Chapter 8

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, and pulled the sheet over their heads, "I'm goin' to have a circus of my own, so there!"

Little David was all worn out with the exciting events of the day, and he didn't hear him, as he fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. So Joel, not finding it very much fun to talk when there was no one to listen, closed his eyes, and before he knew it, he was asleep too. Ben, looking across at the two little faces, as he came up into the loft to go to bed, said to himself, "Well, I'm thankful that Joe's asleep." And he gave a sigh of relief.

The next days were full of work. "Play can't come all the time," Mrs. Pepper observed wisely. She sent Polly down with the money for the doctor's visit, pinned up carefully in a paper, which the little doctor promptly returned the next day, Polly having left it, as he was away on his rounds. So Mrs. Pepper could do nothing but tie it into the old stocking-leg again, in the bureau drawer. "Children," she said, drawing them all up around her, "we must never forget to do something for Dr. Fisher, and may the Lord give us a chance soon. He's been so good to us."

"There never'll come a chance, Mamsie," said Polly, disconsolately, "we're so poor."

"Chances come, if people look for 'em," observed Mrs. Pepper, shortly, as she shut the drawer.

"We ain't poor," cried Joel, who never could bear to be called so.

"Yes, we are," said Polly, positively, "we are poor, Joel. That's the truth, Joel, and you oughtn't to mind hearing it."

"Well, we ain't goin' to be poor," declared Joel, confidently.

"When Joel's ships come in, I s'pose he means," said Ben, and the children shouted.

"I don't care," said Joel, when the laugh died down, "we ain't goin' to be poor when I git to be a man. I'm goin' to be awful rich."

"Well, you'll have to work when you're a boy, then," said Mrs. Pepper, sensibly. "Riches don't tumble into lazy folks' laps."

"Then I'm goin' to work right straight off," cried Joel, springing away on nimble feet. "Come on, Dave, and help pick those old rocks."

But a terrible shower came on, and drove them all within doors, and it grew so dark that Polly couldn't see to sew. So the three youngest children gathered around her and clamored for a story.

"Yes," said Polly, "I will. Let's get down on the floor in a ring." So they all sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor, after some delay, caused by Joel's vociferous demand to sit next to Polly.

"Phronsie must be one side," said Polly, "of course."

"Yes, I must, Joey," said Phronsie, cuddling up closer yet to Polly.

"Well, the other side, then," said Joel, struggling to slip in between Polly and little David, and twitching Davie's arm.

"Stop, Joe, and sit down over here," cried Ben, seizing him by the jacket, "else you shan't sit anywhere."

"Ow!" howled Joel, pulling smartly at David.

"Davie got here first," said Polly, "and he's younger. How can you, Joe?" she added reproachfully.

"He's always younger," said Joel, gloomily, "and I never sit next to you, Polly."

"Oh!" cried Polly, "yes, you did, Joel Pepper, just the very last time I told stories."

"Well, that was just forever ago," said Joel, still holding David's arm, and showing no disposition to give up.

"Well, I think if Mamsie should come in now," warned Polly, for Mrs. Pepper had gone over to Grandma Bascom's--the old lady having been sick for a day or two--and been caught there by the sudden shower, "and should see you, you'd feel badly, Joey."

At the mention of Mamsie, Joel's grasp on Davie's arm dropped, and he slunk back. Then Ben pulled him into a place next to him, quiet was restored, and Polly was soon launched on one of her wonderful stories, "Mr. Kangaroo and the silly little Duck," and presently they were all so absorbed that no one noticed the sun was shining brightly, until they heard a voice, "Well, I declare, sitting down in the day-time to tell stories!"

Polly sprang to her feet and stared.

"Ugh!" cried Joel, taking one look at their visitor. "I should think," said Miss Jerusha, the minister's sister, in a very tart voice, and raising her black mitts very high, "that children as old as you are could find some work to do, without sitting down to fold your hands and tell good-for-nothing stories."

"They aren't good-for-nothing," shouted Joel. "You haven't heard 'em; they're just beautiful!"

"Be still, Joe," commanded Ben. But Joel broke away from him, and jumped to his feet.

"And Mamsie lets Polly tell us stories," he blurted out fiercely.

"Well, then, she's a very unwise woman," said Miss Jerusha, calmly seating herself in Mrs. Pepper's rocking chair.

"She ain't!" screamed Joel, quite beside himself with rage.

"Our mother's just right," said Ben, slowly getting to his feet. There was a light in his pale blue eyes as he bent them on Miss Jerusha, that made her look away a minute, but she soon returned to the charge. "_I_ never was allowed to sit idle in the day-time," she said, "when I was a little girl."

"I don't believe you ever were little," said Joel, bluntly, and glaring at her across the kitchen.

"Joel, Joel!" cried Polly, in great distress. "Oh, please excuse him, Ma'am, he never talks so, and Mamsie will feel so very badly, when she knows it."

"I am very glad I came," said Miss Jerusha, sitting up stiff and tall, "for you children need some instruction, I can plainly see. Poor things! well, it's not to be wondered at, when we consider you've had no bringing up."

"We have had bringing up, Miss Jerusha," said Ben. "Children, you go into the bedroom, and shut the door, and stay there," he said to the three little ones. And never having seen him so before, the two boys went off wonderingly, without a word, and holding Phronsie by the hands. "Our mother is our mother," went on Ben, proudly, "the very best mother in all the world, and she's brought us up, oh, how she has worked to bring us up! and if we're naughty, it's all our own fault!" It was a long speech for Ben to make, and Polly stared at him in an amazement mingled with pride, while her breast heaved, and she clasped her hands tightly together, so afraid she should speak a word and spoil it all, for Miss Jerusha was really uncomfortable, that they could both see.

Meantime, Joel was climbing out of the bedroom window. "I'm goin' to Grandma Bascom's for Mamsie," he cried passionately.

"We must stay here, Phronsie," said little Davie, holding tightly to her hand, and standing still in the middle of the floor, "'cause Ben told us to, you know."

"Ugh!" they could hear Joel exclaim, as he jumped clear of the window sill to the grass beneath; but they didn't know that the old cracked pane of glass had given away under his hand, nor that a little stream of blood was trickling down his wrist, as he raced over through the lane, and rushed into Grandma Bascom's little cottage.

XII

AT GRANDMA BASCOM'S

"The land sakes!" exclaimed Grandma Bascom, seeing him first. She was propped up in bed, and Mrs. Pepper was heating some gruel on the stove out in the shed. "What's the matter?" as Joel held his arm out, and the blood was dripping down his little blouse.

"Nothin'," said Joel, shortly; "where's Mamsie?"

"Out in the shed," said Grandma. "Now you show her your arm as soon as you can."

"Tisn't my arm," said Joel, "it's my hand," and he ran into the shed. "Come over home, Mamsie, do," he implored. "That old woman up to the minister's is at our house."

"I can't come," said Mrs. Pepper, not turning around, "till I fix Grandma comfortable. And for shame, Joel, to speak so of Miss Jerusha! Remember how good Parson Henderson is to us; and his wife, too."

"That ain't Miss Jerusha," said Joel, setting his teeth together, and wishing his hand wouldn't ache so; "and she's talking awful, and Ben's sent us all out."

"Then she must be disagreeable," said Mrs. Pepper, beginning to look worried. "Well, I'll soon have this done, then I'll be over. Ben'll have to bear it as best he can," and she sighed.

So Joel turned off and went out of doors, and the little stream of blood kept on trickling.

"Has he cut it bad?" asked Grandma, anxiously, when Mrs. Pepper brought in the cup of steaming gruel a few minutes later.

"Who?" asked Mother Pepper, absently.

"Why--Joel. Hain't you seen it?" screamed Grandma, who, like a great many deaf people, always spoke her loudest, especially when she was excited. "The blood was all runnin' like everything down his arm. I guess he's most cut it off," she added with a groan, for Grandma always had a warm spot in her heart for Joel.

Mrs. Pepper's face grew very pale, and she set the cup of gruel down hastily on the little stand by the bed-head, where Grandma could reach it. Then she hurried to the door. "_Joel_!" she called, prepared to run over home if he didn't answer.

"What?" said a miserable little voice, as unlike Joel's as possible. There he sat crouching down under the big "laylocks," as Grandma always called them.

It wasn't a moment, then, before Mother Pepper had him in the kitchen and the blood washed off, and as well as she could see, for the little stream that flowed again, she found out where the trouble was, in the long zigzag cut down the fleshy part of Joel's little brown hand.

"Mother'll fix you up all right," she kept saying. And Joel, who didn't mind anything, now that he had Mamsie, watched every movement out of attentive black eyes.

"Has he cut it bad? O dear me!" shouted and groaned Grandma from the bed.

"No," screamed Joel, "'tain't hurt at all."

"Oh, Joey!" reproved Mrs. Pepper, tying up the poor hand in a bit of old cloth. "Now run in and show Grandma, and I'll ask her if she has got any court plaster."

So Joel ran in and sat on the edge of Grandma's bed, on top of the gay patched quilt, and recounted just how it all happened.

"Hey?" exclaimed Grandma, every minute.

"I can't make her hear nothin'," said Joel at last, in despair, turning to his mother. "What gets into folks' ears to make 'em deaf, Mamsie?"

"Oh, it often comes on when they're old," answered Mrs. Pepper, who had been searching all this time in all the cracked bowls and cups for the scraps of court plaster. "It will be such a piece of work to get her to tell me where it is," she said to herself.

"I ain't ever goin' to be deaf when I'm old," declared Joel, in alarm.

"You don't know whether you will or not," said Mrs. Pepper, rummaging away, "so you better use your ears to good advantage now, while you've got 'em."

"I'll always have 'em," said Joel, putting up both hands to feel of these appendages and see if they were there. "I guess they can't get off," and he shook his head smartly.

"How'd you cut it?" asked Grandma, shrilly, for the fiftieth time.

Joel slipped off the gay patched bedquilt, and ran up to his mother, drawing a long breath.

"O dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Pepper, seeing the bandage of old cloth, which was quite red and damp. "Go and sit down and hold your hand still. I must ask Grandma where that court plaster is. I know she has some, because when Polly cut her finger, you know, Grandma gave her a piece."

"You can't make her hear," said Joel, despairingly, and sitting down as his mother bade.

"I must," said Mrs. Pepper, firmly; "and if a thing has to be done, why it has to be, that's all; we've got to have that court plaster."

So she put her ear close to Grandma's cap-border, and after a great deal of explaining on Mother Pepper's part, and as many interruptings on Grandma Bascom's, who wanted everything said over again, at last it was known that the court plaster lay between the leaves of the big Bible, on the stand under the old looking-glass between the windows.

"I put it there so's to have it handy," screamed Grandma, leaning back in great satisfaction against her pillows again.

Mrs. Pepper, feeling quite worn out, got the court plaster and cut off a piece. "Now then, Joel," she said, coming up to him.

"The cloth's all wet and soppy," said Joel, beginning to twitch at the bandage.

"Don't do that, Joey," commanded Mother Pepper, quickly, "you'll make it bleed worse'n ever. Dear me! I should think it was wet!" suppressing a shiver, as she rapidly unwound the old cloth, now very red. "Come here, over the basin." And presently the poor hand was washed off again with warm water, the long cut closed, and the strip of black court plaster stuck firmly over the wound.

"Why don't you put cold water on, Mammy?" asked Joel; "it would feel so good."

"Is it cut bad?" Grandma kept screaming.

"You can go and let her see it, Joey, now that it's all done up nicely. There's no use in trying to tell her," said Mother Pepper, clearing away the traces of the accident. So Joel hopped up on the big bed again and displayed his wounded hand, and Grandma oh-ed and dear me-ed over it, and then she reached over to the little drawer in the stand at the head of the bed.

"Put your hand in, Joel," she said, "and take as many's you want."

Joel's black eyes stuck out as he saw the big peppermint drops, pink ones and white ones, rolling round in the drawer the minute it was pulled open. "Can I have as many as I want, Grandma?" he screamed, hopping off from the bed to hang over the drawer.

"Yes," said Grandma, delighted to think she could do something to help, "'cause you've hurt your hand."

"I'm glad I hurt it!" exclaimed Joel. "O my! what a lot, Grandma!" which Grandma didn't hear, only she knew he was pleased by the sight of his chubby face; so she smiled, too. Mrs. Pepper found them so when she came up to the bed.

"I'm going home now, Grandma," she said. "I'll be over again by and by, or Polly will."

"Hey?" said Grandma. So Mrs. Pepper nodded and smiled and pointed to the door, and Grandma seemed satisfied.

"She told me I might have as many's I wanted," said Joel, with great satisfaction. "I like Grandma ever so much."

"Take care, Joey, you don't take too many," said Mrs. Pepper. "Grandma's good to you, so you must be good to her, and come right home from here. You may stay half an hour," pointing to the old clock. "Miss Jerusha will be gone by that time," she said to herself with a grim smile.

"I'll come right home, Mamsie," said Joel, quite upset in his mind whether to take two white peppermint drops and two pink ones, or if it would do to take three apiece.

"And don't let any cold water get on that hand," charged Mrs. Pepper the last thing.

"Why, Mamsie?" asked Joel, looking up.

"'Cause it would be very bad," said Mother Pepper, shaking her head warningly, "very bad, Joel. Remember, now."

"What would it do to me?" asked Joel.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Pepper; "it might almost kill you to chill it. Maybe you'd have lockjaw, Joel Pepper."

"What's that?" demanded Joel, deserting the peppermint drops for a minute to run to the door and seize his mother's gown. "What's lockjaw, Mammy?"

"I guess you'd find out if you had it," said Mrs. Pepper, grimly. "Why, you can't open your jaws. Let go of my gown, Joel. I must hurry home." And with visions of Miss Jerusha in the little brown house, she hurried off as fast as she could down the lane.

"Huh!" exclaimed Joel, left quite alone staring after her. "I guess I ain't going to have any old lockjaw. And I could open my jaws, too." Thereupon wide apart flew his two sets of white teeth, at such a distance that he seemed to be all mouth. Then he snapped them together again so quickly that it made him wink violently; repeating this operation till he was quite convinced that nothing should ever be the matter with his jaws. "And if they ever do get locked up, I'm goin' to keep the key myself." Then he ran back to his peppermint drops again, quite satisfied. Grandma Bascom was sound asleep.

Joel softly moved two pink peppermint drops over to one side of the drawer, and set two white ones next to them. "They're awful small," he said to himself, and changed the pink ones for two others of the same color. Then the same thought occurring to him in regard to the white ones, those had to go back and two different white ones take their places. Then he drew back, and gazed at them admiringly.

"I don't s'pose Mamsie'd care if I took one more, if 'twas a little one," he presently thought. But the difficulty was, should it be a pink one or a white one? It took Joel so long to decide this, that at last he put one of each over in his collection at the side of the drawer, then hastily pushed the rest of Grandma's into a pile at one end. "There, she's got a lot," he exclaimed. And as he looked at them, the pile seemed to grow bigger yet; so he picked off one, a great pink drop, from the very top.

"Now I must get a white one to match it," he said, fumbling over the pile till he had flattened it quite out. They looked so many more when this was done, that Joel felt quite right in extracting the last two. "It might a' made her sick. P'r'aps she's been eating too many." And as this thought struck him, he pulled out two more, picked up the ones he had set to one side, slammed to the drawer, by this time realizing that Grandma could not hear, and ran out of the bedroom to the "laylock" bushes, where he sat down to enjoy the peppermint drops.

He had demolished the third one, eating as slowly as possible, in a way Phronsie had of nibbling around the edges to make it last as long as possible; and then, with his cut hand, there wasn't anything he could do; when suddenly Mamsie's words, "Be good to Grandma," swept through his mind, with an awful twinge. Joel stopped eating and looked at the heap of pink and white peppermint drops he had laid down on the grass by his side; then turned his back to them, and began his nibbling again. "She's got enough," he said, munching on. "She said, take as many's I wanted. So there now!"

But in a minute he had hopped to his feet, and snatched up the pink and white pile, raced through the kitchen and into the bedroom, and twitching open the drawer to the little stand, he dumped his fistful in, all except one. Then, without trusting himself to look at them, he slammed the drawer quite tight, and leaning over Grandma, he put his mouth close to her cap-border where she lay snoring away. "I put 'em all back, Grandma," he whispered, "except four."

Something made him glance up at the old clock. It was five minutes past the half hour, and Joel, with a dreadful feeling at his heart, for disobedience was a thing Mamsie never overlooked, fled over to the little brown house.

XIII

PASSENGERS FOR THE BOXFORD STAGE

"I declare, that's fine!" said Ben, the next day. It was dull and cloudy, and he squinted up at the sky. "There isn't a bit of wind. Now Mr. Blodgett'll have that bonfire, I guess; that'll suit you, Joe, as you can't have much fun with that hand."

Joel squealed right out. "That's prime! And I can pile in the sticks and straw just as well with my other hand."

"You aren't goin' to touch that bonfire, once it's lighted," declared Ben, in his most decided way. "Now you remember that, Joe Pepper!"

"There ain't any good in it, if I can't help," cried Joel, horribly disappointed.

"You can see it," said Ben, "same's David."

"Hoh! what's that!" cried Joel; "that won't be any fun."

"Then you can stay at home," said Ben, coolly. "As for having you, Joe, careering round that fire, and cutting up your capers, we ain't goin' to let you. Like enough you'd be half burnt up."

"Phoo!" cried Joel, in high disdain, and snapping the fingers of his well hand, "I wouldn't get afire."

"I wouldn't trust you. You'd be afire before you knew it. You needn't tease, Joe; Mamsie wouldn't allow it." And Ben walked off and shut the door.

"Ben never let's me do anything," howled Joel, twisting his face up into a dreadful knot, and wishing there was something he could do with his left hand, for the other was all tied up in a sling, Mother Pepper wisely concluding that to be the only way to keep it still. "If I tie it up, Joel, you can't use it," she had said, fastening the broad strip of white cloth firmly over his shoulder. And Joel, knowing there was no use in protesting, had borne it as well as he could, making Davie wait on him, and driving Polly almost to despair in her efforts to amuse him, while she did up the morning work, Mother Pepper being away. "Why don't you play stage-coach, Joel?" proposed Polly now, as Joel couldn't vent his disappointment loudly enough.

"That's no fun, with one hand," said Joel, disconsolately, drumming on the window pane.

"Some folks always drive with their left hand," said Polly.

"Mr. Tisbett doesn't," said Joel, gloomily regarding the bunch of white cloth that covered his right hand. "He always drives with this one," sticking it out, "'cept when he takes both."

"Well, you can play there's been an accident, and you got hurt, and so you had to drive with that hand," said Polly.

"So I can," cried Joel, bounding away from the window, "so I can, Polly Pepper. I'll have it right now, and it's to be a perfectly awful one. Come on, Dave, let's fix up the coach, and you get inside, and I'll upset you, and most smash everything to death." And Joel ran hither and thither, dragging the chairs, and Phronsie's little cricket, and everything movable into place as well as he could with one hand.

"Take care, Joe," warned Polly, wondering if she hadn't done wrong in proposing stagecoach, "don't fly round so. You'll hurt your hand. I'd get up on the front seat if I were you, and begin to drive."

"Would you have the horses run into something, Polly, kersmash," cried Joel, tugging at Mamsie's rocking chair to bring it into line, "or make the stage-coach tumble over and roll down hill?"

"Dear me," cried Polly, going into the pantry to mix up her brown bread, and wondering which would be the less of the two evils, "I'm sure I don't know, Joel."

"I'm goin' to have 'em do both," decided Joel. "Dave, pull this up, will you?" So little David ran and gave a lift on the other side of the big rocking chair, to haul it into place. "We'll run into somethin' an' th' horse'll shy, and that'll make the old stage-coach roll down hill. Gee-whickets!" he brought up, in huge delight.

"I shan't let you play it at all," said Polly, from the pantry, "if you say such words, Joel. You'll just have to stop and go and sit down. So remember."

Joel was clambering up into Mr. Tisbett's seat on the box, but he ducked his head at Polly's rebuke. "Get in, Dave," he shouted, recovering himself. "Hurry up. You're the passenger that wants to go to Boxford. You're awful slow. I'll drive off without you if you don't make haste," he threatened, gathering up in his left hand the bits of string that were fastened to a nail in the corner of the shelf.

Little David, feeling it a dreadful calamity to be left behind when he wanted to go to Boxford, hopped nimbly into the opening in the pile of chairs that represented the stage-coach, and off they drove.

"I can't hold my whip," cried Joel in distress, after a minute or so of bowling along on the road to Boxford, accompanied with much shouting to Mr. Tisbett's pair of black horses, and excitement generally as the stage-driver tried to get out of the way of the great number of teams on the turnpike. "O dear, it ain't any fun without the whip!" and the whole establishment came to a dead stop.

"I'll hold the whip," cried the passenger, eagerly, poking his head out of the stage-coach window.

"No, you won't, either," cried Joel. "You're the passenger. O dear me, there ain't any fun without th' whip!"

"Then I can drive," said little David. "Do let me, Joel," he pleaded.

"I won't either," declared Joel, flatly. "I'm Mr. Tisbett, and besides, there won't be anybody inside if you get up here."

"Phronsie might be passenger," said David, reflecting a moment.