bigger’n you
be. Why, he was almost a man.”
“Then, I don’t want ’em rolled up,” said Joel, trying to get away from
her long fingers, “and I’m almost a man, too. See how big I am, Miss
Miranda.”
But, notwithstanding, Miranda went on pinching and rolling the
sleeve-ends, and at last she threw Joel’s little blue cotton jacket and
trousers into the nearest tub. “There,” she said, surveying him and her
work, “at least, you’re clean.”
“An’ I’ve thought of some work he could do,” said old Mrs. Peters,
looking in at the door.
“That’s th’ best thing of all,” said Miranda, soaping the stains
vigorously; “I can wash an’ iron, but I can’t pick out work for a boy.
What is’t, Ma? It’s got to be somethin’ not near to Pa,” she said in a
lower tone.
“Your Pa can’t hear nor see this,” said Mrs. Peters. “It’s to pick
over apples down cellar. They’re all a-rottin’ an’ spilin’ like all
possessed.”
“The very thing!” exclaimed Miranda, joyfully. “Now, you run along,
Joel, with Ma. She’ll set you to work.”
It was impossible for Joel to run in the garments that he now was
in, but that seemed to him of small importance, since a man was not
supposed to run down the cellar stairs.
So, down he went, and presently he was seated in the Peterses’ cellar
on an old butter-tub, turned upside down, and before a great pile of
apples, from which he was to pick out the decayed ones.
“And mind, Joel, don’t put any specked ones in there.” Old Mrs. Peters
pointed a long thin finger over to the big basket set for the purpose.
“No, I won’t,” said Joel, all his eyes on the great pile of apples, and
his mouth watering.
“An’ you may have one.” The old lady leaned over John’s coat sleeve, to
whisper it, as if afraid that the ceiling above would tell the story to
Pa, snoring in his big chair in the kitchen.
“Can I?” cried Joel. “Oh, goody!”
“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Peters, catching his arm. “Yes, you may have
two, only you must take specked ones, Joel.”
“Well, that boy’s fixed.” Mrs. Peters came toiling up the cellar stairs
and into the wash-shed. “So he’s quiet about some work to do. But
how’ll we pay him, Mirandy?”
Mirandy leaned her soapy hands on the rim of the tub. “I s’pose I’ll
have to break into that egg money,” she said.
IX
OVER AT GRANDMA BASCOM’S
“No, children,” Mrs. Pepper shook her head, and bent closer over her
sewing in the west window.
There was an awful silence in the old kitchen. Only Phronsie moved
uneasily and put her hand up to Polly’s chin to turn the face down, so
that she might see into the brown eyes. But Polly wouldn’t look.
“Oh, we can’t give it up, Mamsie,” at last she burst out passionately.
And that set Joel off.
“No, no,” he howled, “we can’t, Mamsie.” And then little Davie
blubbered; he couldn’t help it on hearing Joel, and he hid his face on
his sleeve.
“Can’t is a very poor word to use, Polly,” said Mrs. Pepper, dryly,
“when folks know what ought to be done.”
“But, Mamsie,” cried Polly, deserting the ring of children sitting on
the floor, to rush tumultuously over to the sewing corner. Phronsie
immediately got up and pattered after her, Joel following after, little
David sitting quite still, and sobbing softly into his sleeve, “don’t
you see, oh, don’t you see, Mamsie, that we’ve never had a chance to
go,--to go to Cherryville before, and we’ve wanted to for so long.”
She thrust her face with a little white line around the mouth, up
against the buttonhole where Mrs. Pepper was setting fine stitches.
“We’ve wanted to,” cooed Phronsie, who didn’t yet half know what it was
all about, only that Polly wanted something dreadfully, and she patted
her mother’s knee to attract attention.
“Take care, Polly,” warned Mrs. Pepper; “you almost stuck that needle
into you.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” said Polly, recklessly, and brushing back her
hair from her flushed face. But she dodged the busy needle. “You see,
Mamsie.”
“Yes, you see, Mamsie,” shouted Joel.
“I see,” said Mrs. Pepper, gravely. She lifted her face for a minute,
and Polly’s heart smote her when she saw how very pale it was; then the
stitches were set as quickly as ever.
“And if we’ve got to give it all up--” Polly really couldn’t stop by
this time, but the words came rushing out over each other for all the
world just like a noisy little brook tumbling over the stones in its
way, “All the fun driving in Miss Parrott’s coach, to stay with Grandma
Bascom all day,--why, we can’t, Mamsie!” Down went her brown head in
Mother Pepper’s lap; and she sobbed as if her heart would break.
“No, we can’t,” cried Joel, in a loud voice. “See Polly cry, Mamsie!”
He pointed a surprised and shaking finger at the brown head buried
in Mother Pepper’s work. At that, Phronsie gave a sharp little
scream. Mrs. Pepper put aside Mr. Atkins’s coat with its last-but-one
buttonhole half done.
“Joel!” she said.
When Mother Pepper spoke in that tone, it was not necessary for
further reproof. And Joel immediately hung his head and blubbered out
something. But Phronsie continued to scream on, and flung her arms
around Polly’s shaking figure.
“Now Phronsie’s Mother’s little girl.” Mrs. Pepper drew her off to the
side of her chair. “Stop crying and look up here, child.”
Phronsie raised her head obediently and wiped off the tears on her fat
little hand. “Polly’s crying,” she announced, her lip still quivering.
“I know it; Mother’ll take care of Polly,” said Mrs. Pepper; “now you
go with Joel, and play out of doors till I call you.”
“Dave must go, too,--can’t he, Mamsie?” broke in Joel.
“Yes, Davie can go, too,” Mother Pepper tried to smile over at him
where he crouched on the floor. “Now go along and be good children.”
“I want Polly,” said Phronsie, with a lingering glance at the figure
still half-hidden in Mamsie’s lap.
“No, Polly must stay with me. Go along, Phronsie, and be Mother’s good
child.”
“I will be Mother’s good child,” hummed Phronsie. So Joel took her
hand, and somehow little David found his feet, and stumbled out after
them, and shut the green door fast.
In about half an hour, “tap,--tap,” on one of the little window panes.
There was Mrs. Pepper rapping with her thimble.
“Hi--yi!” screamed Joel, catching sight of her face in the midst of a
merry game of tag. “She says, come in!” and off he plunged for the
house.
“We must wait for Phronsie,” said little David. But Joel was already
in the old kitchen, and at last David found Phronsie on her knees
watching the progress of a fuzzy yellow caterpillar in the middle of
the grass-plot. She had forgotten all about “tag,” in which she was
supposed to be an active participant.
“See, Davie, one of his legs is sick,” she cried, “poor little thing.”
“Oh, no, he isn’t sick,” said David; “he’s only slow. Come, Phronsie,
and leave the old woolly boy alone.”
“No, he’s sick, the poor little woolly boy,” persisted Phronsie, “and
I’m going to take him in to Mamsie.”
“Well, Mamsie wants us to come in,” said David, impatiently; “so do
hurry, Phronsie.”
“Does Mamsie want us to come in?” asked Phronsie.
“Yes, she does. She called us from the window.”
“Then I shall go in,” declared Phronsie, getting up from her knees and
patting her hands clean, “but I’m going to take my little woolly boy
in, Davie.” So she picked him off gently from the grass, and setting
him on her other hand, came slowly after David, who was running on
before.
“Do hurry, Phronsie,” he begged, coming back to hasten matters; “there,
don’t you see your woolly boy isn’t lame? he’s walking up your arm like
everything.”
“He likes it,” said Phronsie, subduing all desire to get free, since
this promenade appeared to be so well suited to the caterpillar. “He’s
getting all well, Davie.”
“Well, he isn’t going to walk up your arm like that,” declared Davie,
unceremoniously picking off the caterpillar; “now, Mister Woolly Boy,
I’ll carry you.”
“Oh, no, no, Davie, let me,” cried Phronsie, holding out her hands;
“he’s my very own woolly boy, and I like him.”
“Well, hold him in your hand, then,--like this.” Davie doubled over
Phronsie’s fat little thumb and the fingers. “Not too tight or you’ll
squash him.”
“What’s squash?” asked Phronsie, trying to peek in the cracks between
her fingers at her treasure.
“Why, smash,” said David; “you’d smash him all to bits, and then there
wouldn’t be anything left of him but his fur coat and the juice.”
“What’s juice?” asked Phronsie.
“Oh, that’s his insides,” said Davie; “take care now, don’t squeeze
him.”
“Wouldn’t there be any little woolly boy inside of his fur coat?” asked
Phronsie, stumbling along with the greatest difficulty, both eyes
fastened on her closed hand.
“No, not a single thing,” asserted Davie, positively; “why, here’s
Polly!”
“Well, children,” said Polly, running down to meet them, “why didn’t
you come in when Mamsie called?”
“Oh, Phronsie found an old caterpillar,” said David, discontentedly. To
have missed any of Mamsie’s calls put him out dreadfully.
“No, he’s a woolly boy,” corrected Phronsie; “see, Polly, and he’s
sick.” She held up her hand for Polly to look through the cracks.
“Well, never mind, Pet,” said Polly; “Mamsie wants us now, and we must
hurry, for we are all to go to Grandma Bascom’s.”
“Aren’t we going to--” began David.
“No,” said Polly, quickly. “We are going to Grandma’s, and we are
going to have a real good time, Davie.”
With that she took Phronsie’s disengaged hand, “Come on,” and away they
all sped into the Little Brown House.
And in five minutes it really seemed as if no such wonderful invitation
had been received as that which Miss Parrott had sent down in a prim
little note this morning. It had begged Mrs. Pepper to allow the four
children (Ben was away at work on Deacon Blodgett’s woodpile) to drive
over to Cherryville, under the care of her coachman, who had to take
the big family barouche there for some slight repairs. Was ever such
a wonderful treat! And just the day before they had promised Grandma
Bascom, who was sick in bed with the rheumatism, to spend this very
morning with her. Polly was to bake the bread and tidy up the little
cottage, and the two boys were to split the kindlings and feed the
hens; Phronsie’s part being to sit on the gay patched bedquilt by
Grandma’s side and read aloud to her, the old lady being deaf as a
post, and the book generally upside down never making any difference in
the enjoyment.