exclaimed Carrie. "Why, we shall be envied of all our neighbors; and,
Mamma, you have been sighing over our expenses, and wishing that Jimmy
and I could support you. Do not you see that we can make our fortune
with chocolate creams? First, let us eat all we want before telling
anybody; then let us give some to choice friends, and we will sell the
rest."
All the time she was talking Carrie was putting in her hand for
chocolate creams and cramming one after another. Mrs. Fraser, too, did
not refuse to taste them. How could they ever get into the parlor again,
unless they were eaten up?
"I am sure we can make quite a fortune," Carrie went on. "As soon as
Jimmy comes home we can calculate how much it will be. The last time I
was in Boston I gave fifteen cents for a quarter of a pound, and there
were just thirteen chocolate creams. Now, see. In my two hands I can
hold fourteen; now, how many times that do you suppose there are in the
room?"
Mrs. Fraser could not think. Carrie was triumphant.
"Jimmy will know how to calculate, for he knows how many feet and inches
there are in the room. If not, he can measure by the piazza; and we can
row the chocolate creams out, and see how many go to a foot, and then we
can easily find out. Of course, we shall sell them cheaper than they do
in Boston, and so there will be a rush for them. It will be bully!"
"I am glad we happened to take this rocking-chair out on the piazza this
morning," said Mrs. Fraser, languidly seating herself. "I don't see how
we shall ever get into the parlor again."
"Jimmy and I will eat our way in fast enough," said Carrie, laughing;
and Jimmy at that moment appeared with two boy friends, whom he had
brought home to dinner.
They were all delighted when they understood the situation, and had soon
eaten a little place by the window, inside the room.
"I quite forgot to buy any dinner," exclaimed Mrs. Fraser, starting up.
"I meant to have ordered a leg of mutton as I went down, and now it is
too late; and eggs for a pudding. Jimmy will have to go down----"
"Oh, the chocolate creams will do!" exclaimed Carrie. "Don't you see,
there's our first saving, and my wish does not turn out so extravagant,
after all. The boys will be glad to have chocolate creams for dinner,
I'm sure."
The boys all said they would, as far as they could, when their mouths
were so full.
"We must put out an advertisement," said Carrie, at last, as soon as she
could stop to speak: "'Chocolate creams sold cheap!' I guess we won't
give any away. We may as well make all we can. It will be geminy!
Suppose we look up some boxes and baskets, Jimmy, to sell them in; and
you boys can go to the gate and tell people there are chocolate creams
for sale."
But all the boxes and baskets were soon filled, and only a little space
made in the room. Jimmy pulled out the other rocking-chair that Carrie
had been sitting in, and she rested herself for a while.
"I declare, I never thought before I could eat enough chocolate creams;
but they are a trifle cloying."
"My dear," said Mrs. Fraser, "if you had not said 'chock full;' if you
had said 'a great many,' or 'a trunkful,' or something of that sort."
"But I meant 'chock full,'" insisted Carrie.
"I did not mean quite up to the ceiling. I didn't suppose that was what
'chock' meant. Now we know."
A great shouting was heard. All the boys of the town were gathering, and
quite a crowd of people seemed coming near.
Mrs. Fraser was a widow, and there was no man in the house. Jimmy was
the nearest approach to a man that she could depend upon; and here he
was, leading a band of boys! She sent one of the boys she knew the best
for Mr. Stetson, the neighboring policeman, who came quickly, having
already seen the crowd of boys flocking to the house.
Carrie was trying to sell off her boxes for fifteen, ten, even five
cents; but the crowd could not be easily appeased, for the boys could
see across the windows the chocolate creams closely packed. "The room is
chock full!" they exclaimed.
Mr. Stetson examined the premises. "You'll find it hard work to get
them chocolates out in a week, even if you set all the boys on them. I'd
advise letting them in one by one to fill their pockets, each to pay
a cent."
Even Carrie assented to this, and a line was formed, and boys let in
through the window. They ate a way to the door that led into the entry,
so that it could be opened and the room could be entered that way. The
boys now went in at the window and came out at the door, eating as they
went and filling their pockets. Carrie could not but sigh at thought of
the Boston chocolates, more than a cent apiece! But the boys ate, and
then the girls came and ate; but with night all had to leave, at last.
It was possible to shut the window and lock it, and shut the door for
the night, after they had gone.
"I don't see why the chocolates should not stay on there weeks and
weeks," said Carrie to her mother. "Of course, they won't be so fresh,
day after day; but they will be fresher than some in the shops. I'm
awfully tired of eating them now, and feel as if I never wanted to see
a chocolate cream again; but I suppose I shall feel different after a
night's sleep, and I think Mr. Stetson is wrong in advising us to sell
them so low."
Mrs. Fraser suggested she should like to go in the parlor to sit.
"But to-morrow is the day of the picnic," said Carrie, "and we shall be
out-of-doors anyhow. I will take chocolate creams for my share. But,
dear me! my dress is on the sofa,--my best dress. You were putting the
ruffles in!"
"I told you, my dear, one of the last things, to take it upstairs," said
Mrs. Fraser.
"And there it is, in the furthest corner of the room," exclaimed Carrie,
"with all those chocolates scrouching on it. I'll tell you. I'll get Ben
Sykes in early. He eats faster than any of the other boys, and he shall
eat up toward my dress. He made a great hole in the chocolates this
afternoon. I will have him come in early, and we don't go to the picnic
till after twelve o'clock."
"And at twelve o'clock you have your second wish," said Mrs. Fraser.
"Yes, Mamma," said Carrie; "and I have already decided what it shall
be,--a chariot and four. It will come just in time to take me to the
picnic."
"Oh, my dear Carrie," said her mother, "do think what you are planning!
Where would you keep your chariot and the four horses?"
"Oh! there will be a man to take care of them," said Carrie; "but I will
think about it all night carefully----"
At that very moment she went to sleep.
The next morning early, Carrie was downstairs. She found she could eat
a few more chocolate creams, and Jimmy was in the same condition. She
proposed to him her plan of keeping the chocolates still for sale, but
eating a way to the sofa in the corner, to her best dress.
Ben Sykes came early, and a few of the other boys. The rest were kept at
home, because it turned out they had eaten too many and their parents
would not let them come.
A good many of the older people came with baskets and boxes, and bought
some to carry away, they were so delicious and fresh.
Meanwhile Ben Sykes was eating his way toward the corner. It was very
hard making any passage, for as fast as he ate out a place others came
tumbling in from the top. Carrie and Jimmy invented "a kind of a tunnel"
of chairs and ironing-boards, to keep open the passage; and other boys
helped eat, as they were not expected to pay.
But the morning passed on. Mrs. Fraser tried to persuade Carrie to wear
another dress; but she had set her mind on this. She had a broad blue
sash to wear with it, and the sash would not go with any other dress.
She watched the clock, she watched Ben; she went in under the
ironing-boards, to help him eat, although she had begun to loathe the
taste of the chocolate creams.
Ben was splendid. He seemed to enjoy more the more he ate. Carrie
watched him, as he licked them and ate with glowing eyes.
"Oh, Ben," Carrie suddenly exclaimed, "you can't seem to eat them fast
enough. I wish your throat were as long as from one end of this room to
the other."
At this moment the clock was striking.
Carrie was ready to scream out her second wish; but she felt herself
pushed in a strange way. Ben was on all fours in front of her, and now
he pushed her back, back. His neck was so long that while his head was
still among the chocolates, at the far corner of the room, his feet were
now out of the door.
Carrie stood speechless. She had lost her wish by her foolish
exclamation. The faithful Ben, meanwhile, was flinging something through
the opening. It was her dress, and she hurried away to put it on.
When she came down, everybody was looking at Ben. At first he enjoyed
his long neck very much. He could stand on the doorstep and put his head
far out up in the cherry trees and nip off cherries, which pleased both
the boys and himself.
[Illustration: He enjoyed his long neck very much.]
Instead of a chariot and four, Carrie went off in an open wagon, with
the rest of the girls. It made her feel so to see Ben, with his long
neck, that she got her mother's permission to spend the night with the
friend in whose grounds the picnic was to be held.
She carried baskets of chocolate creams, and she found numbers of the
girls, who had not eaten any, who were delighted with them, and promised
to come the next day, to buy and carry away any amount of them. She
began to grow more cheerful, though she felt no appetite, and instead
of eating everything, as she always did at picnics, she could not even
touch Mattie Somers's cream-pie nor Julia Dale's doughnuts. She stayed
as late as she could at her friend Mattie's; but she felt she must get
home in time for her third wish, at twelve o'clock.
Would it be necessary for her to wish that Ben Sykes's neck should be
made shorter? She hoped she might find that it had grown shorter in the
night; then she could do as she pleased about her third wish.
She still clung to the desire for the chariot and four. If she had it,
she and her mother and Jimmy could get into it and drive far away from
everybody,--from Ben Sykes and his long neck, if he still had it,--and
never see any of them any more. Still, she would like to show the
chariot and four to her friends; and perhaps Ben Sykes would not mind
his long neck, and would be glad to keep it and earn money by showing
himself at a circus.
So she reached home in the middle of the morning, and found the whole
Sykes family there, and Ben, still with his long neck. It seems it had
given him great trouble in the night. He had to sleep with his head in
the opposite house, because there was not room enough on one floor at
home. Mrs. Sykes had not slept a wink, and her husband had been up
watching, to see that nobody stepped on Ben's neck. Ben himself appeared
in good spirits; but was glad to sit in a high room, where he could
support his head.
Carrie suggested her plan that Ben should exhibit himself. He, no doubt,
could earn a large sum. But his mother broke out against this. He never
could earn enough to pay for what he ate, now his throat was so long.
Even before this he could swallow more oatmeal than all the rest of the
family put together, and she was sure that now even Mr. Barnum himself
could not supply him with food enough. Then she burst into a flood of
tears, and said she had always hoped Ben would be her stay and support;
and now he could never sleep at home, and everybody looking after him
when he went out, and the breakfast he had eaten that very morning was
enough for six peoples' dinners.
They were all in the parlor, where the chocolate creams were partially
cleared away. They were in a serried mass on two sides of the room,
meeting near the centre, with the underground passage, through which Ben
had worked his way to Carrie's dress. Mrs. Fraser had organized a band
to fill pasteboard boxes, which she had obtained from the village, and
she and her friends were filling them, to send away to be sold, as all
the inhabitants of the town were now glutted with chocolate creams.
At this moment Carrie heard a click in the clock. She looked at her
mother, and as the clock struck she said steadily, "I wish that Ben's
neck was all right again."
Nobody heard her, for at that moment Ben Sykes started up, saying: "I'm
all right, and I have had enough. Come along home!" And he dragged his
family away with him.
Carrie fell into her mother's arms. "I'll never say 'chock full' again!"
she cried; "and I'll always be satisfied with what I have got, for I can
never forget what I suffered in seeing Ben's long neck!"
XII.
"WHERE CAN THOSE BOYS BE?"
This was the cry in the Wilson family as they sat down to dinner.
"It is odd," said Aunt Harriet. "I have noticed they are usually ready
for their dinner. They may be out of the way at other times, but they
always turn up at their meals."
"They were here at breakfast," said Jane, the eldest daughter.
"I helped Jack about his Latin before he went to school," said the
mother of the family.
"They are probably at the Pentzes'," said Gertrude. "If our boys are not
there, the Pentzes are here; and as long as the Pentzes are not here, I
suppose our boys are there."
"I should say they were not likely to get so good a dinner at the
Pentzes' as we have here," said Aunt Harriet, as a plate was set before
her containing her special choice of rare-done beef, mashed potato,
stewed celery, and apple-sauce.
"Who are the Pentzes?" said Mr. Wilson, looking round the table to see
if everybody was helped.
"He is a painter and glazier," said Aunt Harriet, "and the mother takes
in washing."
"They are good boys," said Mrs. Wilson. "Jonas Pentz stands high in his
class, and is a great help to our Sam. Don't you remember him? He is the
boy that came and spent a night with Sam a week ago. They have their
first lesson in 'Cæsar' this afternoon; perhaps they are studying up."
"Jack always has to go where Sam does," said Gertrude.
This was the talk at the Wilsons' table. The subject was much the same
at the Pentzes'. There was a large family at the Wilsons'; so there was
at the Pentzes'. Mrs. Pentz was ladling out some boiled apple-pudding to
a hungry circle round her. But she missed two.
"Where are Jonas and Dick?" she asked.
A clamor of answers came up.
"I saw Jonas and Dick go off with Sam Wilson after school, and Jack
Wilson, and John Stebbins," said Will, one of the small boys.
"You don't think Jonas and Dick both went to dine at the Wilsons'?" said
Mrs. Pentz. "I should not like that."
"I dare say they did," said Mary Pentz. "You know the Wilson boys are
here half the time, and the other half our boys are at the Wilsons'."
"Still, I don't like their going there for meal-times," said Mrs. Pentz,
anxiously.
"Jonas had a new lesson in 'Cæsar,'" said Mary Pentz. "I don't believe
they planned to spend much time at dinner."
But at supper-time no boys appeared at the Wilsons'. Mrs. Wilson was
anxious. George, the youngest boy of all, said the boys had been home
since afternoon school; he had seen Jack in the kitchen with John
Stebbins.
"Jack came to me for gingerbread," said Jane, "and I asked him where
they had been, and John Stebbins said, with the Pentz boys. He said
something about to-morrow being a holiday, and preparing for a lark."
"I don't like their getting all their meals at the Pentzes'," said Mrs.
Wilson, "and I don't much like John Stebbins."
Again at the Pentzes' the talk was much the same.
Mary Pentz reported the boys went through their 'Cæsar' recitation
well; she had a nod of triumph from Jonas as he walked off with Sam
Wilson. "They had their books, so I suppose they are off for study
again."
"I don't like their taking two meals a day at the Wilsons'," said Mrs.
Pentz.
"There's no school to-morrow," said Mary, "because the new furnace is to
be put in. But I dare say the boys, Sam and Jonas, will be studying all
the same."
"I hope he won't be out late," said Mrs. Pentz.
"He's more likely to spend the night at the Wilsons'," said Mary. "You
know he did a week ago."
"The boys were round here for a candle," said Will.
"Then they do mean to study late," said Mrs. Pentz. "I shall tell him
never to do it again; and with Dick, too!"
Mr. Wilson came hurrying home for a late supper, and announced he must
go to New York by a late train.
"A good chance for you," he said to his wife, "to go and see your
sister. You won't have more than a day with her, for I shall have to
take the night train back, but it will give you a day's talk."
Mrs. Wilson would like to go, but she felt anxious about the boys. "They
have not been home for dinner or supper."
"But they came home for gingerbread," said Aunt Harriet. "I suppose they
didn't have too hearty a dinner at the Pentzes'."
"Joanna says they went off with a basket packed up for to-morrow," said
Gertrude.
"If the Pentzes did not live so far off, I would send up," said Mrs.
Wilson.
"They will be in by the time we are off, or soon after," said Mr.
Wilson. "It looks like rain, but it won't hurt us."
Mrs. Wilson and he went, but no boys appeared all the evening.
Aunt Harriet, who had not been long in the family, concluded this was
the way boys acted.
Jane sat up some time finishing a novel, and hurried off to bed,
startled to find it so late, and waking up Gertrude to say, "It is odd
those boys have not come home!"
Why hadn't they?
They couldn't.
This is what happened.
Wednesday afternoon, after school, the younger boys had gone to play
at the old Wilson house, far away at the other end of the Main Street,
beyond the Pentzes'. This was an old deserted mansion, where the Wilsons
themselves had lived once upon a time. But it had taken a fortune and
two furnaces to warm it in winter, and half a dozen men to keep the
garden in order in summer, and it had grown now more fashionable to live
at the other end of the town; so the Wilson family had moved down years
ago, where the girls could see "the passing" and Mr. Wilson would be
near his business. Of late years he had not been able to let the house,
and it had been closely shut to keep it from the tramps. The boys had
often begged the keys of their father, for they thought it would be such
fun to take possession of the old house. But Mr. Wilson said, "No; if a
parcel of boys found their way in, all the tramps in the neighborhood
would learn how to get in too." Still, it continued the object of the
boys' ambition to get into the house, and they were fond of going up to
play in the broad grassy space by the side of the house; and they kept
good oversight of the apple crop there.
On this Wednesday afternoon they were playing ball there, and lost the
ball. It had gone through a ventilation hole into the cellar part of the
house.
Now, everybody knows that if a boy loses a ball it must be recovered,
especially if he knows where it is. There is not even a woman so
stony-hearted but she will let in a troop of muddy-shoed boys through
her entry (just washed) if they come to look for a ball, even if it
has broken a pane of glass on its way. So the boys got a ladder from
the Pentzes', and put it up at one of the windows where the blind was
broken. Jack went up the ladder. The slat was off, but not in the right
place to open the window. There could not be any harm in breaking off
another; then he could reach the middle of the sash and pull up the
window. No; it was fastened inside. John Stebbins tried, but it was of
no use.
"It would not help if we broke the window by the fastening," said John;
"for the shutters are closed inside with old-fashioned inside shutters."
Here was the time to ask for the key. They must have the key to find
that ball, and the boys trudged back to meet Sam just going home from
the Pentzes'.
But Sam refused to ask for the key again, He didn't want to bother his
father so soon, and he didn't want the bother himself. He had his new
"Cæsar" lesson to study; to-morrow, after school, he and Jonas would
look round at the house, and find some way to recover the ball, for even
the stern and studious Sam knew the value of a ball.
So Thursday noon the boys all hurried up to the Wilson house,--Sam,
Jonas, and all. They examined it on every side. They came back to the
hole where the ball was lost.
"There's the cold-air box," said Jonas. "Could not Dick crawl in?"
Now, Dick was a very small pattern of a boy, indeed, to be still a boy.
Really he might crawl into the cold-air box. He tried it! He did get in!
He had to squeeze through one part, but worked his way down fairly into
the cellar, and screamed out with triumph that he had found the ball
close by the hole! But how was Dick to get out again? He declared he
could never scramble up. He slipped back as fast as he tried. He would
look for the cellar stairs, only it was awful dark except just by the
hole. He had a match in his pocket. Jack ran to the Pentzes' and got a
candle, and they rolled it in to Dick, and waited anxiously to see where
he would turn up next. They heard him, before long, pounding at a door
round the corner of the house. He had found the cellar stairs, and a
door with bolts and a great rusty key, which he succeeded in turning.
The boys pulled at the door and it opened; and there stood Dick with the
ball in one hand, picking up the candle with the other!
What a chance to enter the house! Down the cellar stairs, up into the
attics! Strange echoes in the great halls, and dark inside; for all the
windows were closed and barred,--all but in one room upstairs that
opened on a back veranda. It was a warm late-autumn day, and the sun
poured down pleasantly upon a seat in the corner of the veranda, where
a creeper was shedding its last gay leaves.
"What a place to study!" exclaimed Sam.
"Let's come and spend to-morrow," said John Stebbins; "there's no
school."
"No school Friday, on account of the furnace!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's
bring a lot of provisions and stay the whole day here."
"We might lay it in to-night," said John Stebbins; "we'll come up after
school this afternoon!"
"And I'll tell father about the key this evening," said Sam; "he won't
mind, if he finds we have got one."
"Jack and I will see to the provisions," said John Stebbins, "if the
rest of you boys will come here as soon as school is over."
It was all so interesting that they were too late for dinners, and had
to content themselves with gingerbread as they hurried to school.
"Be sure you tell mother," was Sam's last warning to Jack and John
Stebbins, as they parted for their separate schoolrooms.
After school the party hastened to the old house. Sam took the entry key
from his pocket and opened the door, leaving Dick to wait for Jack and
John Stebbins. They appeared before long with a basket of provisions,
and were ready for a feast directly, but delayed for a further
examination of the house. It was dark soon, and Sam would not let them
stay long in any one room. They must just take a look, and then go
home,--no waiting for a feast.
"I'll talk to father this evening, and ask him if we may have it if we
keep the whole thing secret."
They fumbled their way down to the lower back door, but could not get it
open. It was locked!
"We left the key in the door outside," said Dick, in a low whisper.
"You ninnies!" exclaimed Sam, "somebody saw you and has locked us in."
"Some of the boys, to plague us," said John Stebbins.
"Mighty great secrecy, now," said Sam, "if half the boys in town know we
are here. It all comes of that great basket of provisions you saw fit to
bring round."
"You'll be glad enough of it," said John Stebbins, "if we have to spend
the night here."
"Let's have it now," said Jack.
"We may as well occupy ourselves that way," said Sam, in a resigned
tone, "till they choose to let us out."
"Suppose we go up to the room with the bed and the sofa," said John
Stebbins; "and we've got a surprise for you. There's a pie,--let's eat
that."
They stumbled their way back. The provident John Stebbins had laid in
more candles, and they found an old table and had a merry feast.
Sam and Jonas had their books. When Sam had hold of a fresh Latin book
he could not keep away from it. Jonas's mind was busy with a new
invention. The boys thought he would make his fortune by it. He was
determined to invent some use for coal ashes. They were the only things
that were not put to some use by his mother in their establishment. He
thought he should render a service to mankind if he could do something
useful with coal ashes. So he had studied all the chemistry books, and
had one or two in his pockets now, and drew out a paper with H O, and
other strange letters and figures on it. The other boys after supper
busied themselves with arranging the room for a night's sleep.
"It's awful jolly," said Dick. "This bed will hold four of us. I'll
sleep across the foot, and Sam shall have the sofa."
But Sam rose up from his study. "I've no notion of spending the night
here. The door must be open by this time."