BOOKS BY
MARGARET SIDNEY
=A LITTLE MAID OF CONCORD TOWN=
_Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill_
=A LITTLE MAID OF BOSTON TOWN=
_Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill_
THE FAMOUS PEPPER BOOKS
IN ORDER OF PUBLICATION
_Twelve Volumes_ _Illustrated_
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS MIDWAY
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS GROWN UP
PHRONSIE PEPPER
THE STORIES POLLY PEPPER TOLD
THE ADVENTURES OF JOEL PEPPER
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS ABROAD
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AT SCHOOL
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND THEIR FRIENDS
BEN PEPPER
FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS IN THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE
OUR DAVIE PEPPER
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
[Illustration: “MY! DON’T YOU HEAR THE LOGS CRACKLE, AND ISN’T THIS
BLAZE PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL!”--_Page 124._]
OUR DAVIE PEPPER
BY
MARGARET SIDNEY
AUTHOR OF “FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW,”
“FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS MIDWAY,” “FIVE LITTLE
PEPPERS GROWN UP,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS_
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
PEPPER
TRADE-MARK
Registered in U.S. Patent Office
Copyright, 1916
BY HARRIETT M. LOTHROP
_All rights reserved_
Published, August, 1916
OUR DAVIE PEPPER
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
PREFACE
I often run down to Badgertown and into the little brown house to talk
things over with the Peppers, and every single time they one and all
tell me they don’t think I have told enough about David.
It quite cut me to the heart the other day to hear Polly say
mournfully, “You’ve made a book about Ben and one about Phronsie, and
you’ve told all about Joel’s Adventures, and stories that I made up;
and you never let Davie have a book--and he is _our Davie_.”
“Oh, I will, Polly--I will!” I promised. And she laughed gleefully,
and Ben smiled in great satisfaction, and Joel said: “Whickets! Now,
Dave, you’re going to have a book all to yourself.” And Phronsie crowed
and gurgled, and made a cheese right in the middle of the old kitchen
floor. As for Mother Pepper, the look she gave me, well--wasn’t I glad
that I had promised!
But David ran up to me and whispered, “I’d rather you made another book
about Joel.”
“I can’t, Davie,” I whispered back, “the children all over the country
have been teasing me for years to give them a book about you. And now
as all the rest of the Pepper family want it, why, you see, I just
_must_ write it.”
“O dear!” said David.
Polly ran over to our corner. “Dear Margaret Sidney,” she begged,
clasping her hands, “_please_ tell all about Davie when he was a little
boy. That’s what we want; because you see you told ever so much more
about the rest of us than you did about him. And Davie was always just
splendid! Why, he was our Davie!”
So now here is “Our Davie Pepper,” just as the Little Brown House
people wanted me to write it.
MARGARET SIDNEY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I DAVIE AND OLD MAN PETERS 1
II MRS. PEPPER ATTENDS TO THE MATTER 15
III THE DARK CLOUD OVER THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE 30
IV SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE CLOUD 47
V ON THE MAYBURY ROAD 68
VI BACK TO MAMSIE 84
VII “GOOD-BY, CHILDREN” 101
VIII “OLD FATHER DUBBIN” 118
IX THE OLD BOOK BOX 134
X MARY POTE HELPS 149
XI “I’D TRY TO LEARN” 163
XII HOP O’ MY THUMB 177
XIII “DON’T HURT HIM” 192
XIV IN THE PARROTT PLAYROOM 206
XV “AND SEE MY SLATE” 223
XVI AT GRANDMA BASCOM’S 239
XVII THE FISHING PARTY 255
XVIII DANGER 269
XIX “POLLY KISSED IT!” SAID DAVIE 282
XX JOEL’S COMPANY 296
XXI AT FARMER BROWN’S 312
XXII THE BEAUTIFUL DAY 326
XXIII THE UNINVITED GUEST 341
XXIV GREAT-GRANDMOTHER PEPPER’S BEADS 355
XXV JIMMY 370
XXVI THE CIRCUS 384
XXVII MORE ABOUT THE CIRCUS 398
XXVIII DAVID’S CAP 421
XXIX THE STORY IN THE SHOE-SHOP 441
XXX THE LETTER 456
XXXI WORKING HARD TO KEEP CHEERY 474
ILLUSTRATIONS
“My! don’t you hear the logs crackle,
and isn’t this blaze perfectly beautiful!” (Page 124) _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
“He told me to write things that folks asked for on
the slate,” said David 188
“You may pick out the one you like best,” said Miss Parrott 234
“Dave caught that. Dave caught that all by himself!” 272
Pretty soon he was stitching away and cobbling at a great
rate, Davie swinging his stocking-foot 434
They all held their breath to catch every word, and Davie
began 490
OUR DAVIE PEPPER
CHAPTER I
DAVIE AND OLD MAN PETERS
“My sakes! David Pepper, you can’t get it in.”
“Perhaps I can, Mrs. Peters.”
“No, you can’t. There, give it to me. You’re all het up, runnin’ on
arrants for Mr. Atkins. He shouldn’t ’a’ told you to hurry clear down
here from th’ store.”
David sank down on the wooden box turned upside down outside the Peters
kitchen door, and watched Mrs. Peters’s vigorous efforts to crowd
a long woolen coat, very much frayed on the edge, one sleeve gone,
and various other dilapidations that might be noticed, into a round,
splint-bottomed basket. “Your ma c’n do th’ mendin’ better’n me,” she
said, during the process, and dropping her voice as her eyes roved
anxiously. “I put th’ pieces underneath. O my!” she whirled around
suddenly, her back to the basket, and brought up a red face. “How you
scar’t me, Tildy!” as the kitchen door was flung wide and a head thrust
out.
“’Tain’t Pa--you needn’t be afraid.” Yet Tildy looked over her shoulder
and grasped her apron tighter over something huddled up within its
folds, as she skipped over the big flat stone. “You know as well as I
do that he’s well off toward the south medder.”
“’Tain’t nothin’ to be certain sure of, if your pa is headed for th’
south medder, that he won’t see what we’re doin’ here,” said her mother
hopelessly. “Well, what you got in your apron?”
Matilda knelt down by the basket on the grass, and flung her apron
wide. “It’s some o’ my quince sass.”
“You ain’t goin’ to give that away!” cried Mrs. Peters in alarm, and
resting both hands on her knees. “Gracious, your pa--”
“Let Pa alone, can’t you?” cried Matilda lifting the coat-edge to tuck
in the big glass jar. “I guess he won’t rage an’ ramp no more at th’
sass, than your lettin’ Mis Pepper mend this coat.”
“Well, I d’no. Sass is sass, an’ your pa knows how many jars you put
up--O dear me, Matilda!” She gazed helplessly off toward the south
meadow.
Davie got off from the wooden box. “Oh don’t, Mrs. Peters,” he begged
in great distress, “send the jelly to Mamsie.”
“’Tain’t jell--it’s sass,” said Matilda, pushing the jar in further,
and flapping the coat till it bulged over the basket. “An’ I guess I
ain’t goin’ to let your ma have all them measles to your house, an’
not do nothin’. There--” She jumped to her feet. “You got to carry it
careful, Davie. It’s too bad there ain’t no handle.” She twitched the
frayed cord that served as one, “I’ll get another string.”
“Come back here, Tilly,” cried her mother. “Ain’t you crazy! Your pa’ll
be back. Let Davie go.”
Matilda turned away from the kitchen door. “Ain’t you silly, Ma!” yet
she came back. “Well there, run along, Davie, an’ carry it careful.”
“An’ you tell your ma,” said Mrs. Peters, “we’re sorry she’s got all
the measles to her house, an’ she c’n mend my coat better’n me, an’ she
mustn’t tell no one it’s for Mis Peters, an’--”
“Land, Ma, th’ boy can’t remember all that,” said Matilda, giving David
a little push.
“I guess I can--I’ll try to,” said David, grasping the old worn string
with both hands.
“You go along,” said Matilda, with another push, “an’ if you see Pa
comin’ along anywhere, you set th’ basket in behind th’ bushes till he
gits by. Remember, David Pepper!”
“Yes,” said David. “I’ll remember.”
“Well, now come along, Ma Peters,” said Matilda; “he hain’t spilled th’
things yit, an’ he’s turned th’ road. We’ve got to git back to work.”
“’Twouldn’t be so bad ef you hadn’t put in that quince sass, Tildy,”
mourned her mother, picking up her worn calico gown to step over a
puddle of water from a broken drain-pipe. “But I’m awful skeered about
that.”
“Oh, Ma, you make me sick.” Matilda gave her a little push into the
kitchen, slipped in after her, and slammed the door; but her hand
shook as she took up the broom. “I’m goin’ to work anyhow. You c’n set
an’ worry about Pa, ef you want to. _I’m_ glad for my part, that Mis
Pepper’s goin’ to have that basket o’ things.”
“So be I,” cried Mrs. Peters. “Land sakes! I guess I’m as glad as you
be, Tildy Peters. An’ I s’pose Davie’s gittin’ along towards home
pretty fast by this time.”
Matilda shook her head and pursed up her lips as she went out to sweep
the back entry. “All the same, I wish Davie Pepper was safe home to the
little brown house,” she said to herself.
The old cord cut into Davie’s fingers as he trudged along the winding
road, the basket wobbling about from side to side; but every step was
bringing him home to Mamsie, and he smiled as he went along.
“Hey there!” a sudden turn of the road brought him squarely before a
tall gaunt old man leaning against the stone wall on the other side of
a scrub oak.
“Where you ben?” demanded Old Man Peters.
“Just--just--” began David.
“Jest where? Stop your hemmin’ an’ hawin’. Where you ben?”
Davie clutched the basket with trembling fingers and a wild despair
that it was now too late to consider bushes.
“You ben down to my house, I know.” Old Man Peters’s little eyes
gleamed fiercely. “Well, what you got in that basket?” pointing to it.
“It’s--it’s--”
“It’s--it’s-- Didn’t I tell you to stop hemmin’ an’ hawin’, you Pepper
Boy! I’ll give you somethin’ to hem an’ haw for pretty soon, ef you
don’t look out.” He broke off a stick from the scrub oak.
Davie clutched the old string tighter yet.
“Let’s see,” said Old Man Peters, drawing close to poke up a corner of
the coat with the stick.
“You mustn’t,” said Davie, drawing back, and putting one hand over the
top of the basket.
“Mustn’t,” roared Old Man Peters, shaking the stick at him.
“No,” said Davie. “You mustn’t,” and he tried to edge off farther; but
the stick came down across his little calico blouse.
“I’ll give you somethin’ to make you see that you can’t say ‘mustn’t’
to me,” said Mr. Peters, bringing the stick down again. “There, you
take that!”
Davie was whirling around now so fast that Old Man Peters preferred to
try the stick on the little legs instead of the small shoulders in the
calico blouse, while he roared, “I’ll make you dance. Drop that basket,
will you!”
“Here--what you doin’?” somebody called out, and a young man leaped the
stone wall. “Hulloa, old Peters, you stop that!”
Old Man Peters turned around. He would have dropped the stick, but the
young man saved him the trouble by seizing it to break it into two
pieces and toss them into the dusty road.
“He’s ben a-sassin’ me,” cried the old man, pointing to David, who had
sunk down on the grass by the side of the road, still hanging to the
basket.
“Well, you ain’t a-goin’ to beat up any boy in Badgertown. Now I tell
you, Peters! And who wouldn’t sass you, I wonder. Here you, get up,”
he said, going over to David.
But David showing no inclination to get up, the man turned his face
over.
“Well, I’ll be blowed, ef tain’t one o’ th’ Pepper children,” he
exclaimed, starting back. “You’ve got to take somethin’ from me, now I
tell you, Old Man Peters!” He pushed up his gray cotton shirt-sleeves
and advanced on the old man, “for beatin’ up one o’ Mis Pepper’s boys.”
“You git away--tain’t nothin’ to you, Jim Thompson,” cried Mr. Peters,
“an’ I’ll have th’ law on you, ef you tetch me!” He put up both horny
hands and tried to huddle back of the scrub oak.
“Th’ law’s got to deal with you, Old Peters, first, an’ it’ll fall
pretty heavy for hurtin’ one o’ them Pepper children,” declared
Thompson, dragging him by an angry hand back to the road side.
“David--David Pepper!” screamed the old farmer, “you tell him. I ’ain’t
hurt ye. Tell him, David. Ow! you let me be, Jim Thompson!”
David looked up and tried to speak. Oh, if Mamsie were only here! Then
his head fell down on the dusty road.
“Look at that boy, you old scoundrel!” roared Thompson, cuffing Old
Man Peters wherever he got a good chance. Then he flung him to the
middle of the road. “Lie there till I can ’tend to you.” But the old
farmer preferred to attend to himself, and without waiting to pick up
his hat that had fallen off in the scuffle, he slunk off as fast as he
conveniently could.
“Don’t hurt him,” begged Davie feebly, as Thompson bent over him. “Oh,
I want Mamsie!”
“You’re a-goin’ to her--I’ll take you.” The young man lifted him up to
his shoulder, Davie still clinging to the basket. “Where did he hurt
you?” he asked anxiously.
“I’m not hurt much,” said Davie, trying not to cry.
Jim Thompson set his teeth hard. “Here, give me that basket,” and
holding Davie fast by one arm, he strode off, first kicking Old Man
Peters’s hat into a neighboring field where it landed in a bog.
“Mamsie--somebody’s coming, and he’s got a big bundle--how funny,”
cried Polly, looking out of the window.
“A pedlar, most likely,” said Mrs. Pepper, over in the window, trying
to finish a coat to go back to Mr. Atkins at the store. The measles
were making it extra hard to keep the wolf from the door.
“Well, he won’t sell anything here,” said Polly with a laugh, and
running to the old green door. “Why--” as she flung it open.
It was all over in a minute, and Mrs. Pepper had her boy in her arms.
Davie trying to say, “I’m not much hurt,” and Polly running for the
camphor bottle, while Jim Thompson set down the basket on the floor,
where it rolled over and out flew the “quince sass” from the protecting
folds of the coat.
“Old Man Peters was a-beatin’ him up,” said the young farmer, working
his hands awkwardly together and wishing he could help.
“Mamsie,” said Davie, both hands around her neck, and cuddling up
to lay his white cheek against her face, “I didn’t let him have the
basket--and you are to mend the coat. You can do it so much better, she
says, than she can.”
“Mrs. Peters, Davie?”
“Yes, and Miss Matilda sent the jelly--no, it isn’t jelly--but--I
forget--”
“Yes, I know, dear. Now let Mother see where you are hurt.”
“Oh, Mamsie!” Polly, flying back with the camphor bottle, was aghast as
Mrs. Pepper stripped off the calico blouse.
“Put down the camphor, Polly,” said Mother Pepper. Her lips were set
very tightly together, and a bright spot burned on either cheek. “Bring
Mother the oil bottle and get the roll of old cotton in the lower
bureau drawer. Be careful not to wake up Phronsie. Thank you, Mr.
Thompson, for bringing home my boy,” as Polly ran off.
“I guess I’ll go back an’ lick Old Man Peters,” said the young farmer,
turning off to the door.
“Oh, no,” Mother Pepper spoke quickly. “Say nothing to him. I’ll take
care of the matter.”
“I’d love to,” said Mr. Thompson longingly.
“No--No--” Mrs. Pepper shook her head decidedly. And he went off.
“Oh, Mamsie, that wicked Old Man Peters!” Polly clasped her hands,
and her brown eyes blazed. “I just want something dreadful to happen
to him,” and she hovered over David bolstered up in Mamsie’s rocking
chair, his legs and little shoulders bound up in old cotton bandages.
“Polly,” said Mother Pepper sternly, “never let me hear you say
anything like that again.”
“I can’t help it,” said Polly, fighting with the tears. Then she gave
it up and ran over to throw herself down on the floor and lay her head
in Mother Pepper’s lap, “to think of Davie being hurt. Oh, Mamsie!”
“I’m not _much_ hurt,” said Davie, poking up his head from the pillow
against his back, “only my legs--they’re a little bad. Don’t cry,
Polly,” he begged, dreadfully distressed.
“Our Davie!” sobbed Polly, huddling down further in her mother’s lap,
“just think, Mamsie,--_our Davie_!”
Mrs. Pepper shut her lips together, but she smoothed Polly’s brown
head. “Mother will see to it,” she said, “and you must never say
anything like that again, Polly. Now wipe your eyes; here comes Dr.
Fisher.”
“Well--well--well--” cried the little Doctor, coming in cheerily.
He was very happy as Ben was getting along splendidly, while as for
Phronsie, why she just got better and better every day. Oh, the
measles wasn’t so very bad after all to fight. But now, here was Davie
bolstered up in the big calico-covered chair. O dear, that was too bad!
“Well, my boy,” the little Doctor got over to the chair and looked down
at him with keen eyes behind the big spectacles, “what’s the matter
with you?”
“I’m not much hurt,” said Davie, “only my legs--they feel the worst.”
“Eh?” said Dr. Fisher. Then he set down his bag and looked over at
Mrs. Pepper. So then the story had to come out. When it was all told
and Dr. Fisher became quiet, for he was almost as bad as Polly in his
indignation, and Davie’s legs and shoulders had been taken care of,
“You don’t need to do anything, Mrs. Pepper,” he said, “I’ll take care
of that brute of a man.”
And Mother Pepper said just as she had told the young farmer, “Oh, no,
I will see to the matter myself.”
“Oh, goody--I got the wood all piled at Deacon Blodgett’s.” In rushed
Joel. “Come on, Dave,” and he was scurrying over to Mamsie’s big chair,
when he spied the basket on the floor, for nobody had thought or cared
about it. And there was the jar of Matilda’s “quince sass” that had
rolled off by itself. “Oh,” he pounced upon it, “may I have some--may
I?” He ran with it to Mrs. Pepper, nearly upsetting the little Doctor
on the way.
“Look out there,” cried Doctor Fisher; “here, don’t run me down,
Joe,” and then Joel saw Davie propped against the pillows. Down went
Matilda’s “quince sass” on the kitchen floor, and he threw himself into
the chair on top of Davie, poor bandaged legs and all.
The little old kitchen then was in a hubbub. It all had to be explained
to Joel, who made things so very dreadful that finally Doctor Fisher
said, “I’ll take him off, Mrs. Pepper. Hold on to that boy, Polly, till
I’ve had a look at Ben up in the loft. If Phronsie is asleep, she’s all
right. Then, Joel Pepper, you shall hop into my gig.”