A BADGERTOWN EVENING.
“Books! I’ve a fine packet for you to-night, Polly.” Jasper’s eyes
glowed. Polly ran up to meet him.
“O Mamsie! let me take the books--let me!” Elyot thrust in his small
figure between them, and tugged at the parcel.
“You take yourself off, young man,” said his father. “Now, Polly, hold
out your arms.”
“Oh, what richness!” sighed Polly ecstatically, “as Alexia would
say;” and, clasping her parcel closely, she sank into a big chair,
and examined her treasure. “O Jasper!” she cried, “isn’t it just
magnificent to be a publisher’s wife!”
Jasper laughed, and swung his boy up to his broad shoulder.
“I thought you’d like them, Polly,” he said with great satisfaction,
looking at her.
“Like them!” repeated Polly in a glow. Then she sprang to her feet,
tossed the whole pile into the easy-chair, and ran up to her husband,
putting her hand within his arm. “But where is the bag, Jasper?” she
asked suddenly.
[Illustration: “Oh, what richness!” sighed Polly.]
“Well, the fact of it is, Polly,” said Jasper slowly, “I left the bag
at the office. Just for this night,” he added, as he saw her face.
“Why, Jasper?” asked Polly quickly, the color dropping out of her cheek.
“Well, the truth is, I was afraid,” began Jasper.
“Oh! go on, and dance me up and down, Daddy,” screamed Elyot, beating
his heels with all his might.
Polly laid her hand on the small feet. “No, no, dear; Mamsie’s going
to talk now. Why, Jasper?” she asked again. This time she stood quite
still, and looked at him.
Jasper swung his boy lightly to the ground. “Off with you!” he cried
with a laugh, and Elyot scuttled away. “Now, Polly,” as he put his
arm around her, and drew her to a seat, “the fact is, I thought you
wouldn’t sit down and go over those books to-night if I brought out the
bag.”
“And so I wouldn’t,” declared Polly. “Of course not, with the dear old
bag waiting. How could I?”
“That’s just it,” said Jasper; “and it’s not fair for me to bring the
bag, with those waiting, either;” he nodded over at the untied packet
and the new books scattered about. “You ought to have at least one go
at them before being tied down to business matters.”
Polly broke loose from him, and ran over to the easy-chair. “And did
you think I would so much as look at these once?” she cried, her face
flushing up to the brown waves. “Oh! oh! I just detest them now.” She
looked down at the pile with the same face that she carried in the
little brown house when the old stove burned Mamsie’s birthday cake.
“But, Polly,” said Jasper, hurrying over to comfort her, “you see it’s
just this way. I’m tying you down too much to business detail, and you
ought to be enjoying yourself more, dear.”
“And don’t you suppose, Jasper,” cried Polly, turning on his troubled
face a radiant one, “that lovely old bag is just the dearest dear in
all the world next to you and the children? Oh, say you will never
leave it again! Do say so, Jasper;” she clung to him.
“I am so afraid I’m making your life too full of care, Polly,” said
Jasper gravely, “to bring the bag out every night. And this evening we
might go over the new books, and have a break in the routine for once.”
“And let you work over all your papers alone, Jasper,” cried Polly,
aghast. “O Jasper!”
[Illustration: “Dance me up and down, daddy!” screamed Elyot.]
“I can find time to do them, dear; don’t worry. And it would be better
for you.”
“And indeed it would be the worst thing in all this world, dear,”
protested Polly, shaking her brown head. “I should be so dismal,
Jasper, you can’t think, without our lovely time working together after
dinner. When the bag is done, then we’ll play and read, and do all
sorts of things. But that first hour is the best of the whole evening,
Jasper; it truly is.”
“I’m sure I love it,” cried Jasper, with kindling eyes; “I never could
do it so well without you, nor in half the time, Polly.”
“Well, then you must just promise you’ll never leave the bag back in
the office,” said Polly, laughing. “Promise now, Jasper.”
“I suppose I must,” said Jasper, laughing too. “Here come Alexia and
Pickering,” looking down the carriage-drive.
“We’ve come out to dinner, Polly, if you want us,” said Alexia,
hurrying in, Pickering’s tall figure following. “Goodness me! how you
can live so far out of town, I don’t see!”
“So you say every time I chance to meet you, Alexia” said Jasper.
“Yes, and that’s the reason she’s decided to try it herself,” said
Pickering with a drawl.
“O Alexia!” Polly gave her a small hug, as she helped her off with her
things, “are you really coming to Badgertown? Oh, how nice!”
“Pickering is always springing things on me, and telling everything I
say,” said Alexia, trying to send a cross grimace over at her husband,
but ending with a short laugh instead, “and just because I said I
wanted to have a house near you, Polly, he’s got it into his head I’m
coming out here to live.”
Pickering indulged in a long laugh.
“And I think it’s a shame,” declared Alexia, with a very injured
face, “to have one’s husband go about, and spoil all one’s surprise
parties--so there!”
“Then you really do mean to come to Badgertown to live, Alexia?” cried
Polly with sparkling eyes. “Oh, you dear! how perfectly delightful!”
“I suppose I’ll have to, Polly,” said Alexia, “as I must be just as
near you as I can get. But I do think Badgertown is utterly horrid,
and you ought to be ashamed to live out here so far. I’m dying to
have that cunning little yellow house on the hill, Polly,” she broke
off suddenly, “with the barberry-bushes in front, and we’ve come out
here to see it after dinner. Now you know it all; only I was going to
ask you to go out and take a walk, and then bring you up there with a
flourish, and give you a grand surprise. And now it’s as tame as tame
can be.” She shook her linger at Pickering, who bore it like a veteran.
“How’s baby?” asked Polly, when the wraps were off, and they were all
seated on the long veranda for a talk.
“He’s the dearest little rat you ever saw,” said Alexia, who couldn’t
forgive her boy for not being a girl, whom she could call Polly. “He’s
two teeth, and four more coming.”
“Alexia always counts those teeth that are coming with so much gusto,”
said Pickering.
“And why shouldn’t I?” cried Alexia. “It would be perfectly horrid if
he stopped with two teeth; you know it would yourself, Pickering. And
to-day, Polly Pepper, you can’t think”--
“I decidedly object to having my wife called Polly Pepper,” said
Jasper, trying to get on a grave look. “Polly Pepper King is all right.
But be sure to put on the King.”
“Oh! we girls shall never call her anything else but Polly
Pepper--never in all this world, Jasper,” said Alexia carelessly.
“Well, you tell what baby did to-day, Pickering. I’m quite tired
out with all my trial of getting here, and the disappointment of my
surprise spoiled.” She leaned back in the rattan chair, and played with
her rings.
“Our child,” said Pickering solemnly, “developed a most astonishing
mental power this morning, and actually uttered two consecutive
syllables like this, ‘Ar-goo!’”
“So did Elyot at the same tender age,” observed Jasper, “and Barby too,
I believe.”
“Now, you just be quiet, Pickering!” Alexia cried, starting forward;
“and aren’t you ashamed, Jasper, to help him on? Baby actually said the
most beautiful words; he really and truly did. And that’s what I wanted
to come out for to-night, Polly, as much as to look at the house, to
tell you that baby’s talking; and he’s only eight months old! Think of
that, now!”
“I met Roslyn May down town to-day,” said Pickering when the laugh had
subsided.
“Did you!” exclaimed Jasper.
Polly stopped laughing at one of Alexia’s sallies, and met her
husband’s eyes. His look said, “Strange he did not come out here.”
“Yes; he just got in day before yesterday, he told me, from England. I
couldn’t understand what he came over for.”
“He is going to stay some time, I suppose,” said Jasper, “now he’s
here.”
“No, he was on the way to the steamer, when we ran across each other on
Broadway,--sailed to-day on the Cunarder; that is, he said he was going
to.”
“He was going right back!” exclaimed Polly; and going over to Jasper’s
side, she lay her hand on his. “What do you mean, Pickering?”
“It’s just so, Polly,” said Pickering, feeling awfully that he must
make the sad droop in her eyes, and the color go out of her face.
“He probably is coming back soon--he may have been cabled back--a dozen
things may have happened,” said Jasper. “Don’t feel so badly, dear.”
“Well, Phronsie must never know he has been over,” said Polly.
“Promise, Alexia, you never’ll tell her! You won’t, dear, will you?”
She ran over and put her arms around Alexia.
“Horses won’t drag it out of me,” declared Alexia. “I won’t ever
mention Roslyn May to”--
“Hush!--hush! here she comes,” warned Polly frantically, pinching
Alexia’s arm to make her stop.
“Oh, mercy! Well, I didn’t say anything,” said Alexia.
Phronsie came around the veranda corner in her soft white gown. “We’re
going to have a candy party to-night,” she said.
“And a peanut party,” cried the children at her heels, as they scurried
over the veranda steps. “Tell it all, Phronsie; tell it all.”
“And you’re just in time, Alexia and Pickering,” said Phronsie, with
a smile, “to come over to the little brown house after dinner, to the
party.”
“And you’ve got to pull candy with me, Mrs. Dodge,” declared Elyot,
who just adored her, racing up to possess himself of her long white
fingers, glittering with rings.
“Oh, mercy me! I can’t. Why, I’ve on my best dress,” she said, to tease
him.
“Mamsie will let you have one of her aprons,” he cried, “or my nice
Mrs. Higby will. I’ll go and ask her.”
“No, I’m going to; Mrs. Higby will let me have the aprons,” shouted
Barby, turning her back on her father, in whose lap she had thrown
herself, and rushing after him.
“We’re all in for it, I see,” said Pickering. “Well, King, you’re my
boy, seeing the others have got champions. What do you want? I’ll see
you through this candy scrape.”
“I’d rather have my brother Jasper,” said King, not over politely, “but
I’ll take you.”
“O King!” remonstrated Phronsie gently.
“Let him alone, Phronsie,” said Pickering. “King is delicious when
unadulterated. Well, my boy, so I’ll consider myself engaged to you for
this evening at the party.”
“All right,” said King coolly.
“And Mrs. Higby says we can have all the aprons we want,” announced
Elyot, rushing back.
“And she’ll boil the candy while we’re at dinner,” piped Barby,
tumbling after.
“This knocks your pretty plan of gazing at the yellow house, sky-high,
Alexia,” whispered Pickering, under cover of the noise.
“No, it doesn’t,” she retorted. “We’ll go afterward, when the children
are abed. It’s moonlight, and we can see it just as well.”
“Think of choosing a house by moonlight!” laughed Pickering.
“Just as well as to choose it by sunlight, as long as we can see,” said
Alexia, jingling the house-key they had secured from the agent on the
way up. “Yes; we’ll have quite time before we take the train home.”
“Oh, you can’t go home to-night!” cried Polly and Jasper together. “The
idea! with a party and house-hunting on your hands. Stay over, Alexia.”
“I must be in town at eight in the morning,” said Pickering, getting
out of his chair to stretch his long legs and look at the hills.
“Alexia can stay if she wants to.”
“As if I could or would, when my husband can’t,” she cried. “And
there’s that blessed child left all alone!”
“But since he’s learned to converse,” said Pickering, “he can ask for
his rations. So he’s not to be considered.”
“Well, I’m perfectly shocked!” declared Alexia. “And I shall go home
with you in the late train.”
Oh, the candy frolic of that night! Everybody had such a glorious time
that the little old kitchen rang with the jollity that flowed over,
taking in all Primrose Lane, and down as far as “Grandma Bascom’s”
little cottage. “Grandma” now had to lie abed with her rheumatism; but
Polly and Jasper found time to slip away a bit in the midst of the
festivities and carry her a little dish of the candy before the nuts
were put in, for “Grandma” didn’t like nuts, and she did like molasses
candy. And Polly carried a few other things in a small basket on her
arm.
“For I never shall forget, Jasper,” she said as they hurried along,
“how good Grandma was the day Phronsie hurt her toe. Oh, that horrible
old ‘receet’ of Mirandy’s wedding-cake! I thought it would kill me to
wait for it. Dear, dear,” laughed Polly, “how we do remember, don’t we,
Jasper, things we used to do when we were children?”
“I’m sure I never want to forget what we did in the little brown
house,” said Jasper. “Well, Grandma was always good, I remember,
bringing raisins and all that. Now, Polly, we must tell her every
single bit of Joel’s last letter; for she’ll question us up just as
closely, you may be sure.”
[Illustration: “We’ve come out to dinner, Polly,” said Alexia.]
“I know it,” said Polly, hanging to his arm; “and Joel thinks as much
of Grandma as she does of him. It’s so nice of him, Jappy, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jasper, nodding briskly; “for no matter how
tired Joe is,--and he must get awfully used up sometimes, Polly, with
that big parish of his,--he’s always doing something for her. It was
fine for him to buy her that big easy-chair with the first money he had
saved up after he paid father back for his education.”
“Dear, beautiful old Joel!” cried Polly, with shining eyes.
“How upset father was,” exclaimed Jasper, in a reminiscent mood, “when
Joe made him take that money back. I declare, Polly, I never saw him so
upset in all my life!”
“It was right for Joel to make him,” said Polly stoutly.
“Yes, I know it. But Father had so set his mind on doing it for Joe.”
“But Joey couldn’t take it to keep,” declared Polly. “You know he
really couldn’t, Jasper.”
“Of course not,” said Jasper quickly. “But what we should have done
without Phronsie to make the peace between them, I don’t know. Well,
here we are.”
* * * * *
“See here,” cried Alexia, Mrs. Higby’s red plaid apron working all up
her long figure, as she had tied it by the strings around her neck,
“if somebody doesn’t go over and call Polly Pepper home, why I’ll
just go myself.” She brandished the big wooden spoon, a few drops of
molasses trailing off over the floor.
“I suppose that is meant for me,” said Pickering, placidly eating the
big piece he ought to have been pulling, “as I’m the only one she
orders round.”
“Horrors!” cried Alexia, glancing along the tip of the spoon, “just
see the mischief I’ve done! Now the Peppers won’t ever let me in this
kitchen again.”
“I’ll wipe it up,” said Elyot, running over to her, with sticky hands,
and face streaked with molasses.
“Oh!” exclaimed Alexia with a grimace, and edging away. “Oh, my
goodness, me! and see my husband eating candy like a little pig, and me
in this dreadful scrape.”
“I wish I was your husband,” said little Elyot, getting down on his
knees; and, seizing the first thing he could find, which proved to be a
fine damask napkin, he began to vigorously mop the floor.
“Mercy me! what have you got?” cried Alexia, her sharp eyes peering at
him. “Oh! give it to me.” She seized it from his hand, and threw down
the spoon. “Come along, do,” and she hauled him out into the entry.
“It’s one of Polly Pepper’s bestest napkins; we brought it over on
the cake-plate. Now we must just douse it into a pail of water; but
goodness knows where that is.”
“Hoh!” said Elyot, “I know where there’s one, just as easy as not. Come
on.”
It was now his turn to haul Alexia, and he did it so successfully that
she was soon over the little steps, and in the “Provision Room.”
“If ever I’m thankful,” she sighed gratefully, “it is to see that
sticky mess come out,” when Elyot had delightedly plunged the napkin
into a pail of water standing in the corner. “Oh, my goodness me! if it
had spoiled that; and it’s one of her great big embroidered K’s, too!
Well, come on; we must run back, or the whole troop of them will be
after us. Wring it out and hang it up, do! Now come on.”
She picked up her skirts, and skipped over the steps, Elyot scuttling
after, in time to hear Pickering say, “Evidently my wife doesn’t
intend to take the train with me, for she’s disappeared.”
[Illustration: “Somebody take off this!”]
“I haven’t disappeared at all; I’m here,” cried Alexia at his elbow.
“The idea! Why, I’m going to look at the house on the hill; but
’tisn’t time yet,” drawing a long breath.
“Going to look at the house on the hill! Well, I guess you won’t
to-night,” said Pickering, taking out his watch; “it’s just a quarter
of ten, and the train leaves at ten. So, good-by, Alexia; you’ve got to
stay all night.”
“Oh, I can’t--I won’t!” cried Alexia. “Oh, dear! somebody take off this
horrible old apron,” wildly twisting this way and that.
“I will--I will,” cried little Elyot, fumbling at the strings.
“Oh, dear--dear!” wailed Alexia, “my face is all stuck up;
somebody--where’s Mrs. Higby? Oh, somebody wash it, please!” She was
rushing around after her bonnet now, Elyot hanging to the apron-strings
valiantly, this process tying them tighter than ever at each step.
“Here, hold on, can’t you!” roared Pickering. “You’ll never get her
undone at that rate.”
“Yes, I will, too,” cried Elyot, tugging away, and tumbling against
Mrs. Higby with a towel, wet at one end, in her hand.
“Oh, dear, dear! and that blessed child at home alone,” cried Alexia.
“Mercy! here’s my best bonnet down by the coal-scoop. Well, as long as
I’ve got anything to put on my head I suppose I should be thankful. Oh,
dear! where’s that wet towel? Do cut the strings of this horrible old
apron--Oh, dear! what shall I do!” She whirled around on them all, as
the door opened, and in ran Polly and Jasper, with glowing cheeks.
“For goodness sake, Alexia!” began Polly.
“Whew! Is it a menagerie?” cried Jasper.
“Well, it’s bad enough to go visiting, and have your friends run off
to see horrible old women,” said Alexia, whirling more than ever,
“without coming back to laugh at one’s misery. Oh, that’s a dear,
Mrs. Higby!” as that good lady’s scissors clicked, and set her free.
“I’ll bring you out a new pair of strings next time I come. Come on,
Pickering--good-by, everybody;” and she was out and running down the
path by the time he found his hat.
“Oh dear!” and back she came again, “I forgot my face; it’s all stuck
up. Do, somebody, wash this molasses off.” And Polly gave her a dab
with the wet towel, and a little kiss at the same time.
“You didn’t wash it in the right place,” grumbled Alexia, running off
again; “it was the other cheek. Oh dear, dear! Come on, Pickering; we
shall lose the train.”