do so, for they ached all over holding him so long,--he was very big,
you know; and he kicked dreadfully, and bit and scratched, whenever he
didn’t like things, and”--
“That wasn’t nice in a man,” observed Joel; “I ain’t going to bite and
scratch when I’m grown up, Polly.”
“Hey?” said Polly. “Oh!” and then she laughed. “Well, don’t interrupt
again, Joel,” she warned, holding up her finger. “Well, Father
Nutcracker, he said, ‘Now, Ma and children,’ turning to the little
Nutcrackerses, ‘and you, cousins, let’s plan how we’ll do this thing;
since you’ve come, you might as well help, though I could have done
very well alone. Now, I’m going ahead; and just as soon as my nose
sticks in the doorway, do you jump in and scream, “Now we got you!” and
we’ll all hop on to that dreadful horrid creature, and beat him, and
pitch him out of our house.’”
Joel gripped Polly’s arm in speechless enjoyment.
“‘All right,’ said the cousins, bobbing their heads. ‘And I approve
of your plan, Pa,’ said Mrs. Nutcracker very proudly; and the little
Nutcrackerses hopped and skipped in joy, and so they started.”
Joel’s eyes got very big, but he didn’t say a word as he clung to
Polly’s arm.
“And don’t you think,” said Polly, “that the hateful, bad old thing in
the Nutcrackers’ house didn’t hear them coming; they all stepped on the
tips of their toes, you know; and he just winked and blinked his green
eyes as he said to himself, ‘I’ll catch ’em every one pretty soon.’ And
then he looked up, and there was Mr. Nutcracker’s nose in the doorway.”
Joel jumped as if he were shot. “O Polly!” he screamed.
“And after him came all those cousins and Mrs. Nutcracker. She was
slower, ’cause she was so big, you know; yes, and every single one of
those little Nutcrackerses; they just ran in between all the others,
and all together they jumped and hopped onto the great big dreadful
creature, and”--
“Make him hop at them, and kick, too, Polly, that big man with the
green eyes!” howled Joel, quite gone in excitement.
“Oh, it was very dreadful!” exclaimed Polly, holding up both hands,
“for about a minute or so. And instead of the great, dreadful thing
crying out, ‘I’ve got you!’ he began to whimper and beg. ‘Oh, let me
go! let me go!’ And pretty soon all the whole bunch of Nutcrackerses,
and their cousins who had come to help, just lifted up that bad,
wicked, horrid thing with the green eyes, that had stolen into their
house, and they pitched him, head over heels through the doorway, and
down--down; and he was ten feet long; so he was dreadful slow in”--
“O Polly Pepper!” roared Joel, “what you saying? why, there isn’t any
man so big as that.”
“It wasn’t a man,” said Polly coolly.
“Wasn’t a man?” fairly squealed Joel; “what was it?”
“A great brown, striped snake,” said Polly; “he was lovely, but he was
bad you know, to steal into the Nutcrackers’ house when they were all
away.”
Joel tumbled back and thought a minute. “Was Mr. Nutcracker a man,
Polly?” he asked, fixing his black eyes upon her face.
“Oh, no!” said Polly with a little laugh. “Why, didn’t you guess, Joey
Pepper? He was the sweetest dear of an old gray squirrel you ever saw;
so of course he had to have a brush-train, just like Mrs. Nutcracker’s,
you know.”
XIV.
THE RUNAWAY PUMPKIN.
“I don’t see,” said Van as they were all seated on the rug before the
library fire, listening to one of Polly’s stories, “how you ever do
think of such splendid things, Polly Pepper.”
“That’s nothing,” said Jasper, “to the stories she has told time and
again in The Little Brown House in Badgertown.”
“Oh, tell us one of those now!” begged Van eagerly, “do, Polly Pepper;”
and “do, Polly Pepper,” cried Percy and little Dick together. And “do,
Polly” said Jasper pleadingly, “if you are not all tired out.”
“Oh, I’m not tired!” said Polly, shaking back the little fluffs of hair
from her brow. Then she sat looking into the fire a minute. “I guess
I’ll tell you of ‘The Runaway Pumpkin.’”
[Illustration: “I guess I’ll tell you of the Runaway Pumpkin,” said
Polly.]
“Do,” cried Jasper in great satisfaction. “I remember that; that’s
fine. Now, keep still, you three chaps, or else Polly can’t tell it.
You’re worse than the menagerie any day,” as the boys began to express
their enthusiasm in such a babel, Polly could scarcely get a word in by
way of beginning.
“Well, once upon a time,” began Polly, trying to frown at them; but
instead, the brown eyes were laughing as she hurried on, with quite
a flourish. “You must know that my story is all about the time when
animals talked, and pumpkins walked, and”--
“Oh, don’t have any poetry!” began Van in alarm; “that’s perfectly
horrid. Don’t, Polly.”
“Why, it isn’t in poetry,” she said.
“Yes, ’tis,” contradicted Van.
“Look out,” cried Jasper. “The first chap who contradicts will get off
from this rug, and have no story at all.”
“I didn’t mean,” began Van.
“No, he really didn’t mean to contradict, I believe, Jasper,” said
Polly. “But what did make you think I was going to tell you a poetry
story, Vanny? Why I couldn’t if I wanted to. Tell me”--
“Why, you said the animals talked, and the pumpkins walked.”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Polly, almost tumbling over on the rug, and
laughing merrily, in which they all joined; “I didn’t know I made a
rhyme. So I did say that, didn’t I? Well, you needn’t be frightened,
I won’t do so any more. I don’t believe I could if I wanted to. Now,
then,” and she sat straight, and wiped her eyes, “I’ll begin again.”
“And if you interrupt another time, old fellow,” said Jasper in
his fiercest fashion, and he pretended to make a dive for Van’s
coat-collar, “out you go, sir, neck and heels. Go on, Polly; I’ll keep
this chap straight.”
“Well, pumpkins did walk and talk too,” said Polly, plunging on in her
gayest mood, “in those days I’m telling you about. Now, Farmer Stebbins
had a big field of them,--oh! it was as big as this house and the
grounds, and way, way off,--I don’t know how far; and every single bit
of it was full and running over with pumpkins.”
“How many?” cried Van thoughtlessly.
“Sh!” Jasper held up his hand, and made a great show of springing in
Van’s direction, which made that individual duck suddenly behind
Percy’s back.
“You see, he had to have a great many pumpkins to take to market,
because there were such lots of children at his house, and that was all
they had to live on.”
“Did they _eat_ pumpkins?” cried Percy in a tone of disgust.
“They didn’t exactly eat them,” said Polly, “at least not all the
while; but they ate the things their father bought with the money he
sold them for at the market.”
“Oh!--well, go on.”
“And every day all those children would climb up to all the windows in
Farmer Stebbins’s house, and watch to see the pumpkins growing bigger.
And the first thing they did in the morning was to run out and count
them to see if anybody had run off with any in the night.”
“How many were there?” asked Van, bobbing up from his retirement.
“_Sh!_” cried Jasper.
“Oh! I don’t know; about a million, I suppose,” said Polly recklessly.
“O Polly Pepper!” exclaimed Percy in astonishment; “why, that can’t
possibly be true.”
“Of course it isn’t,” said Polly coolly; “this is a make-believe story,
you know.”
“And if you two chaps don’t keep still, you’ll get no story,” declared
Jasper again. “Here’s Dick, now, is as quiet as a mouse. You might
learn manners from him.”
“I want to hear Polly Pepper tell the story,” said little Dick, folding
his hands tightly together.
“Of course you do,--so we all do; and that’s the only way we can hear
it by keeping quiet. Well, go on, Polly, please.”
So Polly began again: “Well, the pumpkins grew and grew. First they
were green, you know, and funny little things, and the vines quite
covered them. And then they grew bigger, and swelled all up fat and
round, and ran their heads through the green leaves; and the frost came
one night, and bit the grass and all the tender things everywhere, and
the next morning when all the Stebbinses ran out, it didn’t seem as if
there was anything in the world but big yellow pumpkins. All the vines
were just puckered and shrivelled up. But the pumpkins were just as
proud as could be; and they said, ‘Now we’ve got the whole world to
ourselves.’
“And Farmer Stebbins went up and down among them all, rubbing his hands
just like this;” and Polly looked so like him that everybody burst out
laughing; “and he said, ‘Now, says I, my fine pumpkins, we’ll put you
in a pile very soon, and when your coats get yellow, away you go to
market.’”
“What did he mean?” demanded Percy.
“Be still, and she’ll tell you,” said Jasper.
“And sure enough, what do you think. Every single one of those million
pumpkins soon found himself in a great big pile against the barn, and
there they were to stay until the farmer said they were yellow enough.
Then away they would drive to the market!
“Well, one cold night everybody had gone to bed in the farmhouse, and
even Snap the great brindled dog was asleep, and all was as still as it
could be, when one yellow pumpkin up top of the very tip of the pile
whispered, ‘_Hist!_’ and every other pumpkin listened with all his
might to hear what he was going to say.
“‘We are all very foolish,’ said the Tip Top Pumpkin, ‘if we stay here
to be carted off to that old market, where somebody comes along to buy
us to carry us home to eat up.’
“‘What can we do?’ cried all the others straight through the big pile.
“‘Hush--don’t make such a dreadful noise,’ warned the Tip--Top--Pumpkin,
‘or we shall have the whole house after us. I’m not going to be made up
into a Thanksgiving pie, I can tell you.’
“At the word ‘pie,’ all the other pumpkins shivered so that down came
the pile rolling and clattering to the ground; and some of them were
going so fast they couldn’t stop, but kept right on and were never seen
more.
“‘Let’s all run,’ said the Tip Top Pumpkin suddenly. ‘Come on.’ With
that he tumbled himself down with a will, and set off down the road
towards the village. But the other pumpkins didn’t dare to follow, but
they huddled together just where they fell. And so Tip Top, I’m going
to call him, went on alone. But he didn’t care, and he sang to himself
as he rolled along just as jolly and gay; and the first thing he knew,
an awful thing came thwacking on his back, and a big hand said, ‘Here,
stop there! you’re coming with me.’ And he looked up and saw a giant.”
“Oh! oh!” screamed the three boys.
“‘Oh! no, I’m not going with you,’ gasped poor Mr. Tip Top; ‘I’m going
by myself, thank you.’ And he wished a thousand times he was back again
on the snug pile with the other pumpkins.
“The great big giant only laughed; and he slipped the pumpkin into his
pocket, where he rattled round no bigger than a hickory nut.”
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Percy, while Van struck his hands together in
delight. “And then the giant stamped on the ground, and poor Mr. Tip
Top thought it thundered, and he began to beg with all his might to
be let out. And in a minute some boys, three or four times as big as
Farmer Simpson in size, came running up. ‘What do you want, master?’
they cried.
“‘Catch me a young elephant,’ roared the giant at them. ‘A juicy,
tender one, and half a dozen young lions for sauce. And then run home
and heat the pot boiling hot; for I’ve got a juicy pumpkin in my
pocket for a nice little morsel to go with them.’
“Oh, how poor Mr. Tip Top trembled down deep in that giant’s dreadful
pocket! It was as black as a well; and however much he struggled, he
knew he never could get up.
“‘Please, Mr. Giant,’ he said in a very weak voice, he was so afraid,
‘do let me out. You are so big I could only make you a mouthful, and I
want to go home.’
“‘Be quiet!’ roared the giant at him, ‘or I’ll chew your head right off
in one bite now.’
“So poor, miserable Mr. Tip Top had nothing to do but to roll into the
farthest corner of the pocket, and shiver and shake, and hope for some
means of escape. And away sped the giant across the fields; and then
the poor pumpkin knew he was being carried to the castle under ground
where the giant lived, and that he would never come out alive--oh,
dear, how he shivered and shook!
“And pretty soon, down went the giant over a long pair of steps, two at
a time, then down some more, till the poor pumpkin’s head became quite
dizzy. And at last he stopped, and stamped on the ground; and Mr. Tip
Top was very sure this time that it thundered.
“‘What ho!’ screamed the giant, ‘is everybody asleep that you do not
come when I call?’ And there was a great scampering; and all the little
giants and Mrs. Giant, and all the servants came running as fast as
could be. And the ground shook like everything, till poor Mr. Tip Top
thought he should die of fright.
“‘See what I’ve brought,’ cried the giant in a dreadful voice; and he
tipped up his pocket, and out rolled the yellow pumpkin. All the giants
and giantesses and Mrs. Giant raced after him with dreadful big steps;
but he rolled under a big stone chair, cut out of the side of the rock
that the cave was made of. ‘Oh, save me--save me!’ he cried; and he
began to cry as hard as he could.
“‘I’ll catch him,’ cried every one of those dreadful creatures hunting
for him. And at last one great big giant boy seized him, and carried
him off in triumph; but the others ran after him, trying to get the
pumpkin away; and there was such a dreadful time as they tossed poor
Mr. Tip Top back and forth like a big yellow ball, that his head spun
round and round on his shoulders, until old Father Giant roared out,
‘Stop playing with him; for the pot is boiling hot now, and I’m going
to have him for my supper. I won’t wait for the elephant and the little
lions, for I’m very, very hungry.’ And the pumpkin was so scared at
that, that he gave a great jump, and rolled away into a crack in the
floor; and although every one of those giants and giantesses got down
on their knees and flattened their faces to see him, they couldn’t
get him out. And old Father Giant, in great anger, said he would have
to stay there till the next day, when he would send for the carpenter
to take up the floor. Then he should be boiled in the pot for a sweet
morsel with his dinner. Oh, how poor Mr. Tip Top shivered and shook!
“And about the middle of the night, when not a single person was awake,
and every thing was as still as a mouse, there came a little call just
beside the crack, ‘Pumpkin! say, Pumpkin, don’t you hear me?’
[Illustration: “Pumpkin! say, Pumpkin, don’t you hear me?”]
“‘Oh, I guess I do!’ said poor yellow Mr. Tip Top; ‘it’s Johnny
Stebbins.’
“‘Yes ’tis,’ said the voice, ‘it’s Johnny Stebbins, and I’ve come to
save you.’
“‘If you will only get me out of here,’ said the yellow pumpkin, ‘I’ll
go home and be just as good. I never’ll run away in all this world
again, never. You can take me to market, and I’ll go along as nice as
can be.’
“‘Yes,’ said Johnny; ‘you must go along good; for you see all the
pumpkins have to be carried to market, for we shouldn’t have anything
to live on if they didn’t.’
“‘I know it,’ said Mr. Tip Top quite humbly; ‘oh, do get me out!’
“‘Well, I will,’ said Johnny; ‘but you must do just as I say.’ So the
yellow pumpkin promised he would; and Johnny ran around the outside of
the cave, and pretty soon Mr. Tip Top heard him say ‘Roll over here.’
So the yellow pumpkin rolled in the direction of the voice; and there
was a hole big enough for him to get out of, and oh! in a minute there
he was out in the fresh air. And then Johnny said, ‘Roll home now as
fast as you can; I’m going to stay and scare the big giant and Mrs.
Giant and all the little giants, and cut their heads off.’
“‘Oh, dear, Johnny!’ cried Mr. Tip Top, and he burst out crying, ‘do
come home. He’ll kill you, and chew your head off.’
“‘Pshaw! no, he won’t!’ said Johnny; ‘and I’ve got to kill that old
giant and Mrs. Giant and all those dreadful giantesses, else they’ll
steal all our pumpkins. See what I’ve got;’ and he ran behind a big
tree, and came out again with a perfectly horrible head of a wild beast
with flaming eyes and a big mouth and--”
“Oh, a jack-o-lantern!” screamed Percy and Van and Dick together.
Polly nodded gayly and dashed on. “Mr. Tip Top took one look at it, and
he said very bravely, ‘I’m going to stay too, and help you. Make me
look like that.’ So in two minutes Mr. Tip Top had flaming eyes in him,
and a horrible big mouth, out of which he kept saying, ‘Now we’ll scare
them twice as soon. Come on, Johnny!’ And in they crept into the cave.
“Oh, dear! you never heard such screams and roars! The giant called
for his sword, and his servants; and then he huddled under the
bed-clothes, and pulled them up over his ears. So Johnny cut off his
head easy enough; and Mrs. Giant ran screaming out of the cave, and
she was going so fast she couldn’t stop herself running down the hill,
and so she rolled into the pond at the bottom; and all the little
Giant boys and girls ran this way and that and climbed into the trees,
so they were all caught, and the servants too. And then Johnny took
a great piece of sealing-wax he had brought along in his pocket, and
stuck the stone door fast so it couldn’t be opened. And then away he
and Mr. Tip Top went home.
“And Farmer Stebbins was so pleased with Mr. Tip Top that he said he
should sit up on top of the big old clock in the kitchen. And there he
is now, I suppose!” finished Polly with a flourish.
XV.
THE ROBBERS AND THEIR BAGS.
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Polly, “what shall I tell about?” She had just
run into the library after her music lesson was over, and Monsieur had
tripped off on the tips of his toes, his waxed mustache-ends trembling
with delight in his enthusiasm over Mademoiselle Peppaire and her
progress. “I can’t think of an earthly thing to make a story of;” and
she wrinkled her brows in dismay.
“Let her off, Van,” cried Jasper.
“No, no, no!” cried Van, in alarm; “she said she’d tell a story as soon
as she got through her music lesson.”
“Yes, she did,” said Percy; “and it rains, and we can’t go out, you
know, Jasper,” and he gazed dismally from the long window.
“Oh, I’ll tell it!” Polly made haste to say. “I did promise it,
boys, and you shall have it, so come over here;” and she ran to the
corner with the cushioned seats under the windows. “Now, then, let
me see,--oh, I’ll tell you about the Robbers and their Bags,” she
announced, saying the first thing that came into her head.
“Oh! oh! oh!” screamed the boys in the greatest glee, while little
Dick, quite overcome with the idea, rushed out in the hall to proclaim
the fact to the first person he might meet, who chanced to be his
grandfather.
“Polly’s going to tell us a story about robbers, and she’s got bags,
and just everything,” he screamed excitedly.
“Hoity-toity, Dick,” exclaimed old Mr. King, whose plans for the day
had all been set aside by the rain. “You must look where you are going,
child, and not run into people so,” as little Dick stumbled up against
him.
“But she is, Grandpapa; she really and truly is,” cried Dick positively.
“Who is? And going to do what?” demanded Mr. King.
“Polly; and she’s going to tell us a perfectly splendid story.” And
then away Dick dashed back to the library again.
“In that case,” observed the old gentleman to himself, “I might as
well add myself to the youngsters; and Phronsie will probably be
there.” So as he had been waiting till Polly should be through with
her music lesson, for Phronsie always sat patiently with one of her
numerous dolls, in the long drawing-room, on these occasions, he
marched to the scene of the hilarity over the story, which was now
fairly launched.
“And so you see,” Polly was saying, as he opened the door. “Oh, boys,
here comes dear Grandpapa!”
All the boys were on their feet in an instant to get old Mr. King the
best chair in the room, an attention which pleased him immensely; and
he was soon seated in their circle, Joel planting himself down on the
floor at his feet. Phronsie looked over from Polly’s lap, where she was
snuggling. “Does your head ache, Grandpapa?” she asked gently.
“It feels as if it were going to, all the while, Phronsie,” said the
old gentleman artfully.
Phronsie put up one little hand and patted Polly’s cheek. “I must go
and sit with Grandpapa, Polly,” she whispered, “and keep him from being
sick.” And she got down, and hurried over to climb in his lap. “Now I
guess it won’t ache, Grandpapa, dear,” she said, smoothing his white
hair gently.
“It won’t now you are here, Phronsie,” said old Mr. King, holding her
close. “Now, then, Polly, my girl, let us hear that wonderful story.”
So Polly began again. “Well, you see, it’s all about some robbers,
and”--
“Make ’em be big, and ever so many of them,” cried Joel.
“Oh, Joe, be quiet!” warned Jasper. “Polly can’t get on at all if you
are going to interrupt every minute.”
“Joel’s always breaking in,” cried Percy wrathfully. “Do stop him,
Grandpapa.”
“I’ll stick a pin in him,” said Van pleasantly, who sat next.
“O Van!” exclaimed Polly.
“Here, you two boys,” cried the old gentleman, “you mind what you’re
about, both of you. Joe, don’t you let me hear of your stopping Polly;
and do you, master Van, keep your pins to yourself. Now, then, Polly,
begin again.”
So Polly, with a nod and a reassuring smile for him, rushed on. “Well,
you see, these robbers lived in a cave dark and big; it was against a
mountain, around which ran a lonely road. Nobody ever went that way who
could help it, because for years and years robbers had been there, and
scared all the travellers away. So, you see, the robbers had it pretty
much to themselves. Well, at the end of the long and lonely road was a
little village. It was about as big as Badgertown, but not nearly so
pretty,” said Polly, with a light in her brown eyes.
“Bad--ger”--began Joel.
“Ugh!” exclaimed Van at him, while Grandpapa held up a warning finger.
“Yes, it was just about as big,” said Polly. “Well, there were some men
who were pretty rich lived there in fine smart houses, about six--no,
I guess a dozen of them, and the robbers had waited a good while to
see if they would come down their long and lonely road. But they never
had; for you see, whenever they had to get to the next place, they went
clear away the other side of the mountain, and so kept off from the
dreadful robbers and their cave. Well, so one night, all the robbers
sat and made up a plan, and”--
“How many?” began Joel abruptly. But one look at old Mr. King stopped
him.
“Well, there were just about a hundred robbers,” said Polly, seeing it
was expected of her to have a good number.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Percy.
“And they all decided that as the splendid rich men, who lived in the
big houses, wouldn’t come to them, they would go after them.”
“Oh, dear!” said little Dick.
“Yes, and so the head robber,--oh, he was too perfectly splendid to
look at,”--cried Polly, waxing enthusiastic, as she looked at her
absorbed audience, “he was all dressed up in red velvet, and a white
plume in his hat that trailed off in the air, and he had a long sword
in his belt, and it clanked every step he took, and two or three knives
and pistols--oh! and other things stuck in round his waist, so he was
perfectly dreadful too. Well, he told twelve of his robbers to go and
catch the splendid rich men, and get all their money, and”--
“How did they get it, Polly?” cried Percy.
“Ho! Ho! who’s interrupting now?” cried Van, bursting into a laugh.
“Hush!” said Jasper, over at Percy, who ducked immediately.
“You’ll see,” said Polly gayly. “Well, so one dark night,--oh! you
couldn’t see your hand before your face hardly,--don’t you think, all
the twelve splendid rich men got twelve letters--I mean each man got
one--saying he was to go off, just as quick as he could go, over to
the big house where the minister lived, ’cause he wanted to see him on
very important business indeed, and he couldn’t wait a minute. So every
single one of those twelve splendid rich men started from his home,
and ran as hard as he could. And before he had gone very far, he met a
man,--he didn’t see him, it was so dark, but he ran up against him, and
they nearly knocked each other over.
“‘Stop, there!’ roared the man, that the man who was running knocked up
against. ‘What are you doing, tumbling me down in this fashion?’
“‘Oh! I didn’t mean to,’ said the poor man very humbly; and he couldn’t
breathe very well, because, you see, he’d been running so fast, and
he’d bumped into the other one so suddenly. ‘I won’t do it again; but
the minister, I expect, is sick, so excuse me;’ and he tried to go by.