Five Little Peppers And How They Grew by Margaret Sidney (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

snatch the time and run down for an hour or two to one of her customers who had long been waiting for a little "tailoring" to be done for her boys.

"Now, Joel," she said, putting on her bonnet before the cracked looking-glass, "you stay along of Polly; Ben must go up to bed, the doctor said; and Davie's going to the store for some molasses; so you and Polly must keep house."

"Yes'm," said Joel; "may I have somethin' to eat, ma?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Pepper; "but don't you eat the new bread; you may have as much as you want of the old."

"Isn't there any molasses, mammy?" asked Joel, as she bade Polly good-bye! and gave her numberless charges "to be careful of your eyes," and "not to let a crack of light in through the curtain," as the old green paper shade was called.

"No; if you're very hungry, you can eat bread," said Mrs. Pepper, sensibly.

"Joel," said Polly, after the mother had gone, "I do wish you could read to me."

"Well, I can't," said Joel, glad he didn't know how; "I thought the minister was comin'."

"Well, he was," said Polly, "but mammy said he had to go out of town to a consequence."

"A what!" asked Joel, very much impressed.

"A con - " repeated Polly. "Well, it began with a con - and I am sure - yes, very sure it was consequence."

"That must be splendid," said Joel, coming up to her chair, and slowly drawing a string he held in his hand back and forth, "to go to consequences, and everything! When I'm a man, Polly Pepper, I'm going to be a minister, and have a nice time, and go - just everywhere!"

"Oh, Joel!" exclaimed Polly, quite shocked; "you couldn't be one; you aren't good enough."

"I don't care," said Joel, not at all dashed by her plainness, "I'll be good then - when I'm a big man; don't you suppose, Polly," as a new idea struck him, "that Mr. Henderson ever is naughty?"

"No," said Polly, very decidedly; "never, never, never!"

"Then, I don't want to be one," said Joel, veering round with a sigh of relief, "and besides I'd rather have a pair of horses like Mr. Slocum's, and then I could go everywheres, I guess!"

"And sell tin?" asked Polly, "just like Mr. Slocum?"

"Yes," said Joel; "this is the way I'd go - Gee-whop! gee-whoa!" and Joel pranced with his imaginary steeds all around the room, making about as much noise as any other four boys, as he brought up occasionally against the four-poster or the high old bureau.

"Well!" said a voice close up by Polly's chair, that made her skip with apprehension, it was so like Miss Jerusha Henderson's - Joel was whooping away behind the bedstead to his horses that had become seriously entangled, so he didn't hear anything. But when Polly said, bashfully, "I can't see anything, ma'am," he came up red and shining to the surface, and stared with all his might.

"I came to see you, little girl," said Miss Jerusha severely, seating herself stiffly by Polly's side.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Polly, faintly.

"Who's this boy?" asked the lady, turning around squarely on Joel, and eying him from head to foot.

"He's my brother Joel," said Polly.

Joel still stared.

"Which brother?" pursued Miss Jerusha, like a census-taker.

"He is next to me," said Polly, wishing her mother was home; "he's nine, Joel is."

"He's big enough to do something to help his mother," said Miss Jerusha, looking him through and through. "Don't you think you might do something, when the others are sick, and your poor mother is working so hard?" she continued, in a cold voice.

"I do something," blurted out Joel, sturdily, "lots and lots!"

"You shouldn't say 'lots," reproved Miss Jerusha, with a sharp look over her spectacles, "tisn't proper for boys to talk so; what do you do all day long?" she asked, turning back to Polly, after a withering glance at Joel, who still stared.

"I can't do anything, ma'am," replied Polly, sadly, "I can't see to do anything."

"Well, you might knit, I should think," said her visitor, "it's dreadful for a girl as big as you are to sit all day idle; I had sore eyes once when I was a little girl - how old are you?" she asked, abruptly.

"Eleven last month," said Polly.

"Well, I wasn't only nine when I knit a stocking; and I had sore eyes, too; you see I was a very little girl, and - "

"Was you ever little?" interrupted Joel, in extreme incredulity, drawing near, and looking over the big square figure.

"Hey?" said Miss Jerusha; so Joel repeated his question before Polly could stop him.

"Of course," answered Miss Jerusha; and then she added, tartly, "little boys shouldn't speak unless they're spoken to. Now," and she turned back to Polly again, "didn't you ever knit a stocking?"

"No, ma'am," said Polly, "not a whole one."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Jerusha; "did I ever!" And she raised her black mitts in intense disdain. "A big girl like you never to knit a stocking! to think your mother should bring you up so! and - "

"She didn't bring us up," screamed Joel, in indignation, facing her with blazing eyes.

"Joel," said Polly, "be still."

"And you're very impertinent, too," said Miss Jerusha; "a good child never is impertinent."

Polly sat quite still; and Miss Jerusha continued:

"Now, I hope you will learn to be industrious; and when I come again, I will see what you have done."

"You aren't ever coming again," said Joel, defiantly; "no, never!"

"Joel!" implored Polly, and in her distress she pulled up her bandage as she looked at him; "you know mammy'll be so sorry at you! Oh, ma'am, and" she turned to Miss Jerusha, who was now thoroughly aroused to the duty she saw before her of doing these children good, "I don't know what is the reason, ma'am; Joel never talks so; he's real good; and - "

"It only shows," said the lady, seeing her way quite clear for a little exhortation, "that you've all had your own way from infancy; and that you don't do what you might to make your mother's life a happy one."

"Oh, ma'am," cried Polly, and she burst into a flood of tears, "please, please don't say that!"

"And I say," screamed Joel, stamping his small foot, "if you make Polly cry you'll kill her! Don't Polly, don't!" and the boy put both arms around her neck, and soothed and comforted her in every way he could think of. And Miss Jerusha, seeing no way to make herself heard, disappeared feeling pity for children who would turn away from good advice.

But still Polly cried on; all the pent-up feelings that had been so long controlled had free vent now. She really couldn't stop! Joel, frightened to death, at last said, "I'm going to wake up Ben."

That brought Polly to; and she sobbed out, "Oh, no, Jo - ey - I'll stop."

"I will," said Joel, seeing his advantage; "I'm going, Polly," and he started to the foot of the stairs.

"No, I'm done now, Joe," said Polly, wiping her eyes, and choking back her thoughts - "oh, Joe! I must scream! my eyes aches so!" and poor Polly fairly writhed all over the chair.

"What'll I do?" said Joel, at his wits' end, running back, "do you want some water?"

"Oh, no," gasped Polly; "doctor wouldn't let me; oh! I wish mammy'd come!"

"I'll go and look for her," suggested Joel, feeling as if he must do something; and he'd rather be out at the gate, than to see Polly suffer.

"That won't bring her," said Polly; trying to keep still; "I'll try to wait."

"Here she is now!" cried Joel, peeping out of the window; "oh! goody!"


JOEL'S TURN


"Well," Mrs. Pepper's tone was unusually blithe as she stepped into the kitchen - "you've had a nice time, I suppose - what in the world!" and she stopped at the bedroom door.

"Oh, mammy, if you'd been here!" said Joel, while Polly sat still, only holding on to her eyes as if they were going to fly out; "there's been a big woman here; she came right in - and she talked awfully! and Polly's been a-cryin', and her eyes ache dreadfully - and - "

"Been crying!" repeated Mrs. Pepper, coming up to poor Polly. "Polly been crying!" she still repeated.

"Oh, mammy, I couldn't help it," said Polly; "she said - " and in spite of all she could do, the rain of tears began again, which bade fair to be as uncontrolled as before. But Mrs. Pepper took her up firmly in her arms, as if she were Phronsie, and sat down in the old rocking-chair and just patted her back.

"There, there," she whispered, soothingly, "don't think of it, Polly; mother's got home."

"Oh, mammy," said Polly, crawling up to the comfortable neck for protection, "I ought not to mind; but 'twas Miss Jerusha Henderson; and she said - "

"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Pepper, thinking perhaps it to be the wiser thing to let Polly free her mind.

"Oh, she said that we ought to be doing something; and I ought to knit, and - "

"Go on," said her mother.

"And then Joel got naughty; oh, mammy, he never did so before; and I couldn't stop him," cried Polly, in great distress; "I really couldn't, mammy - and he talked to her; and he told her she wasn't ever coming here again."

"Joel shouldn't have said that," said Mrs. Pepper, and under her breath something was added that Polly even failed to hear - "but no more she isn't!"

"And, mammy," cried Polly - and she flung her arms around her mother's neck and gave her a grasp that nearly choked Mrs. Pepper, "ain't I helpin' you some, mammy? Oh! I wish I could do something big for you? Ain't you happy, mammy?"

"For the land's sakes!" cried Mrs. Pepper, straining Polly to her heart, "whatever has that woman - whatever could she have said to you? Such a girl as you are, too!" cried Mrs. Pepper, hugging Polly, and covering her with kisses so tender, that Polly, warmed and cuddled up to her heart's content, was comforted to the full.

"Well," said Mrs. Pepper, when at last she thought she had formed between Polly and Joel about the right idea of the visit, "well, now we won't think of it, ever any more; 'tisn't worth it, Polly, you know."

But poor Polly! and poor mother! They both were obliged to think of it. Nothing could avert the suffering of the next few days, caused by that long flow of burning tears.

"Nothing feels good on 'em, mammy," said Polly, at last, twisting her hands in the vain attempt to keep from rubbing the aching, inflamed eyes that drove her nearly wild with their itching, "there isn't any use in trying anything."

"There will be use," energetically protested Mrs. Pepper, bringing another cool bandage, "as long as you've got an eye in your head, Polly Pepper!"

Dr. Fisher's face, when he first saw the change that the fateful visit had wrought, and heard the accounts, was very grave indeed. Everything had been so encouraging on his last visit,