"Well, it's a big fire, anyway," said Joel. "Come on, Dave, out here and see it," for Dave, at the first glimpse, had slunk down on the gra.s.s silently to watch the sky.

"No," said little David, "I don't want to go, Joel. Mamsie--"

and he turned a troubled face to her--"do you suppose G.o.d's going to let good Mr. Blodgett's barn burn up?"

"No," said Mrs. Pepper, "I don't b'lieve G.o.d had anything to do with it, Davie. Like enough it's some man been in there with a pipe, but we'll hope the fire'll be put out. And don't you be troubled; G.o.d wouldn't let any one be hurt, least of all a good man like Deacon Blodgett."

"Oh," said little David, quite relieved.

And when Ben came home in the early dawn--Mamsie and the rest of the bunch of the little Peppers sitting up for him, for Phronsie wouldn't go to bed, so Polly held her in her arms--they found this was just the case.

"And they've caught the tramp who was smoking the pipe," cried Ben, excitedly, "but that won't save the barn, and the horse and--"

"Hush!" cried Polly, with a look at Phronsie. But her eyes were closed, and her head was bobbing sleepily on Polly's breast.

"Better lay her on my bed now, Polly," said her mother, "and she'll doze off, most likely."

"Yes, the cow has gone with the rest of the tools and wagons,"

said Ben, mixing things up inextricably. "O dear me!" And he rested his streaked face on his grimy hands.

"Oh, Ben," cried Joel, "you're as black as you can be! How I wish I could 'a' gone!" he added, feeling it the highest state of bliss to come home looking like that from working in a fire.

"Well, I feel black," said Ben, and down went his head lower yet in his hands.

His mother went swiftly over to him and pressed her hand gently on his hair. "You couldn't help it, Ben," she said, "you'd 'a'

saved it, if you'd been able."

"Yes," said Ben, brokenly, "I would, Mamsie."

XV

OLD MAN PETERS' CENT

Joel was walking along the road very slowly, swinging on his arm the tin pail that was to bring home the mola.s.ses. "I wish some one would come along who'd give me a ride," he thought, feeling hot, and wishing he were home, to lie on the cool gra.s.s in the orchard, after he had first drunk all he wanted to at the well.

"I could drink the whole bucketful," he declared. "My, ain't I thirsty! Oh, goody, I hear a wagon!" and he hopped to one side of the road. "Ugh--it's old man Peters!"

Mr. Peters slackened up as he pa.s.sed Joel, but he didn't offer to let him ride. And Joel didn't want to, anyway. After a grumpy look at the Pepper boy, the old man in the wagon put the well-worn leather reins between his knees and took out a battered pocket-book, scowling above its contents as he went over a business transaction just completed at Badgertown. Then he slapped it together and stuck it into his pocket, and seizing the reins, he doubled them up, cutting the horse across the thin flanks.

"Gee-lang, there--will you!" cried old man Peters, shrilly, "or I'll make ye!"

Joel stepped back into the middle of the road, and began to trudge along in the wake of the wagon. Suddenly he stopped, and stared at something shining in the road. It was little and round, but it sent up a bright gleam that found an answering one in Joel's black eyes.

"Oh, I've found a whole cent!" he exclaimed joyfully. Then his heart stood quite still. It must belong to old man Peters.

"I don't care," said Joel, defiantly, to himself, "he left it in the road. It's mine, now, for I picked it up." And he clutched it tightly in his warm little palm, and dug his heels into the hot sand, glad enough he had had to go to the store after that mola.s.ses, for otherwise he wouldn't have found that cent.

"It doesn't belong to you." It seemed as if Mamsie was walking there beside him, and had said the words, and involuntarily Joel glanced on either side. "I don't know as he dropped it," he said to himself, walking very fast, and trying to shake off the unwelcome thoughts; "I didn't see him."

"But you did see him take his pocket-book out, and you ought to hurry after him and give it back," and Joel started on a lively run, without giving himself a chance to think twice.

"Mr. Peters! Mr. Peters!" he cried, running along, and screaming after the retreating wagon.

Mr. Peters looked back and shook his whip at him. "I ain't a-goin' to give you a ride," he said, "an' you needn't think you can catch on behind." So he gave the horse another cut, that made him amble along at his best speed.

Joel chased as long as he was able to, the perspiration streaming from his red face, screaming when he could find breath, "Stop, Mr. Peters, a minute," till Mr. Peters shook his fist at him as well as his whip. At last Joel dropped from sheer exhaustion on the roadside gra.s.s.

"That Pepper boy--th' one they call Joel--is a perfect nuisance," snarled Mr. Peters, after putting his horse up in the barn, and going into the house. "I pa.s.sed him on the road, and he looked as if he 'xpected me to give him a lift."

"Oh, Pa, why didn't you?" said Mrs. Peters, pityingly, "they have such a hard time, those little Pepperses. I s'pose he was dreadful tired."

"S'pose he was," said Mr. Peters, going into the keeping room to sit down over the weekly paper. "I warn't a-goin' to take him up; and then the imperdent little chap started to run after me, a-yellin' all the way. I'd a horsewhipped him if I c'd 'a' reached him."

"I wish you wouldn't feel so about boys," deprecatingly said his wife, a little woman; "they don't hurt you none, and I wish you wouldn't, Pa."

"Well, I ain't a-goin' to have 'em round me," snarled Mr. Peters.

"An' there ain't no call for you to say any more about's fur's I know, Marindy," and he jerked open the newspaper, put his feet on the round of another chair, got his spectacles out of their case and on his nose, and prepared to be comfortable. He never knew when his paper slid to the floor, and his bald head was bobbing over his empty hands. Mrs. Marinda Peters was upstairs sorting rags to give the rag-man when next he came by, the only way she could earn a little money for her own use, and the daughter was away; so Joel Pepper walked in without any one's knowing it. He had knocked and knocked at the kitchen door until his knuckles were sore, and tired of waiting, concluded to walk in by himself; for go home he would not, with Mr. Peters' cent in his pocket. So he marched in and stood by the old man's chair.

"Here's your cent," he said, holding it out in his hot fingers.

His empty pail struck suddenly on the edge of the chair with a clang, the noise, more than the words, waking the old man up.

"Hey? What d'ye want?" cried Mr. Peters, his eyes flying open suddenly.

"Your cent," said Joel, holding it out. "A cent? I hain't any money to give ye," snarled old Mr. Peters, now fully aroused, "And d'ye git out of this house soon's ye can, or I'll give ye suthin' to git for." His spectacles slipped to the end of his nose as he started to get out of the chair.

"I don't want any cent," said Joel, hotly, sticking the one between his finger and thumb up under the old man's nose.

"Here, take it. Don't you see it? It's yours."

"Mine? My cent?" repeated the old man, staring at it. "What d'ye mean? I hain't give ye no cent."

"I found it in the road. You dropped it," said Joel, feeling tired to death. And dropping it hastily on the window-ledge he hurried off, swinging his tin pail violently.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Peters, at the sound of the voices; and, leaving the rag-bag suddenly, she hurried over the stairs. Old Mr. Peters, hearing her coming, picked up the cent, and, not stopping to put it in the old leather pocket-book, slipped it into his vest pocket, and seizing the newspaper, fell to reading.

"Joel," called Mrs. Peters, as Joel was running out of the untidy yard, "what is it? Come here and tell me."

"Let th' boy alone, can't ye, Marindy?" screamed Mr. Peters, irritably; "beats all how you allers interfere in my business--just like a woman!" he fumed, as Joel came back slowly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'HEY, WHAT D'YE WANT?' CRIED MR. PETERS"]

But Mrs. Peters was as persistent in her way as her husband, and she soon had the whole story laid bare. When that was done, she took Joel into the b.u.t.tery and gave him a big wedge of custard pie. "You better go t'other way, and not past the keepin' room window," she said, "and eat it."

Joel, with enthusiasm considerably abated as he examined his pie in the shadow of the big seringa bushes, concluded he didn't want it very much. But feeling very hungry, which was his usual condition, he finished it to the last crumb. "There warn't any sugar in, for one thing," he said critically. "I wonder why folks can bake pies who don't know how, and Mamsie never can have any."

"That boy found your cent in th' road, and brought it clear way up here," cried Mrs. Marindy, on a high key, going into the keeping room, where the old man sat absorbed in his paper.