Our Davie Pepper

“No, you can’t. There, give it to me. You’re all het up, runnin’ on arrants for Mr. Atkins. He shouldn’t ’a’ told you to hurry clear down here from th’ store.”

The parsonage door opened, and the minister’s wife ran down the path. “Here, Adoniram, take this to Mrs. Pepper.” She put a clean folded napkin, from which came a nice smell of...

“You don’t say!” Old Man Beebe turned around on his little ladder where he was reaching down a pair of number six shoes for a customer. “Sho’ now, I am beat, Mis Brown! Mebbe ’t...

“Don’t, Ma,” he begged, “take on so. Hem!” He swallowed hard and smote one big hand across the other. “’Twouldn’t be so bad ef I c’d jest see David a-runnin’ in to pile wood. La...

It was all done in a minute, and he had her out from under them. When he saw the blood on her little arm, his cheeks went very white, and his legs wobbled.

“Th’ beef’s biled ’mos’ to nothin’,” said Mrs. Brown, sticking a long iron fork into the pot of corned beef, surrounded by bubbling heaps of cabbage. She had thrown off her sunb...

“I mustn’t cry again,” said David to himself the next morning. He stopped a minute picking up the chips, before he threw them into the old basket. “Maybe I’ll get to school some...

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” screamed Joel, hopping about. “Come on, Dave, we’re going to play ‘Old Father Dubbin!’ We haven’t played it for ever and ever so long,” he added in an injured...

“It’s no use--I must get over to the little brown house at once.” She took down her sunbonnet from its nail in the entry and stopped to put her head in the study doorway.

David rushed into the old kitchen in a whirlwind of distress. There was no one there, and stumbling over to Mamsie’s big calico-covered chair, he flung himself down and buried h...

“That’s easy got, an’ it’s fresh an’ sweet.” The storekeeper went over to the big box in the corner. “Thought I never should get round to wait on you. Beats all how some women t...

“Couldn’t you, Mr. Atkins?” said David happily, over in the corner dusting the cans of peas and beans piled on the shelves, and he whirled around, the dust-cloth in his hand.

“No--no--but ef it hadn’t ben for Davie, Mr. Atkins would ’a’ ben robbed,” declared Mrs. Atkins; then she thrust her head back into the store, “Davie, come here, an’ tell us all...

Miss Parrott looked the two children over carefully. Then her glance rested on David. He sat tucked up in the corner of the green-leather seat, as far away from the keen dark ey...

“Yes, Sister’s and mine,” said Miss Parrott. “You see one day he belonged to me, and the next to her. And one night he slept on the foot of her bed, and the next on mine. And he...

“Davie must go over and sit with Grandma Bascom,” said Mrs. Pepper slowly. She looked worried as she glanced up from her sewing by the window; then she smiled brightly over to him.

“I very much wish I could go,” said David to himself, and he sighed clear down in his little heart. Then he crept out from behind the wood-pile, his favorite place when he had a...

“And I shall catch one and take it home to my mother,” announced Peletiah, where he sat by the side of the brook. He hadn’t even chosen his worm, but was taking one after anothe...

“You mean th’ Doctor,” interrupted Deacon Blodgett, reaching over for a scrap of cheese to put on his cracker. He knew the story, having heard it a good dozen times, but he want...

“That would be a big company on Mrs. Brown’s hands,” said Mrs. Pepper, with a little laugh. “Now, Davie, set to work and do all the things Polly wants you to do to-day, for to-m...

So it was a whole week after when Farmer Brown got Mrs. Pepper and Davie and Phronsie into the big wagon all ready to start for Maybury. Mother Pepper sat on the back seat with...

It was all done in a minute. The mass of hay, with David in its center, slid neatly off the top of the cart to the ground. Bill, the hired man, pitchfork in hand, leaned over th...

“How fine!” exclaimed Polly brightly. It was quite elegant to be waiting for company, but it began to be a bit tiresome. Now they had really come! “Hurry and open the door, Joe.”

“Joel has had a party,” hummed Phronsie in Mrs. Brown’s lap, “a beyewtiful party,” her pink sunbonnet flying back with the jolts of the old white horse over the rough road.

There was a sound of somebody hurrying along the road back of her, who wasn’t accustomed to running, and who couldn’t walk fast. And then that somebody gasped, “Mrs. Pepper!”

When they were all packed in to the big Parrott coach, ready to start for the day at Cherryville, things couldn’t have been better for a beginning. There was Mrs. Pepper with Ph...

“Is that so? Why, I thought ev’rybody had had a chance at one, ’xcept me-- An’ I says, ‘Now, next time it comes to Cherryville, I’ll go.’ I’d ben a-savin’ up for it, for circuse...

“Shame on you for laughing,” cried the woman who wanted to tell the boy’s father. But it was no use to stop the crowd--they cheered and guffawed as they pressed up closer to the...

Mr. Beebe was craning his short neck to see through the small-paned window what progress David was making over the cobble-stones, and he didn’t pay much attention to the big wom...

Mrs. Goodsell, not knowing how she got there, was standing on the bench, her calico gown whipped tightly around her, the shawl-ends wound over that, and screaming loudly. Old Mr...

“I’m not a bit sorry that I did so advise,” declared Parson Henderson firmly. “Almira, it is a clear case of the working of Providence for that girl to have the chance.” He stop...