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

underneath Cherry's cage, and looking up between quick energetic stitches, over at the busy group, with the most placid expression on her face.

"Oh! - what you doin'?" cried Joel, flying up to them. "Let us see, do Ben!"

"What is it?" exclaimed Van, squeezing in between Percy and Ben.

"Don't - " began Percy. "There, see, you've knocked his elbow and spoilt it!"

"Oh no, he hasn't," said Ben, putting down his pencil, and taking up a piece of rubber. "There, see it all comes out - as good as ever."

"Isn't it just elegant?" said Percy in the most pleased tone, and wriggling his toes under the table to express his satisfaction.

"Yes," said Van, craning his neck to get a better view of the picture, now nearly completed, "It's perfectly splendid. How'd you do it, Ben?"

"I don't know," replied Ben with a smile, carefully shading in a few last touches. "It just drew itself."

"Tisn't anything to what he can do," said Polly, standing up as tall as she could, and beaming at Ben, "He used to draw most beautiful at home."

"Better than this?" asked Van, with great respect and taking up the picture, after some demur on Percy's part, and examining it critically. "I don't believe it, Polly."

"Phooh; he did!" exclaimed Joel, looking over his shoulder at a wonderful view of a dog in an extremely excited state of mind running down an interminable hill to bark at a locomotive and train of cars whizzing along a curve in the foreground. "Lots better'n that! Ben can do anything!" he added, in an utterly convincing way.

"Now give it back," cried Percy, holding out his hand in alarm. "I'm going to ask mamma to have it framed; and then I'm going to hang it right over my bed," he finished, as Van reluctantly gave up the treasure.

"Did you draw all the time in the little brown house?" asked Van, lost in thought. "How I wish I'd been there!"

"Dear, no!" cried Polly with a little skip, turning away to laugh. "He didn't have hardly any time, and - "

"Why not?" asked Percy.

"Cause there was things to do," said Polly. "But sometimes when it rained, and he couldn't go out and work, and there wasn't anything to do in the house - then we'd have - oh!" and she drew a long breath at the memory, "such a time, you can't think!"

"Didn't you wish it would always rain?" asked Van, still gazing at the picture.

"Dear, no!" began Polly.

"I didn't," broke in Joel, in horror. "I wouldn't a-had it rain for anything! - only once in a while," he added, as he thought of the good times that Polly had spoken of.

"'Twas nice outdoors," said little Davie, reflectively; "and nice inside, too." And then he glanced over to his mother, who gave him a smile in return. "And 'twas nice always."

"Well," said Van, returning to the picture, "I do wish you'd tell me how to draw, Ben. I can't do anything but flowers," he said in a discouraged way.

"Flowers aren't anything," said Percy, pleasantly. "That's girls' work; but dogs and horses and cars - those are just good!"

"Will you, Ben?" asked Van, looking down into the big blue eyes, so kindly turned up to his.

"Yes, indeed I will," cried Ben, "that is, all I know; 'tisn't much, but everything I can, I'll tell you."

"Then I can learn, can't I?" cried Van joyfully.

"Oh, tell me too, Ben," cried Percy, "will you? I want to learn too."

"And me!" cried Dick, bending forward, nearly upsetting Phronsie as he did so. "Yes, say I may, Ben, do!"

"You're too little," began Percy. But Ben nodded his head at Dick, which caused him to clap his hands and return to his original position, satisfied.

"Well, I guess we're going to, too," said Joel. "Dave an' me; there isn't anybody goin' to learn without us."

"Of course not," said Polly, "Ben wouldn't leave you out, Joey."

Phronsie sat quite still all this time, on the corner of the table, her feet tucked up under her, and her hands clasped in her lap, and never said a word. But Ben looking up, saw the most grieved expression settling on her face, as the large eyes were fixed in wonder on the faces before her.

"And there's my pet," he cried in enthusiasm, and reaching over the table, he caught hold of one of the little fat hands. "Why we couldn't think of getting along without her! She shall learn to draw - she shall!"

"Really, Bensie?" said Phronsie, the sunlight breaking all over the gloomy little visage, and setting the brown eyes to dancing. "Real, true, splendid pictures?"

"Yes, the splendidest," said Ben, "the very splendidest pictures, Phronsie Pepper, you ever saw!"

"Oh!" cried Phronsie; and before any one knew what she was about, she tripped right into the middle of the table, over the papers and everything, and gave a happy little whirl!

"Dear me, Phronsie!" cried Polly catching her up and hugging her; "you mustn't dance on the table."

"I'm going to learn," said Phronsie, coming out of Polly's embrace, "to draw whole pictures, all alone by myself - Ben said so!"

"I know it," said Polly, "and then you shall draw one for mamsie - you shall!"

"I will," said Phronsie, dreadfully excited; "I'll draw her a cow, and two chickens, Polly, just like Grandma Bascom's!"

"Yes," whispered Polly, "but don't you tell her yet till you get it done, Phronsie."

"I won't," said Phronsie in the loudest of tones - but putting her mouth close to Polly's ear. "And then she'll be so s'prised, Polly! won't she?"

Just then came Jasper's voice at the door. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, do, Jappy," cried Polly, rushing along with Phronsie in her arms to open the door. "We're so glad you've got home!"

"So am I," said Jasper, coming in, his face flushed and his eyes sparkling; "I thought father never would be through downtown, Polly!"

"We're going to learn to draw," said Percy, over by the table, who wouldn't on any account leave his seat by Ben, though he was awfully tired of sitting still so long, for fear somebody else would hop into it. "Ben's going to teach us."

"Yes, he is," put in Van, bounding up to Jasper and pulling at all the buttons on his jacket he could reach, to command attention.

"And us," said Joel, coming up too. "You forgot us, Van."

"The whole of us - every single one in this room," said Van decidedly, "all except Mrs. Pepper."

"Hulloa!" said Jasper, "that is a class! Well, Professor Ben, you've got to teach me then, for I'm coming too."

"You?" said Ben, turning around his chair, and looking at him; "I can't teach you anything, Jappy. You know everything already."

"Let him come, anyway," said Polly, hopping up and down.

"Oh, I'm coming, Professor," laughed Jasper. "Never you fear, Polly; I'll be on hand when the rest of the class comes in!"

"And Van," said Mrs. Pepper, pausing a minute in her work, and smiling over at him in a lull in the chatter - "I think flowers are most beautiful!" and she pointed to a little framed picture on the mantel, of the bunch of buttercups and one huge rose that Van had with infinite patience drawn, and then colored to suit his fancy.

"Do you?" cried Van, perfectly delighted; and leaving the group he rushed up to her side. "Do you really think they're nice, Mrs. Pepper?"

"Of course I do," said Mrs. Pepper briskly, and beaming on him; "I think everything of them, and I shall keep them as long as I live, Van!"

"Well, then," said Van, very much pleased, "I shall paint you ever so many more - just as many as you want!"

"Do!" said Mrs. Pepper, taking up her work again. "And I'll hang them every one up."

"Yes, I will," said Van; "and I'll go right to work on one to-morrow. What you mending our jackets for?" he asked abruptly as a familiar hole caught his attention.

"Because they're torn," said Mrs. Pepper cheerfully, "an' they won't mend themselves."

"Why don't you let Jane?" he persisted. "She always does them."

"Jane's got enough to do," replied Mrs. Pepper, smiling away as hard as she could, "and I haven't, so I'm going to look around and pick up something to keep my hands out of mischief as much as I can, while I'm here."

"Do you ever get into mischief?" asked little Dick, coming up and looking into Mrs. Pepper's face wonderingly. "Why, you're a big woman!"

"Dear me, yes!" said Mrs. Pepper. "The bigger you are, the more mischief you can get into. You'll find that out, Dickey."

"And then do you have to stand in a corner?" asked Dick, determined to find out just what were the consequences, and reverting to his most dreaded punishment.

"No," said Mrs. Pepper laughing. "Corners are for little folks; but when people who know better, do wrong, there aren't any corners they can creep into, or they'd get into them pretty quick!"

"I wish," said little Dick, "you'd let me get into your lap. That would be a nice corner!"

"Do, mamsie," said Polly, coming up, "that's just the way I used to feel; and I'll finish the mending."

So Mrs. Pepper put down her work, and moved the big basket for little Dick to clamber up, when he laid his head contentedly back in her motherly arms with a sigh of happiness. Phronsie regarded him with a very grave expression. At last she drew near: "I'm tired; do, mamsie, take me!"

"So mamsie will," said Mrs. Pepper, opening her arms, when Phronsie immediately crawled up into their protecting shelter, with a happy little crow.

"Oh, now, tell us a story, Mrs. Pepper," cried Van; "please, please do!"

"No, no;" exclaimed Percy, scuttling out of his chair, and coming up, "let's talk of the little brown house. Do tell us what you used to do there - that's best."

"So 'tis!" cried Van; "ALL the nice times you used to have in it! Wait just a minute, do." And he ran back for a cricket which he placed at Mrs. Pepper's feet; and then sitting down on it, he leaned on her comfortable lap, in order to hear better.

"Wait for me too, till I get a chair," called Percy, starting. "Don't begin till I get there."

"Here, let me, Percy," said Ben; and he drew forward a big easy-chair that the boy was tugging at with all his might.

"Now I'm ready, too," said Polly, setting small finishing stitches quickly with a merry little flourish, and drawing her chair nearer her mother's as she spoke.

"Now begin, please," said Van, "all the nice times you know."

"She couldn't tell all the nice times if she had ten years to tell them in, could she, Polly?" said Jasper.

"Well, in the first place then," said Mrs. Pepper, clearing her throat, "the little brown house had got to be, you know, so we made up our minds to make it just the nicest brown house that ever was!"

"And it was!" declared Jasper, with an emphatic ring to his voice. "The very nicest place in the whole world!"

"Oh dear," broke in Van enviously; "Jappy's always said so.