The Adventures of Joel Pepper

There sat Polly on the big stone that served as a step for the back door, with her hands folded in her lap. Little Davie skipped by Joel, and ran up to her, with a flushed face.

"Dear me, I think Ben might stay asleep a minute," he muttered in an injured voice. "Now, don't you speak a single word and I'll tell you all about it," after a long pause, in w...

So when the time came that was to bring Mamsie home that night, tired, but happy to fold her baby to her heart, for Phronsie always climbed into her lap to untie her bonnet-stri...

"Well, I can't let you," declared Ben, decidedly, "without she says so; and if we wait here much longer, all those fellows will be slipping off, maybe. They can hear you up ther...

"Pooh! that's nothing," again declared Joel, slowly flopping over to lie still on the grass. Then he began to slap his legs up and down. "Ain't I dreadful strong, Polly? Ain't I?"

"Boys,"--she got down close to them and put her mouth to Joel's ear,--"you are making Mamsie sick," she said; "just look at her face." At the word "sick," Joel stopped screaming...

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...

But notwithstanding all the wonderful things that happened that day, Joel didn't quite forget the circus, and he whispered to David that night, after they had hopped into bed, a...

"Goody, oh, so she might!" cried Joel, "and Seraphina too. And that'll make more upset. Then you may come up here, Dave," he promised. But when Polly was made acquainted with th...

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."

"They're both good; good as gold," Mr. Tisbett here made haste to say. "An' sometimes I think one's better'n t'other, an' then again I don't know. So, boys, the only way to fix...

The squeals were now so much worse that Joel gave a plunge that carried him to the woodshed door, and little David, his heart in his mouth at thought of Jim's father, followed a...

"It's cheeses," said Polly; "don't you know, Joe, out in the yard?" They were the little, round, green things, so called by the children, that grew on a little plant in the gras...

Joel clutched his bag and stared gloomily. It didn't matter what it held; Mrs. Beebe had said "animals," and to find that she hadn't spoken the truth, made him feel so dreadfull...

"And it's so very nice that Joel can go and see those new chickens," said Polly, suppressing a sigh, "after he fell yesterday, and Phronsie, oh, you can't think, Mamsie! how she...

"You know that too, Joe," said Polly, with a cold shoulder for him. "Do let me be, I want to guess Mamsie's surprise. O dear me! whatever can it be?" She wrinkled up her brows,...

"He surely did," said Mrs. Pepper, looking around on all her little group. The neighbors and townspeople, the firemen and the crowd, stole silently off and left them there, but...

"You may take one peek," decided Joel, suddenly, bringing his eyes away from the mouth of the bag to gaze at them. "Grandma must have the first one; then you must guess what it...

In front of the little brown house stood a big comfortable sleigh of the old-fashioned pattern. Although it had once been very handsome, it was now faded and ancient. A man who...