Five Little Peppers and their Friends | Page 4

sped wildly off through the
gateway.
"Oh!" cried Phronsie, running after with pink cheeks and outstretched
arms, "give me back my child; stop, little girl."
But there wras no stop to the long, thin figure flying down the path on
the other side of the tall hedge. It was a back passage, and few
pedestrians used the path; in fact, there were none on it this afternoon,
so the children had it all to themselves. And on they went, Phronsie,
with but one thought--to rescue her child from the depths of woe such
as being carried off by a strange mother would produce--blindly
plunging after.
At last the girl with the doll stopped suddenly, flung herself up against
a stone fence, and drew a long breath.

"Well, what you goin' to do about it?" she cried defiantly, clutching the
doll with a savage grip.
Phronsie, too far gone for words, sank panting down to the curbstone,
to watch her with wild eyes.
"You said I might take her," the girl blurted out. "I hain't took nothin'
but what you give me. I want to play with her to my home. You come
with me, and then you can take her back with you."
"I can't," said Phronsie, in a faint little voice. Her cheeks were very red,
and she wiped her hot face on her white apron. "You must give me
Clorinda, and I must go home," and she held out a shaking hand.
But the girl danced off, and Phronsie, without a thought beyond the
rescue of her child, stumbled on after her, scarcely seeing one step
before her for the tears that, despite all her efforts, now began to stream
down her round cheeks.
At last, in trying to turn out for a baker's boy with a big basket, she
caught her foot and fell, a tired little heap, flat in a mud puddle in the
middle of the brick pavement.
"My eye!" cried the baker's boy, lifting her up. "Here, you girl, your
sister's fell, ker-squash!"
At this, the flying girl in front whirled suddenly and came running back,
and took in the situation at once.
"Come on, you lazy thing, you!" she exclaimed; then she burst into a
laugh. "Oh, how you look!"
"Give me back--" panted Phronsie, rubbing away the tears with her
muddy hands, regardless of her splashed clothes and dirty shoes.
"Keep still, can't you?" cried the girl, gripping her arm, as two or three
pedestrians paused to stare at the two. "Come on, sister," and she seized
Phronsie's hand, and bore her off. But on turning the corner, she

stopped abruptly, and, still holding the doll closely, she dropped to one
knee and wiped off the tears from the muddy little cheeks with a not
ungentle hand. "You've got to be my sister," she said, in a gush, "else
the hoodlums will tear you from neck to heels." And seizing Phronsie's
hand again, she bore her off, dodging between rows of dwellings, that,
if her companion could have seen, would have certainly proved to be
quite novel. But Phronsie was by this time quite beyond noticing any of
the details of her journey, and after turning a corner or two, she was
hauled up several flights of rickety steps, strange to say without the
usual accompaniment of staring eyes and comments of the various
neighbors in the locality.
"There!" The girl, still clutching the doll, flung wide the rickety door.
"My, ain't I glad to get here, though!" and she drew a long breath,
releasing Phronsie's hand, who immediately slid to the floor in a
collapsed little heap. "Well, this is my home--ain't it pretty, though!"
Phronsie, thus called on for a reply, tried very hard to answer, but the
words wouldn't come.
"You needn't try," said the girl, slamming the door, "'tain't likely you
can praise it enough," and she broke out into a hard, sarcastic laugh,
which shrilled its way out of the one window, whose broken glass was
adorned with nondescript fillings.
"See here now, you're all beat out," she exclaimed suddenly; then
rushing across the room, she dragged up a broken chair, and jammed it
against the door. "There now, we're by ourselves, an' you can rest."
"I must go home," said Phronsie faintly, and holding up her tired arms.
"Give me my child; I must go home."
"Did you think I didn't know what was proper?" cried the girl
scornfully, and tossing her head. "I'm going to have five-o'clock tea
'fore you go. There, I'm a lady, an' a swell one too, I'd have you know."
She ran over to the corner of the slatternly room, and set the doll on a
bed, over which were tossed the clothes in a dirty heap, Phronsie

following every movement with anxious eyes.