Part 18

But now,--why, there was Polly, capering away, her brown hair flying, and her cheeks red, and Mother Pepper over in the corner looking up to greet them with smiles.

“Hooray!” screamed Ben, at his loudest, “well, I guess I’m going to dance, too!” So he sprang over and grasped Polly’s hands.

“Me, too,” cried Joel, going after the others. But little Davie hurried over to Phronsie, hopping up and down and laughing. “Dance with me, Phronsie,” he said, holding out his hands. And Phronsie put hers in them, and there they all were, the Five Little Peppers, skipping and spinning around and around the old kitchen. There wasn’t any tune to go by, to be sure, for Polly was too out of breath to sing, but the laughter and scraps of chatter made a merry din, every bit of which sank down into Mother Pepper’s heart, making it warm with contentment.

“O dear me!” At last even Polly was forced to stop.

“Wasn’t that fine!” cried Ben, his blue eyes shining. Joel had tumbled off to the corner where little Davie and Phronsie had sunk down to rest.

“I should just say ’twas!” declared Polly, “and, oh, Ben!” clasping her hands, “what do you think? We’re going to have company to-morrow.”

“What!” cried Ben, in amazement.

“Our play company, you know,” said Polly, seizing him by the front of his jacket with both hands, a favorite way of hers, when she had something very special to say, “we’re going to have it to-morrow. Mamsie just said so!”

“Did she really, now?” cried Ben, his ruddy cheeks putting on, if possible, a deeper glow than the spin had caused.

Polly nodded her head delightedly, gripping his jacket tighter than ever.

“Oh, now, see!” exclaimed Joel, glancing over at them from his corner, “they’re having secrets, Polly and Ben are,” and he sprang up to his feet and plunged across the kitchen to them. “Tell me, what is it,--tell me,” he clamored.

“That’s prime!” Ben was saying as Joel plunged up to them, and then, of course, little David and Phronsie followed fast.

“Oh, I think that’s mean,” protested Joel, loudly, “not to tell us. You’re always having secrets. What is it?” Then he laid hold of Ben’s jacket, too. “I should think you might tell Dave and me,” he whined.

“And Phronsie,” added little David. But Ben didn’t hear this, as Joel was making such a to-do.

“Well, you make so much noise, Joe,” said Ben, coolly, “that we can’t tell you.”

“Oh, I won’t,--I won’t,” promised Joel, in a great state of excitement and hanging tightly to Ben. “Tell us,--tell us, what is it, Ben?” he screamed as much louder as possible than he had teased before.

But Ben burst into a hearty laugh, Joel revolving about him anxiously and teasing all the while.

“O dear me! Do be still,” cried Polly, seizing Joel’s arm; “don’t you see, Joel, we can’t possibly tell you anything while you’re screaming so, and you couldn’t hear it if we did.” She shook his little arm. “Now, stop, and we’ll tell you.”

Joel’s hands dropped away from Ben. “Will you, really?” he said.

“Yes,” said Polly, “really and truly we will; we were going to tell you, Joel, anyway, and Davie and Phronsie.”

“Goodness me!” exclaimed Ben, wiping his eyes and drawing a long breath, “has this dreadful noise really stopped?” and he pretended to be very much astonished.

“Yes,” said Polly, laughing, “but it will begin again, I’m afraid, if you don’t look out. Oh, children, just think,” she clasped her hands, “we’re going to have our company to-morrow afternoon. Mamsie has just said so!”

“_Our company_,” screamed Joel, while little Davie stared, Phronsie standing quietly by Polly’s side where she had run.

“Yes, our play company,” said Polly; “you know we’ve been waiting till Ben could be home, and Mamsie says he is not to work to-morrow afternoon, and we can have it then; she just said so, while you were out of doors.”

Joel took a good look at her face, then he tore himself away from the group to stand on his head in the middle of the floor. In this way he always gave expression to his deepest joy.

“Polly,” screamed little Davie, shrilly, “can we really have it to-morrow, really, Polly?”

“Yes,” said Polly, happily, her brown eyes dancing, “as true’s you live, Davie Pepper.”

And little David ran, not to join Joel, but to Mother Pepper’s chair. “Oh, I’m so glad, Mamsie,” he cried, throwing himself into her lap on top of the coat she was sewing so busily.

When Phronsie saw him, she started for Mamsie, too, and precipitated herself in Mother Pepper’s lap, the two children making a dreadful mix-up of the work. “Take me, Mamsie, too,” she begged.

“So Mother will,” declared Mrs. Pepper, casting aside the sewing as well as she could and bundling the two children into her lap; “there, now, here you both are,”--little Davie constantly saying, “I am so glad, Mamsie.”

“I am so glad,” murmured Phronsie, though she didn’t know in the least what it was all about, and swinging her feet contentedly.

“And now, Polly,” Ben was saying over in their corner, Joel hanging on each word, “we must begin to get things ready if we’re going to have all that company to-morrow.”

“So we must,” cried Polly, with an important air, “because you see we never know how many are coming.”

“That’s so,” assented Ben.

The Pepper children had long ago decided, on talking over this company afternoon, that whenever they could hold it, four of them should sit in state and receive, while one should knock at the door, and be ushered in as caller, with great ceremony. And after this call was ended, the one who had made it should slip into the seat of another, who should go out and be caller. And so turn about and turn about, till every one had made a call, and again on a second round of visits if they wished. “For we can play it as long as we want to,” Polly had said, smoothing down her calico apron in great delight.

“I guess you’ll be glad to stop,” said Ben, grimly.

“Oh, Ben Pepper!” Polly exclaimed, “indeed, we shan’t. Well, now for the first thing--we must dress up.” She wrinkled up her forehead at that, and the delight dropped out of her face. “O dear, what shall we do for clothes?”

“There’s the feathers, you know,” said Ben, reassuringly.

The box of feathers was out in the woodshed, and carefully guarded as a great treasure, ready for just such a grand dressing-up as this company would require.

There were several beautiful ones that the roosters in neighboring barn-yards had discarded, to be eagerly seized by Joel and David. And one or two whole chicken wings, given by the parson’s wife for the collection. And oh, best of all! two long, soft, flying ones, from Grandma Bascom’s old feather duster that she was throwing away, and that Polly had run home with.

“Aren’t these splendid,” she had cried, waving them triumphantly, as she dashed into the kitchen.

“Whickets!” screamed Joel, “oh, give them to me. I want them, Polly,” making a dash for them.

“No, you won’t, Joe,” declared Polly, holding them high, “they must go into our feather box.” And Ben, who happened to be on hand at that moment, seized them and carried them off to put them in safety. For, once in the “Feather Box,” no marauding fingers ever disturbed them, the three smallest little Peppers being in duty bound never to raise the lid until Polly or Ben said so.

“I know,” said Polly, when Ben said, “There’s the feathers,” “but we can’t dress up much in them.” And her face, by this time, looked gloomy enough.

“Polly,” said Ben, who couldn’t bear to see her look so, “see here, don’t you know how you pinched up a hat for Joel to play soldier with? Why can’t you do some more?”

“But we don’t want to be soldiers for company,” said Polly, turning a surprised look on him that didn’t lighten the gloom a bit.

“But, don’t you see,” Ben whirled on her eagerly, “you can pinch up the paper into ever so many different shapes and stick the feathers in, and they’ll be beautiful hats, Polly.”

Polly stared at him out of her brown eyes. Then she seized his hands. “Oh, Ben, so I can,” she cried, dreadfully excited. “I never thought of that, and we can have as many hats and bonnets as we want.”

“As long as the feathers hold out,” laughed Ben, well pleased to see the effect of his plan, “and the paper,” he added.

“Now, Phronsie and David,” Mother Pepper was saying, when the jollity over Ben’s plan of the paper bonnets and hats began to wax very high, “you’d better jump down from Mother’s lap, and go over there.”

“I’d rather stay here,” said both children at once, snuggling deeper in her lap.

“But you see, Mother must sew now, else this coat won’t be done. No, you run over,” and obediently they slid down to the floor and scrambled off to the little group.

And the box of feathers was brought out from the woodshed, Joel and David being sent off to get it, which filled them with the greatest delight, and Ben ran to collect all the paper in the house that didn’t have to be saved to light the fire with, Mother Pepper donating a stiff brown piece that had wrapped up some things given her by the parson’s wife.

When Polly saw that donation, she was quite overcome. “That will make the most splendid hat of all,” she declared; “I shall put the feather-duster plumes on that.”

“Do, Polly,” said Ben, “it’ll be fine.”

And then all the three younger children (the box of feathers being now on hand) were set to work to hunt for pins. “For we can’t fasten the feathers on without,” said Polly; and when this seemed a difficult matter,--for pins cost money and were always carefully saved in the Pepper household,--why, Mamsie came to the rescue, and said she would loan them some. But Polly must put them into the paper hats and bonnets very carefully so that they wouldn’t be lost out, and return them all after the company had gone.

And Polly promised, you may be sure! “And the children better hunt for pins all they can, for you never know where a pin can be found,” observed Mother Pepper, wisely. And so the three younger ones got down to prowl in all possible and impossible places for the little slippery things, and Joel and David hunted with all their eyes for any little stray gleams of light in the dirt whenever they went outdoors.

And the next morning in burst Joel with a small paper box high in his hand. It hadn’t any cover and if he hadn’t made such a noise anybody might have heard something jingling within. “See what I’ve got!” he screamed.

“Oh, Joe, what is it?” Polly was pinching up a remarkable hat on which she was tacking a rooster feather. An old newspaper was at her feet that Davie was cutting up according to her directions. Phronsie was busy with the snips of paper and bits of the feathers that Polly broke off, under the belief that she was making for Seraphina the most beautiful bonnet in all the world.

“Umph, I guess I’ve got something you haven’t got,” screamed Joel, waving the box high, whereat some little things, very tiny, flew out of the box, making him sprawl immediately on the floor to hunt after them, when the rest of the contents promptly went out to join the first lot.

“O dear me!” exclaimed Joel, in the greatest vexation.

“I’ll help you find them,” cried David, throwing down Mamsie’s big scissors and deserting the newspaper. Phronsie carefully laid down her paper snips and the bits of feathers. “I’ll help you, Joey,” she said, going over to get down and prowl by his side.

“Oh, they’re pins,” exclaimed little David, his blue eyes very big.

“Take care,” said Joel, irritably, “you’re covering ’em all up.”

“Where’d you get them?” asked David, picking up two or three; “why, they’re all crooked.”

“She wouldn’t give me any but crooked ones,” said Joel, pawing the floor on every side.

Polly heard these words. “Joel,” and she dropped the wonderful hat, “where did you get those pins? You haven’t asked anybody for them,--oh, Joel!” and she was over by the other children, consternation all over her face.

“Grandma Bascom gave them to me,” said Joel, prowling away, “and now they’re all spilled--”

“Grandma Bascom?” repeated Polly. “Oh, Joe, you didn’t ask for them; Mamsie’d be so sorry.”

“No,” said Joel, “I didn’t ask for one single old pin,” and he cocked up one black eye at her, but he didn’t stop working with his hands. “She asked me to stay and I told her I couldn’t ’cause Dave and me was hunting for pins, and she said she’d got some only they were crooked-- Ow--get away, Dave,--you’re on my place--”

“Go on, tell what else she said,” commanded Polly, beginning to breathe freer.

“And then she said I could have ’em as well as not, ’cause she was going to throw them away when she got round to cleaning out the drawers--”

“Are you sure?” asked Polly, as he began to regard his work again very closely.

“When she got round to cleaning out the drawers,” repeated Joel, in a very high voice to be the better understood.

“Well, I am glad,” said Polly, with a long breath, “that you didn’t ask for them, Joe,” and she ran back to her work with a light heart.

“I’ve found one,” announced Phronsie, holding up a big pin; “I have, Joel.”

“Well, put it in the box,” said Joel. So Phronsie dropped the bent and twisted pin in the little pasteboard box, and then she had to get up to run over and tell Polly about it, before she hurried back to get on the floor and hunt alongside of the two boys for more.

“And I shall pin on the feathers from the duster with that very pin,” Polly decided to herself as she worked busily away, “because Grandma gave them to us as well as the crooked pins!”

Meanwhile during all this great and absorbing preparation for the grand affair, Mother Pepper was casting busily about in her mind how to get some refreshments for the company; but try as she would, nothing seemed to suggest itself, until the remembrance of the glass of blackberry jelly that Deacon Blodgett’s wife had given her last summer, when making her fresh supply, came to her mind. There it was tucked away on the top shelf of the old cupboard. “Oh, I can’t take that,” said Mrs. Pepper to herself; “it’s so good in case of sickness.” But then--and she drew a long breath--would her little brood ever need it more than after this terrible disappointment that had threatened to make the Little Brown House the scene of despair? And surely when every household, in all probability, in the whole of Badgertown was to be drawn into the delights of the circus--all but hers--some sacrifices must be made to give what happiness she could to her children.

“They shall have it,” decided Mrs. Pepper to herself. “Now, what else can I find for them?”

But nothing else appearing, no matter how hard she thought as she stitched away, she sighed.

“Polly can bake some little biscuits,” she said to herself, “to go with the jelly.”

When the children were told that the precious glass of blackberry jelly was positively to be theirs for the feast to be prepared for the company, they were speechless with delight. Then came the great deliberation as to how to arrange it.

“We ought to have something to drink,” said Ben, “seeing we can’t have lemonade.”

“Oh, Ben, we couldn’t ever have lemonade,” exclaimed Polly.

“I said we couldn’t,” said Ben, “but we ought to have something; I thought folks always did when they had company, Polly.”

“O dear me, I know,” said Polly, quite distressed at the failure to be like other folks, “but we haven’t anything, Ben.”

“Why can’t we melt the jelly?” proposed Ben.

“Oh, Ben,” Joel gave a loud howl. Then he flew over to Mrs. Pepper’s chair. “Ben’s going to melt the jelly you gave us--” he cried wrathfully. “Make him stop, Mamsie,” he implored.

“Oh, I don’t think he is, Joel,” said Mrs. Pepper, soothingly.

“He is--he is,” declared Joel, wildly; “he said so. Do stop him, Mamsie.”

Meanwhile Polly’s voice came pealing across the kitchen. Joel pricked up his ears. “How perfectly elegant!” she was exclaiming. So Joel flew back again, for things couldn’t be as bad as he feared with Polly so joyful.

“And just think, Joey,” she cried, as he came bounding up, “we’re going to have the jelly melted and--”

“No, no, no!” roared Joel, interrupting.

“And we’re going to pour it into the mugs and cups and drink it, and it will be just as sweet and beautiful as can be! And Ben thought this all out,” added Polly, proudly.

“Will it be sweet?” asked Joel.

“As sweet as can be,” declared Polly, decidedly.

“I’d rather have the jelly to eat on top of the little biscuits,” said Joel, grudgingly, yet he thought longingly of the beautiful mugful to drink.

“Oh, we aren’t going to melt it all,” said Polly, quickly; “the very idea! We’re going to save half to eat.”

“Then I want to drink some,” cried Joel, “and I’m going to melt it--Dave and me--”

“You can help, children,” said Polly, bustling away, feeling very grand and important. Dear me, how much there was to do, to be sure, when company was expected!

And when at last the eventful afternoon arrived, there was a still further surprise in store for the five little entertainers of the company. In walked Grandma Bascom. “I thought mebbe you’d like this, Polly, to dress up in. My Pa brought it home from the Indies, an’ you can keep it, ’cause th’ moths has got into it,” mourned Grandma, holding it up in her trembling old hands.

It was a yellowish, thin woollen shawl dingy with age, with a wide border running all around it of flowers of various sizes, and in flaring colors that, strange to say, had not dimmed in the least all the while they had been in Grandma Bascom’s possession. The children crowded around in speechless admiration as Grandma Bascom shook it out before their eyes.

“That corner goes up th’ back,” said Grandma, pointing to it, “an’ Ma was alwus partic’ler to settle it that way, bein’s th’ flowers ran up so fur”--as they surely did! A most remarkable spray like nothing ever seen in a garden, sprawled at its own sweet will almost into the middle of the shawl.

“There hain’t no other corner got a sprig, so you can’t make a mistake, Polly. An’ be careful of th’ fringe,” which indeed was necessary advice, as this particular adornment to the shawl had become very tired in the lapse of time since Grandma Bascom’s Pa brought it from the Indies, and had dropped away, till here and there only a thread remained, looking very lonely indeed.

“An’ don’t stick your fingers in th’ holes, child,” cautioned Grandma, before she finally let it go into Polly’s hands. “It beats me how those moths get into it, but if you don’t ketch it on any thin’, ’twon’t tear no more.”

“Oh, I’ll be very careful of it,” promised Polly, receiving the old shawl with fingers that trembled as much as Grandma’s. “It’s perfectly beautiful, but perhaps Mamsie won’t let me wear it,” she added, with a dreadful feeling that in that case the company would suffer a loss that could never be made up; “and then I’ll bring it back to you, Grandma, when she comes home,” she said loudly, for Grandma was so deaf.

“You ain’t never goin’ to bring it back to me,” said Grandma, beginning to waddle to the door, and turning back--“I’ve give it to you, Polly.”

“_You’ve given it to me!_” repeated Polly, in amazement, and her hands trembled so that the old shawl shook dreadfully.

“You’ve given it to Polly!” screamed Joel, huddling up to Grandma. “O my jiminy!”

Ben was not less excited, and the delighted babel that they all now set up pleased Grandma very much. She beamed at them all under the nodding frills of her cap border. “Yes, I’ve give it to Polly,” she said. “It’s got moth holes, and I sh’d be ashamed to wear it with them in; Ma never did. So Polly shall keep it to dress up in.” And despite all the pressing invitations to stay and be part of the company to receive, Grandma waddled off down the lane to see to her hens and other necessary work left undone.

* * * * *

It was about a half-hour after this. The old kitchen presented a very dignified aspect, suited for such a ceremonious occasion as it was presently to be the scene of. There on the table was spread the feast, two plates of little brown biscuits baked as nice as any one could ever want, and on Mother Pepper’s best blue willow saucer was half of the blackberry jelly. It had lopped down one side a bit, to be sure, as Polly turned it out of the glass, which was a great grief to her, but as Ben wisely suggested, “It will taste just as good, Polly,” she tried to be comforted. And next to it was the row of mugs and cups of the blackberry juice, nice and pink where it had been pieced out with plentiful additions of water. Could anything be more magnificent!

And in front of the table spread with this feast was the row of entertainers, all obliged to turn their backs, because Joel would stare at the refreshments, and Polly said that was not polite, for he ought to look at the company.

Phronsie sat on her little stool in the middle, or as near as she could get to it, being between Ben and Joel, and little Davie was at the very end, and each head was graced with the most remarkable structure of hat or bonnet, from which floated, or stuck straight upright, as the case might be, some feather or a chicken wing drawn from their treasured box.

Polly was to be company first, and she now stood before the row, perfectly resplendent in a tall newspaper hat, from which perked out a rooster feather, and the yellow old embroidered shawl that Grandma Bascom’s Pa had brought from the Indies, drawn across her shoulders. It had required all Ben’s best skill to persuade the sprig of flowers to run where it should, and he tried several times to get it right, as Polly couldn’t see her own back.

“It isn’t exactly straight,” he confessed at last, and pausing with a very red face, “but it doesn’t matter, Polly.”

“Oh, it must be straight,” said Polly, feeling that it would be an awful thing if Grandma Bascom’s shawl didn’t look the same as when Ma wore it. “Do try again, Ben.”

So Ben tried again, getting it worse than before. “The flowers won’t come straight,” he said, “and I can’t make ’em.” So Polly was forced to stifle a sigh and bear it as best she could.

“Now, children,” said Polly, standing in front of the row,--Ben had taken his seat at the head of the line,--“I’m going into the bedroom and--”

“What for?” cried Joel.

“Never mind,” said Polly, all in a twitter, for she had a little secret kept carefully from all the others except Ben. It was impossible to keep it from him, for Polly and Ben told everything to each other. Mamsie had told her she might take her dark green silk parasol owned for many years and carefully kept rolled in tissue paper. And because no one was to carry it but Polly, and only once by her, the children must not be told, so Polly couldn’t get it from the bureau drawer in the bedroom until the last minute.

“Now you must shut your eyes,” said Polly, for there was no other way to get out of doors, after getting the parasol, than to come through the kitchen, and then they would of course see her, “and don’t look until I say, ‘How do you do!’”

“I don’t want to shut my eyes,” said Joel. “I want to see what you’re going into the bedroom for.”

“Shut your eyes, Joe,” said Ben, leaning past Phronsie to give him a small nudge. So Joel shut his, especially as Ben, to set a good example, did the same. And little David, afraid he might see, put his two hands up over his face. When Phronsie saw that, she did the same thing, and then Joel, to be in the fashion, followed suit, and so did Ben, to keep the children in countenance.