Five Little Peppers Abroad by Margaret Sidney (graded readers txt) 📕

said Polly, holding up hers to the light. "You made me take that one, Jasper."

"It's no better than mine," said Jasper, eating away.

"I'm going to hop into one of the chairs just a minute before we go," said Polly, nodding at the array along the beach, and eating her grapes busily, "to see how they feel."

"Oh, Polly, let me get you a chair now," begged Jasper, setting down the remainder of his bunch of grapes, and springing up.

"Oh, I don't want to, I really and truly don't, Jasper," Polly made haste to cry. "I like the sand ever and ever so much better. I only want to see for a minute what it's like to be in one of those funny old things. Then I should want to hop out with all my might, I just know I should."

"I'm of your mind," said Jasper, coming back to his seat on the sand again. "They must be very stuffy, Polly. Well, now you are here, would you like to come back to Scheveningen for a few days, Polly?"

"I think I should," said Polly, slowly, bringing her gaze around over the sea, to the Dunes, the beach, with the crowds of people of all nationalities, and the peasant folk, "if we could stay just as long, for all that, at the dear old Hague."

And just then old Mr. King was saying to Phronsie, "We will come out here again, child, and stay a week. Yes," he said to himself, "I will engage the rooms before we go back this afternoon."

"Grandpapa," asked Phronsie, laying her hand on his knee, "can I have this very same little house next time we come?"

"Well, I don't know," said Mr. King, peering up and down Phronsie's Bath chair adorned with the most lively descriptions of the merits of cocoa as a food; "they're all alike as two peas, except for the matter of the chocolate and cocoa trimmings. But perhaps I can fix it, Phronsie, so that you can have this identical one," mentally resolving to do that very thing. "Well, come, Phronsie, we must go now and get our luncheon."

"I am so glad if I can have the same little house," said Phronsie, with a sigh of contentment, as she slowly got out of her Bath chair. "It is a nice little house, Grandpapa, and I love it very much."


IX

A BOX FOR THE PEPPER BOYS


"Mamsie, have we been here a whole week in Amsterdam," cried Polly, leaning out of the window to look up and down the canal where the many-coloured boats lay, "beside all those days at Scheveningen? I can't believe it!"

"It doesn't seem possible," Mother Fisher answered musingly, and her hands dropped to her lap, where they lay quietly folded.

"Mamsie," - Polly suddenly drew in her gaze from the charming old canal and its boats, and sprang to Mrs. Fisher's side, - "do you know, I think it was just the loveliest thing in all the world for Grandpapa to bring dear Mr. and Mrs. Henderson abroad with us? I do, Mamsie."

"Mr. King is always doing good, kind things," said Mrs. Fisher, coming out of her revery, as Polly threw herself down on the floor and laid her head in her mother's lap, just as she used to do at home. "I haven't done this for so long," she said, "and it is so good!"

"That is the only drawback about travel," observed Mother Fisher, her hand passing soothingly over Polly's head, "that there never seems to be time for the little home ways that are so good. Now we must make the time and keep it, Polly."

"Indeed we will," cried Polly, seizing Mamsie's other hand to cuddle it under her chin, "and I'm going to begin right now. It makes me think of the little brown house, Mamsie, whenever you smooth my hair. What good times we used to have there!"

Mrs. Fisher's hand trembled a bit, but the black eyes were as serene as ever. "You used to work pretty hard, Polly," she said.

"Oh, but it was fun!" said Polly, merrily, "only I didn't like the old stove when it acted badly. But then came my new stove. Mamsie, wasn't Papa Fisher splendid? And then he saved my eyes. Just think, Mamsie, I never can love him half enough. I wish I could do something for him," she mourned, just as she did in the old days.

"You do, Polly; you are doing something every day of your life," said her mother, reassuringly. "Never think that you don't do anything. Why, it was only this very morning that your father told me that you were his little helper, and that he depended on you to cheer him up."

"Did he say that?" asked Polly, much gratified, poking up her head to look at her mother. "Oh, I want to be, but I don't know how to help him. Papa Fisher always seems to be doing something for other people, and not to need anybody to do things for him."

"Ah, Polly, when you have lived longer," said Mrs. Fisher, "you will know that those who are doing things always for other people, are the very ones who need cheering up, for they never complain. Your father, in going about as he does, day after day, to the hospitals and everywhere, where he can learn anything that will make him a better doctor, is working very hard indeed, and yet think how cheerful he is when he comes home! And he says you help to keep him so, Polly." She bent over and set a kiss on Polly's red cheek.

"Mamsie," cried Polly, with a glow where the kiss had dropped, "I'm going to try harder than ever to see wherever I can find a time to help Papa-Doctor. And I hope that one will come soon."

"And you'll find just such a time will come; it never fails to when you watch for it," said Mother Fisher, wisely. Just then the door opened, and Phronsie, fresh from the hands of Matilda, who had been changing her gown, came in with Araminta in her arms. When she saw Polly on the floor with her head in Mamsie's lap, she got down by her side and curled up there, too.

"Smooth my hair, do, Mamsie," she begged.

"Mamsie's got her two bothers," said Polly, with a little laugh.

"Mamsie doesn't mind her bothers," said Mrs. Fisher, her other hand going softly over Phronsie's yellow hair, at which Phronsie gave a small sigh of content, and wriggled her toes as they were stretched out straight before her on the carpet, "if only they grow up a little better every day than they were the day before."

"We'll try to, Mamsie," said Polly, "won't we, Pet?" leaning over and kissing her.

"I'll try to," promised Phronsie, with another wriggle of her small toes.

"That's right," said Mother Fisher, smiling approval.

"Mrs. Fisher!" called Grandpapa's voice at the door. Thereupon Polly and Phronsie sprang to their feet, and a lively race ensued to see which should be there the first to open it. The consequence was that both faces met him at once.

"Bless me!" cried old Mr. King, laughing gaily, as the door flew open, and they both rushed into his arms; "so you did like to have your old Grandfather come to see you," he exclaimed, mightily pleased.

"I should think we did!" cried Polly, as they escorted him in, and led him to the seat of honour, a big carved arm-chair, with a faded tapestry covering.

"I should very much like to get into your lap, Grandpapa dear," said Phronsie, surveying him gravely as he sat down and leaned his head against the chair back.

"So you shall," cried Mr. King, lifting her up to his knee, Araminta and all. She perched there in quiet content, while he set forth his business which he had come to talk over with Mother Fisher.

"Now, you know those three boys of yours are the most splendid boys that ever were in all this world, and they are working away at home, studying and all that, Joel and David are, and Ben is pegging away at business." Old Mr. King thought best to go to the heart of the matter at once without any dallying.

Mrs. Fisher's cheek grew a shade paler, but she said not a word as she fastened her black eyes on his face.

"Hem - well, we don't talk much about those boys," observed the old gentleman, "because it makes us all homesick after them, and it's best that they should be there, and that we should be here, so that was settled once for all by our coming."

Still Mrs. Fisher said not a word.

"Well, now, the fact of it is," continued old Mr. King, still keeping to the main point with wonderful directness, "I think the time has come for us to act, which is much better than talking, in my opinion; and I want to do something for those boys."

A pin could have been heard to drop. Polly leaned over his chair and hung on his words, while Mrs. Fisher never took her eyes from his face.

"In short," continued old Mr. King, well pleased with the attention of his audience, "I propose that we send a box of good things of various descriptions to Ben and Joel and David."

A small howl of delight from Polly broke the silence. When she heard that, Phronsie gave a little crow. "Oh, Grandpapa!" exclaimed Polly, "do you really mean it?" and she threw her arms around his neck. Phronsie immediately clambered up and did the same thing.

"That's just as your mother shall decide," said Mr. King, immensely pleased with the way his news was received. "She hasn't said a word yet whether she likes the idea or not."

"It's just because I couldn't speak at first," said Mrs. Fisher, wiping her eyes; and her voice trembled. "But it's the very thing; and oh! thank you, sir, for thinking of it. The boys won't be so homesick for us when they get the box. And it will be the best thing in the world for us to keep busy, so we can't worry about them."

"Mamsie has said 'yes'!" exclaimed Polly, flying off to dance around and around in the middle of the room. "Oh, I wish Jasper was here!" she cried regretfully, breaking short off.

"Go and call him, then, - he's down in the reading room, writing to the boys, - and bring him up here," said old Mr. King. "No, no, Phronsie, you want to stay and take care of me," as Phronsie showed signs of slipping down from his lap to go too.

"I'll stay and take care of you," said Phronsie, obediently; "just let me lay Araminta down, Grandpapa, on the sofa, and then I'll come back and rub your head."

So she got down and set Araminta up straight against the sofa back, and then came and clambered up again into his lap. By this time Polly and Jasper, racing along the hall, had reached Mother Fisher's room.

"That's regularly splendid, father." Jasper tossed his dark hair back from his forehead, and his eyes sparkled. "Oh, can't we go out right away and begin to buy the presents?"

"I shouldn't think that idea was a half-bad one," said old Mr. King. "What do you say, Mrs. Fisher? If we are going to send the box, why isn't it best to