Five Little Peppers And How They Grew | Page 4

but it never

did: for winter shut in very cold, and it took so much more to feed and
warm them, that the money went faster than ever. And then, when the
way seemed clear again, the store changed hands, so that for a long
time she failed to get her usual supply of sacks and coats to make; and
that made sad havoc in the quarters and half-dollars laid up as her nest
egg. But---- "Well, it'll come some time," she would say to herself;
"because it must!" And so at it again she would fly, brisker than ever.
"To help mother," was the great ambition of all the children, older and
younger; but in Polly's and Ben's souls, the desire grew so
overwhelmingly great as to absorb all lesser thoughts. Many and vast
were their secret plans, by which they were to astonish her at some
future day, which they would only confide--as they did everything
else--to one another. For this brother and sister were everything to each
other, and stood loyally together through "thick and thin."
Polly was ten, and Ben one year older; and the younger three of the
"Five Little Peppers," as they were always called, looked up to them
with the intensest admiration and love. What they failed to do, couldn't
very well be done by any One!
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Polly as she sat over in the corner by the window
helping her mother pull out basting threads from a coat she had just
finished, and giving an impatient twitch to the sleeve, "I do wish we
could ever have any light--just as much as we want!"
"You don't need any light to see these threads," said Mrs. Pepper,
winding up hers carefully, as she spoke, on an old spool. "Take care,
Polly, you broke that; thread's dear now."
"I couldn't help it," said Polly, vexedly; "it snapped; everything's dear
now, it seems to me! I wish we could have--oh! ever an' ever so many
candles; as many as we wanted. I'd light 'em all, so there! and have it
light here one night, anyway!"
"Yes, and go dark all the rest of the year, like as anyway," observed
Mrs. Pepper, stopping to untie a knot. "Folks who do so never have any
candles," she added, sententiously.

"How many'd you have, Polly?" asked Joel, curiously, laying down his
hammer, and regarding her with the utmost anxiety.
"Oh, two hundred!" said Polly, decidedly. "I'd have two hundred, all in
a row!"
"Two hundred candles!" echoed Joel, in amazement. "My whockety!
what a lot!"
"Don't say such dreadful words, Joel," put in Polly, nervously, stopping
to pick up her spool of basting thread that was racing away all by itself;
"tisn't nice."
"Tisn't worse than to wish you'd got things you haven't," retorted Joel.
"I don't believe you'd light 'em all at once," he added, incredulously.
"Yes, I would too!" replied Polly, reckessly; "two hundred of 'em, if I
had a chance; all at once, so there, Joey Pepper!"
"Oh," said little Davie, drawing a long sigh. "Why, 'twould be just like
heaven, Polly! but wouldn't it cost money, though!"
"I don't care," said Polly, giving a flounce in her chair, which snapped
another thread; "oh dear me! I didn't mean to, mammy; well, I wouldn't
care how much money it cost, we'd have as much light as we wanted,
for once; so!"
"Mercy!" said Mrs. Pepper, "you'd have the house afire! Two hundred
candles! who ever heard of such a thing!"
"Would they burn?" asked Phronsie, anxiously, getting up from the
floor where she was crouching with David, overseeing Joel nail on the
cover of an old box; and going to Polly's side she awaited her answer
patiently.
"Burn?" said Polly. "There, that's done now, mamsie dear!" And she
put the coat, with a last little pat, into her mother's lap. "I guess they
would, Phronsie pet." And Polly caught up the little girl, and spun

round and round the old kitchen till they were both glad to stop.
"Then," said Phronsie, as Polly put her down, and stood breathless after
her last glorious spin, "I do so wish we might, Polly; oh, just this very
one minute!"
And Phronsie clasped her fat little hands in rapture at the thought.
"Well," said Polly, giving a look up at the old clock in the corner;
"deary me! it's half-past five; and most time for Ben to come home!"
Away she flew to get supper. So for the next few moments nothing was
heard but the pulling out of the old table into the middle of the floor,
the laying the cloth, and all the other bustle attendant upon the being
ready for Ben. Polly went skipping around, cutting the bread, and
bringing dishes; only stopping long enough to