splendid guinea-pig in the collection,” said Polly, not taking any
notice of Ben; “and he said it big and loud in his natural voice, and
the monkey shrieked it, and”--
“Oh! is there a dear sweet little monkey?” cried Phronsie in a
transport. “O Polly! I want him to play with, I do.”
“Oh, no, Phronsie, you can’t,” said Polly hurrying on; “the Circus-man
has to have him, you know. Well, and oh, dear me! every single one of
those animals said, ‘How do you do, and _how_ do you do, and how do you
do again.’ And the man took one look at them and he said, ‘Pretty well,
I thank you.’
“And the big man said, ‘You’re the man for me; and I give all these
animals to you, for you are the only one who isn’t afraid. Now, march,
and good-by.’ And the Circus-man rubbed his eyes and looked again,
and there wasn’t any big man; all that was left was the long line of
animals and crawling things. So down the mountain-side the procession
went. And at the foot there were sixteen red carts with yellow
borders, and a cunning little carriage drawn by ever and ever so many
dear sweet ponies no bigger than dogs, and then in a minute, out from
behind the trees, came rushing as many as a dozen, no, two dozen big
horses with long tails. And they swept up to the Circus-man to have him
scratch their noses.”
The Five Little Peppers now became dreadfully excited. And Joel jumped
up. “Whoop-la!” he screamed, as he pranced around and around the group
on the floor, stepping high, and slapping himself as he raced along.
“Come on, Dave; this is the way I’d make ’em go, all those horses.”
“Polly, do you suppose we’ll ever see a Circus?” cried little Davie
with shining eyes; “ever in all this world?”
“Ever in all this world?” hummed Phronsie, while Ben set his teeth
tight together and looked at her. “Yes, indeed,” declared Polly
confidently, with eyes only for Ben. “Don’t look so, Ben,” she cried;
“we’ll see one sometime.”
“Polly always gets her flowers,” said little Davie in a moment, in a
reflective way.
“And if we don’t ever get to see a really, truly Circus,” cried Polly
impulsively, “we can hear all about it same’s we have already from Mr.
and Mrs. Beebe. So just think what those children must have to do, who
don’t ever have anybody to tell them about it as we have.” She folded
her hands in her lap and was lost in thought.
“Whoop-la! Whoopity-la! G’lang!” cried Joel with an awful noise, making
his steeds put forth all their best paces, around the little old
kitchen. “And I’m so glad,” Polly was saying, “that Mr. and Mrs. Beebe
did see a Circus when they went down to Rockport; it’s the greatest
comfort. Now, if you don’t stop, Joel, I can’t tell the rest of the
story;” “and you make so much noise we can’t hear anything,” said Ben.
So Joel gave up slapping his imaginary beasts, and bounded into the
middle of the group again, and the little old kitchen quieting down,
Polly took up the story once more.
“Well, but you ought to have seen the big white tent that was really
the home of all the animals and crawling things, when they actually got
home and staid still,” exclaimed Polly, starting off. “Oh! it was quite
magnificent, I can tell you. It was as big as the church-green, and it
had a great flag on top that swung out in the breeze at every bit of
wind, and there were rows and rows of seats all around it in a ring,
and down in the middle was the place where the horses danced, and”--
“Like this?” whooped Joel, breaking away again from the bunch of Five
Little Peppers on the floor. But Ben picked him by the jacket sleeve
and made him sit down suddenly. “Hold on, there,” he said; “you keep
still, Joe, you’re worse than a tornado. Go on, Polly, I’ll hold him,”
as Polly laughed and hurried on.
“One day they were having a beautiful time; the band that always rode
in the red wagon with the yellow wheels, was playing away, oh, such
lovely music!” sighed Polly; “and the big tent was just crammed full of
people, and the horses were dancing, and everybody was just as happy as
could be, when a great big man, oh, his head was almost up to the top
of the tent when he stood up straight, came up to the door and stooped
down and peeked in.
“‘Go right away!’ screamed the door-man at him as cross as he could be.
“‘Where’s the Circus-man?’ asked the great big man, and he kept
peeking in. ‘I sha’n’t go till I’ve seen the Circus-man.’
[Illustration: “Where’s the Circus-man?” asked the great big man.]
“So somebody had to run and get the Circus-man; and they made him stop,
although he was just in the midst of showing off the monkey who was
having a waltz on the back of the biggest elephant; and he was pretty
cross, and he marched up to the great big man, and he pretended not to
know him; and he said very sharply, ‘Go right off; you’re making a
perfectly dreadful noise, and you haven’t paid, and you can’t go in.’
“‘Don’t you know me, Mr. Circus-man?’ cried the great big man; and he
stood up quite straight, and his eyes, that stuck out like two cannon
balls, stared at him.
“‘Go right away!’ said the Circus-man angrily. ‘I never saw you before
in all my life; or I’ll set the dogs on you,’ and he snapped his whip.
“‘Oh, I’ll go,’ said the great big man. ‘Good-by, Mr. Circus-man;
the next time you come up to my mountain you needn’t stop to see me.
Come every single one of you beasts and beastesses, and reptiles
and reptilesses, and animals; it’s time to go home,’ he roared. And
everybody inside the big tent screamed that it thundered, and that
they’d all be killed, and the elephant knocked the monkey off from his
back, and the big snake slipped out, and the rhinoceros jumped over the
heads of the children who were giving him peanuts, and the hippo ran,
and”--
“And the rhododendron,” said Ben--“what did he do? Don’t forget him,
Polly.”
“And the gi-raffe,” said Polly, with a cold shoulder for Ben, “and all
of them, they just ran and jumped and skipped and hopped and wriggled
out of that tent, and the great big man was going off on his perfectly
dreadfully large feet, till he was miles away in a few minutes; and off
they all hurried, every single one of them, after him; and although the
Circus-man chased and chased and _chased_ after them, he never could
catch them. And that’s all,” said Polly, leaning back quite exhausted.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Mother Pepper, coming in suddenly upon the
absorbed little group; “now, that looks comfortable,” and her face
lighted up and she beamed at Polly.
“O Mamsie!” screamed every one of the bunch, as they sprang to their
feet and surrounded her.
“There was a sweet dear little monkey,” cried Phronsie stumbling up,
dreadfully excited “and a gre-at big man. Take me, Mamsie,” and she
snuggled up to Mother Pepper’s wet gown.
“Take care, child,” cried Mrs. Pepper, hungry to get her baby to her
heart; “mother’s all wet. There, there, Polly, Mr. Atkins let me take
the umbrella, so I did very well; I’ve set it in the Provision Room;
that’s a good girl,” as Polly took off the big shawl and hung it up to
dry.
“Now, Ben and you boys run and put some more wood in the stove, do,”
cried Polly; “oh, I do so wish you had some tea, Mamsie!” and her face
clouded over, and the corners of her mouth drooped.
“It’s better than tea, to see all you children,” cried Mamsie brightly.
But nobody dared ask her if she had any coats and sacks to sew; for
there wasn’t any big bundle, and Polly sighed and looked at Ben.
IV.
THE LITTLE TIN SOLDIERS.
“You must know,” said Polly, “that they had cake every day, little
cunning ones, and Sundays they had pink on top of ’em.”
Nobody spoke. At last Joel managed to ask, sitting on the edge of his
chair, “On every single one of the cakes, Polly Pepper?”
“Yes,” said Polly decidedly; “every single one of ’em Joey.”
“Not _every_ Sunday?” asked Joel incredulously.
“Yes, every single Sunday; as surely as Sunday came around,” declared
Polly in her most decisive fashion. “They didn’t miss once.”
“Now, I know you aren’t telling us true things,” cried Joel in a loud,
insistent tone; “’cause no one ever has cake every day, and pink on top
every Sunday. So there, Polly Pepper!”
“Of course I’m not telling you true, live things,” retorted Polly in
her gayest tone; “I’m making ’em up out of my head as I go along. And a
person could have cake every day with pink on top of ’em, if there was
enough to go around.”
“Oh!” sighed little Davie, clasping his hands with a long sigh.
Phronsie never took her eyes from Polly’s face, but she said not a word.
“If you keep interrupting all the while, Joe, Polly can’t get on with
her story,” said Ben, who was mending Mother Pepper’s washboard over in
the corner, with one ear out for the narration proceeding under such
difficulties.
[Illustration: Ben was mending Mother Pepper’s washboard.]
“Well, go on,” said Joel ungraciously, his mouth watering for the cake
with pink on top; “but I don’t b’lieve Johnny ever had all that, every
day and Sunday.”
“Well, you must believe it,” said Polly, shaking her brown head at him;
“or I’m not going to sit here telling you stories. Joey Pepper, you
must act as if you believed every single word I say, else you won’t be
polite.”
“Oh, I’ll believe it,” exclaimed Joel in alarm at the thought of
Polly’s stories ceasing. “I wish I had some of the cake with the pink
on top, now, I do. Tell on, Polly.”
“And I,” said Phronsie putting out a little hand; “I wish I had some
too, Polly, I do.”
“Well, we haven’t any of us got any,” said Polly. “But I’ll tell you
all about Johnny’s. Sit still, Pet, you joggle me so I can’t sew
straight; and these seams must be done before Mamsie gets home, else
she’ll sit up to-night to do ’em.”
Polly was stitching away on one of the sacks that Mrs. Pepper had
promised Mr. Atkins she would take down to the store on the morrow, her
needle rushing in and out briskly; and she glanced up at the old clock.
“Oh, dear me! if I don’t hurry, I sha’n’t get to the time when Johnny’s
little tin soldiers ran.”
“Oh--whoppity--la!” screamed Joel in a transport, forgetting how his
mouth watered for the pink-topped cakes; “tell about the soldiers,
Polly; tell about them.”
“Well, I can’t if you keep interrupting me all the time, Joel,” said
Polly; “I was just going to, when you stopped me about the cakes.”
“That’s just it,” said Ben over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t tell him a
single thing, if he goes on like that. Take my advice, Polly, and don’t
promise him another story.”
But Polly was already launched into her gayest and best narration; and
Joel slipped off from his chair-edge to the floor, where he snuggled
up against her feet, his head on her knees, Phronsie longing to do the
same thing; but remembering what Polly had said about sewing Mamsie’s
seams, she sat up very straight in her chair, and folded her hands in
her lap.
“Did Johnny have tin soldiers too?” asked David, in an awe-struck tone.
“Of course, child,” said Polly, with a little laugh. “Why, he had a big
house full of just _everything_.”
“Make Dave stop talking,” said Joel irritably; “we can’t hear anything.
Do go on about the soldiers, Polly; you said you would.”
“Now, the first one of you children that says a word,” said Polly
merrily, “will have to go out into the Provision Room and stay till
I finish this story. I never shall get through at this rate; now
remember.”
“Good for you, Polly.” Ben bobbed his approval, and set in two or three
nails with smart little taps of his hammer.
“Well, Johnny made up his mind that his tin soldiers had too easy a
time, because there hadn’t been anybody to fight, you know, for one
thing, Johnny being off for three days fishing with the Mullen boy who
lived next door, and too busy to get up a battle with any one; and so
things had got to be pretty easy. And the tin soldiers were just as
lazy as could be; and some of them, don’t you think, were lying on
their backs on the closet shelf; and one had even rolled off, and was
having a nap down in the corner where he thought nobody could see him.”
“‘Wake up there!’ hallooed Johnny, flinging wide the closet door
very suddenly. ‘There’s going to be a big battle. Attention--Get
ready--Form!’”
“Ugh--ugh!”--grunted Joel, starting up. Then he clapped his two brown
hands over his mouth and sat down again.
Polly ran on, with an approving smile at him. “And then Johnny saw the
poor little fellow fast asleep in the corner.” Here she caught sight of
Phronsie opening her mouth; and she hastened to add, “And he picked him
up and set him straight. ‘Now, fall into line, my men!’ he shouted at
them; and before anybody knew just how, there they were, every single
little tin soldier out in the garden under the grape-vine arbor and”--
[Illustration]
“Ugh--ugh--_ee_!” cried Joel explosively. Then he ducked, and came up
red and shining, his lips tightly pressed together.
“You’re such a good boy, Josey!” exclaimed Polly. “Now, you see how
perfectly elegant it is to tell stories without having to stop every
minute to explain things. Well, and there were Jack Mullen’s wooden
soldiers all standing up to fight, with Jack as proud and stiff as he
could be, back of them. They weren’t as nice as Johnny’s, because, you
see, Jack had left his out in the rain the night his mother gave a
party--he forgot to take ’em in--and the paint was all washed off, and
one soldier had his legs chipped off a bit where Jack’s little cousin
had tried his new knife on it, so he went lame; and another one had his
gun smashed where it got stepped on by the hired man when Jack dropped
it in the barn one day. But they were brave as they could be, and
there they were all ranged up in battle-array when Johnny brought out
his soldiers.
“‘Hoh-hoh-hoh!’ cried Johnny, prancing along, driving his soldiers down
the path; their swords and guns were clanking, and they looked so smart
in their scarlet coats and caps with the nodding plumes. ‘My men can
beat yours any day, Jack Mullen!’
“‘You’ll see,’ cried Jack, firing up. ‘Let’s get ’em to work, that’s
all I say;’ and he stuck his hands in his pockets, and laughed long and
loud.
“Johnny went around among his men, and whispered something in each ear.
It sounded like ‘cakes;’ and then every soldier nodded real pleased,
and smacked his lips, and”--
Here there was tremendous excitement among the children, but Polly
pretended not to see it; and only stopping to bite off her thread, she
hurried on, “And suddenly Johnny screamed, ‘Wait a minute,’ and off he
dashed and ran into the kitchen. ‘Jane--Jane! I must have sixteen--no,
seventeen cakes to-day. Make ’em big, Jane, and put pink on top, same
as my Sunday ones.’”
“_Gee!_” screamed Joel. But Davie, in alarm lest Joe should be sent off
to the Provision Room and just in the most splendid part of the story,
jumped off from his chair, and flung his arms around him in distress.
“‘Hurry up!’ roared Jack after him; ‘else I’ll begin the battle, and
shoot every one of your men’s heads off. Bang--Bang!’” Here Polly
put down the big sack a minute, and thrust up an imaginary gun to
her shoulder to show exactly how Jack Mullen looked. Ben dropped the
washboard, and came out of his corner to look at her.
“And sure enough,” said Polly, with kindling eyes, “he was at it when
Johnny got back, red and breathless, from his run from the kitchen. So
of course his tin soldiers had a perfectly awful time from the very
beginning. Oh, you can’t think, children, how they did have to fight!
And don’t you believe they were crowded off inch by inch down that
perfectly beautiful garden-path under the grape-vine arbor, until there
was only one little corner to stand on for a place of defence. And the
guns banged, and the cannon roared, and the smoke was so thick you
could cut it with a knife, and in and through it all were the scarlet
coats and caps with the nodding plumes of the little tin soldiers.
And every one of ’em was as brave as could be, and saying ‘cakes’ to
himself. But there must come an end, and”--
Joel was just going to scream “No--no!--don’t let it come to an end,
Polly,” when he remembered in time; and she ran on gayly, “And Johnny
was hopping up and down, feeling dreadfully but trying to get up a last
charge, and Jack was screaming, ‘We’ve beaten you--hurrah for my men!’
when a dozen boys jumped over the fence, and dashed right into the
battle-field.
“‘The circus-carts are coming down this street,’ screamed every single
one of ’em; ‘come on!’
“The tin soldiers, of course, supposed, in the din of battle and all
that dreadful smoke, that a terrible charge from the wooden soldiers
had come, set on by those perfectly dreadful boys; and the wooden
soldiers thought that the boys were helping the tin soldiers; so each
side started to run away from the other; and the tin soldiers ran the
fastest because they were thinner and lighter, so they didn’t find out
their mistake until too late, and they all fell into the fish-pond
at the bottom of the garden. Meanwhile, after Johnny and Jack had
climbed the fence and were off at the corner of the street with the
twelve boys, Jane came out with seventeen little cakes with pink on
top, and not finding any one, she placed the tray on the seat under the
grape-vine. And the black cat, the largest one at Johnny’s house, you
know, the one with the green eyes, came stepping softly up, and smelt
them all over. Then she yowed for the neighbor’s gray cat, with whom
she was quite sociable, and they ate them all up, every crumb.”
V.
CHRISTMAS AT THE BIG HOUSE.
“You must know, children,” said Polly, most impressively, “that there
was to be a Christmas at the Big House.”
“Christmas!” Each of the three younger Peppers, “the children,” as
Polly and Ben called them, set up a shout at the magic word. Ben set
his teeth together hard, and listened. No one of them had ever seen a
Christmas, or knew in the least what it was like, only from what Jasper
had told them. And now Polly was to draw from her imagination, and give
them a story-Christmas. No wonder at the babel that ensued.
“The Big House,” began Polly, “had ever and ever so many windows and
doors to it, and it set back from the street; and there was a road up
for the carriages, and another for folks to walk up--oh, and there were
lots of children that belonged to the house, as many as we are,” and
Polly glanced around on the bunch of little Peppers. “Well, you know
the Big House had always had a Christmas every year whenever it came
around; they had hung up their stockings and had trees, just like what
Jasper told us of; and all sorts of nice things they’d tried time and
again, so what to do this Christmas, why, none of them could think. At
last Jenny, she was the biggest girl, proposed that each child should
write out what he or she wanted to do most of all, and not let any
one else see what was written, but fold the paper, and tuck it into
Grandpapa’s white hat in the hall. Grandpapa always wore a tall white
hat whenever he went out, and when he was at home the hat stood on
its head on the hall-table. And no one was ever allowed to touch that
hat. So the children knew it would be a perfectly safe place to drop
the papers in; and then, when all were in, even the baby’s, because
Jenny would write hers for Mehitable, that was the baby’s name, why
Grandpapa would take the hat, and turn out all the papers and read
them, and decide what they better do in order to keep Christmas. Well,
every single child in the Big House had written on his paper, and put
it carefully into Grandpapa’s big white hat, and Grandpapa had taken
out all the papers; the children had seen him as they peeked out of the
door into the hall, and then he went away into another room and shut
himself in.
[Illustration: Grandpapa had taken out all the papers.]
“‘Children,’ he said, as at last, after what seemed to them a perfect
age, he opened his door and came out, ‘we will have a tree this
Christmas’; then he laughed, and held up seven papers--for you must
know that besides the five children who always and every day lived
at the Big House, there were two cousins, a girl and a boy, who were
visiting there. ‘Every single paper,’ declared Grandpapa, as soon as
he could speak, ‘had “Tree” written across it.’
“Well, you see by that, the children were not tired of Christmas trees,
and as soon as Grandpapa told them that they were to have one, they
were quite satisfied; although Jenny did say that if she had known
every one else had chosen it, she would have written some other thing
on her paper. But that didn’t make any difference now, and what they
all had to do was to get ready; and the next day found the whole Big
House in--oh, such a bustle! You would think they never had gotten a
tree ready for Christmas in all their lives, there was such a fuss
made. In the first place, Grandpapa had to go out and speak to a man to
send up into the country and get him a big spruce-tree of good shape,
not long and spindling, but stout and with a pointed tip; for the Big
House was in the city, and of course no city trees could be cut down
without folks being put into jail for it. And then everybody had to
sit down and count up the money they had to spend; and if that wasn’t
enough, they had to go to the bank and draw out some more; that is, the
big folks did. And as the children were emptying their banks to see
how much they had, Grandpapa came up behind them, and dropped a gold
dollar into each one’s pile.”
It was impossible for the Five Little Peppers to keep still at that;
but after they were quiet once more, Polly occasioned a fresh outburst
by saying, “And then Grandmamma came up behind them, and she dropped a
gold dollar on each pile too.”
“Polly,” cried little Davie, quite overcome, “did they have the tree
too?”
“Yes, child,” said Polly; “and dear me, lots of other things too--a big
Christmas dinner for one thing.”
“O Polly!” cried Joel, “turkey and pudding?”
“O my, yes--and candy, and raisins, and everything,” declared Polly;
“with flowers in the middle of the table.”
“And roast beef and fixings?” Ben for the life of him could not help
asking this.
“Yes--yes,” answered Polly. “You can’t think of anything that those
children didn’t have at that Christmas dinner. But I must tell you
about the tree. Well, you must see it took a great while to get
everything ready; besides the things that Jenny and her cousin Mary,
and Jenny’s brother Tom, and his cousin Edward were making, there were
ever so many presents to buy; and to get these, all the children had to
go to the shops with Grandmamma and Grandpapa and with each other, and
then they had to hide them in all the out-of-the-way places they could,
so that no one would find them until they were hanging on the Christmas
tree. Oh, there was just everything to do; and the day before Christmas
they all went to the shops for the last things that had been forgotten
till then. It had snowed the night before; but it was sunny and cheery
on this afternoon, and the walks had a little bit of snow, too hard to
clear off nicely, and just enough to slide on, when the procession came
out of the Big House, and turned down the street where the shops were.
Everybody was out buying things. They had little bags of money dangling
by their sides, only some held their purses in their hands, and kept
looking at them to be sure they were there--but oh, the shops!”
“Tell about them,” begged all the other Peppers together. “Tell every
single thing that was in them,” said Joel.
“Oh! I can’t begin to tell half that was in those shops,” laughed Polly
merrily. “Mercy me, Joey, there was just everything there,--drums and
tin soldiers, and little boxes that had music shut up in ’em, and dolls
and jews-harps, and mittens and comforters, and trains of cars, and
candy and flowers, and birds in cages, and oh, boots and shoes and
books and oh--just _everything_!” Polly brought up suddenly with a
gasp, being quite tired out.
“Go on,” urged Joel breathlessly.
“She can’t--there’s too many things,” said Ben. “Never mind going over
them; just tell what the folks did, Polly.”