"Joel Pepper!" exclaimed Polly, quite worn out, "you've been a bad, wicked boy, and now you're going to tear this bundle all to pieces. Stop it!" she commanded sharply.

"I haven't been a bad, wicked boy," contradicted Joel, in a loud, vehement tone, and stamping with his bare heel in the dust that flew up in their faces in a little cloud, "so there now, Polly Pepper!"

And there they were, those two little Peppers, in the middle of the road, in such a state, and Mamsie smiling over her work as she thought of her children!

X

MAMSIE'S SURPRISE

Polly cried herself to sleep that night, although Mother Pepper had comforted and cuddled her when the whole story had come out on their return; how in a minute the pa.s.sion had died down when the two children thought of Mamsie as they stood there in the road. "Joel was the first to be sorry," Polly had said generously, when confessing it all.

"No, I wasn't," contradicted Joel, "Polly looked sorry first."

"Polly was older," Mother Pepper had said gravely.

"I know it," said Polly, and her head drooped lower yet.

"But Joey was very naughty indeed in Mr. Atkins' store and besides, he ought not to have gone there." And Mrs. Pepper's face looked very sad indeed.

The two children, not having a word to say to this, stood very mournfully in front of her. The bedroom door was shut fast, and Ben was doing his best out in the kitchen to keep the other two children amused, in this unwonted state of affairs.

"I wish you'd punish me, Mammy," said Polly, in a broken little voice, "real hard."

"And me, too," cried Joel, sniffling.

"I've never punished you children since you were big enough to know better," said Mother Pepper, slowly, "and I don't believe I can begin now. And it seems to me it's the best way for you to punish yourselves. So I'll leave you to think over it," and she went out and closed the door on them.

How long they sat there, Polly didn't know, and as for Joel, he was in such a state of mind, he couldn't tell anything, only that Polly and he finally crept out in the gathering dusk of the long afternoon. No one but Mother Pepper ever knew the reason for the many unwelcome little tasks that Joey did after that, and, strange to relate, without a single grumble, while as Polly couldn't very well do more work than she did at present, and as there were no luxuries to give up in the way of eatables, the Peppers having b.u.t.ter and other nice things only when people were good enough to send them some, it is hard to think what she could do to punish herself. But that was Mother Pepper's and Joel's and her secret. And then Mamsie cuddled them and comforted them. Only Polly, when she went to bed that night, felt the tears drop quite fast on her pillow, and that was the last thing she remembered before she dropped to sleep.

Meantime, it was rather hard work rehearsing the little play.

"We'd give that up, Mamsie," cried Polly, though Joel made a wry face as he agreed to it, "but the others want it so much."

"But that wouldn't be a very good way: to make other people suffer for your faults," Mrs. Pepper had replied. So the work over the little play went on, as if nothing sad had happened. But Polly carried a sorry little face about, until Phronsie would look at her wonderingly, or Davie would forget to smile; on such occasions Mrs. Pepper would look at her and raise her finger warningly, and Polly would exclaim, "Oh, I forgot," and then she would toss them a merry little bit of nonsense that made them happy at once. But down in her heart Polly had many sad thoughts.

At last it was the great day. n.o.body said "circus," but all the five little Peppers shouted it was the Play Day! And it really didn't rain, and the sky was as blue as could be, and Mamsie stayed home that day, and oh! Polly was quite sure she smelt something very nice, when she raced into the kitchen in the middle of the morning. Mother Pepper had sent them all out to rehea.r.s.e the play in the orchard, and in the midst of it Polly cried out that she had forgotten the wings she was to put on as fairy G.o.dmother, when she appeared in time to rescue the little white cat, and to change her into a small girl again. She had made them, with the greatest trouble, out of thin paper and some old wire, and for fear they would get broken in the woodshed, Mamsie had said she might put them in the lower drawer of the big bureau in the bedroom, where Phronsie's red-topped shoes were always kept wrapped up. So now Polly dashed suddenly into the kitchen to run after them.

"Oh, Mamsie!" she exclaimed suddenly, wrinkling up her nose at the unwonted smell of something baking.

Mother Pepper was stooping over the oven door, which was open.

She closed it quickly, and stood straight. "Polly," she said, and there was a little laugh in her eyes, although her firm lips were closed, "you are not to say anything what you think to the other children."

"No, Mamsie, I won't," promised Polly, with a wild thought at her heart, "Could Mamsie possibly be making a cake?" as she rushed into the bedroom, got the wings, and raced out again. And all through the rehearsing she kept thinking how good it smelt when that little whiff from the oven flew out.

And Mother Pepper smiled away to herself, and the voices from the orchard, with its one scraggy apple tree, came pealing in through the open window, as the rehearsal for the grand play was in progress. And then the whole bunch of little Peppers hurried off to get some wild flowers, "for it won't be much," Polly had said, "without some posies to put on the table" (the big stone Ben had tugged home from Deacon Brown's meadow).

"I'm glad Polly'll have her posies," said Mrs. Pepper, hearing that, and seeing them go on the flower-hunt, as she paused a moment at the window. "Now they'll be good to trim the ca--"

And it almost popped out, and she didn't mean to whisper the secret, even to herself!

When the children came back from roaming the fields and woods, with the blossoms and green vines gathered in their ap.r.o.ns and arms, and they were all nicely set in the cracked teacup with the handle gone that Mamsie had given them some time before, and some other dishes that Mrs. Pepper had handed out with strict charges to be careful of 'em, they all stood off in a row from the stone table, in delighted admiration.

"Isn't it perfectly beautiful!" exclaimed Polly, in a rapture, and clasping her hands.

"Perfectly beautiful!" breathed little David.

"Be-_yew_-ful!" echoed Phronsie, hopping up and down with very pink cheeks, and her hair flying.

"It looks very well, Polly," said Ben, in a practical way.

"I wish we had somethin' to eat," began Joel.

"Oh, Joey!" cried Polly, reproachfully. But her heart jumped at the recollection of the lovely smell that came from the oven, and Mamsie's face. "Now, children," she said, "we've got everything all done," with a quick glance around, "and Phronsie must have her nap, so's to be a nice little wide-awake white cat.

Oh, Ben, leave the fur rug and the other things out under the table," as Ben began piling them up to carry back to the woodshed.

"Mamsie said, Always put everything back when we'd got through playing," said Ben.

"Well, she'll let us put them there, we're going to use them so soon, I know," said Polly, "if you tuck 'em in neatly. Won't you, Mamsie?" she cried, running to the window to thrust her brown head in.

"Yes," said Mrs. Pepper.

"And may we all come in now?" asked Polly.

"Yes," said Mother Pepper again.

"Don't forget your wings, Polly," cried Joel, picking them up where Polly had carefully laid them against the tree, and rushing to her, waving them aloft.

"Take care, Joel" warned Ben, but too late. One wing flopped over, and caught in a k.n.o.bby old branch of the apple tree, and in a minute there was a big hole right in the middle!

"Oh, you--" began Polly, pa.s.sionately, when she turned and saw what was done. In a minute she dashed over to Joel and threw her arms around him. "You couldn't help it," she finished, "and I can paste a piece of paper over it, and it will be most as good as new," while the children stood aghast at the mischief, and Ben exclaimed, "How could you, Joe! Why didn't you let it alone?"

"I didn't mean to. And now it won't fly--fly," screamed Joel, in a gust.

"Oh, yes, it will," declared Polly, merrily; "you'll see. And when I get it on, Joey Pepper, look out and look if you don't see me sailing up to the sky."

Joel came out of his sobs and looked up to the blue sky, and smiled through his tears, and when David and Phronsie saw Polly so merry, they smiled too, and Ben caught Polly's eye and didn't say any more. So they all marched into the house, and Phronsie was tucked up on Mamsie's bed, for her nap, and Polly sat down to mend her broken wing.

Mrs. Pepper, going on with her work, sent her a smile and loving look, that said just as plainly as words could speak it, "You're trying hard, Polly, my girl, and Mother knows it." So Polly began to hum at her task, and presently the kitchen became the very cheeriest place possible. What they would have done if any of them had happened to spy out what was on the upper shelf of the cupboard, covered carefully with a clean old towel, cannot possibly be told.

At last it came to be three o'clock, the hour of the grand play.

Mrs. Pepper, as audience, was seated in her big rocking chair that Ben had brought out from the kitchen and placed in the best spot on the gra.s.s to see it all, and Polly and Ben and Joel and David and Phronsie were in the depths of excitement, and flitting here and there, Polly, as chief director, having a perfectly awful time to get them into their parts, particularly as Phronsie would keep rushing up, the old white fur rug nearly tripping her up every step, to lay her soft face against Mother Pepper's, and cry out, "I'm to be a white cat, Mamsie. I truly am!" And Joel would insist on roaring like a bear, and prancing and waving his arms, around which Polly had tied a lot of black hair that Mamsie had let her take out of her cushion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I'M TO BE A WHITE CAT, MAMSIE'"]

"Joel, you spoil everything!" cried Ben at him. "See here, now all your hair is tumbling off from your arms."