Five Little Peppers and their Friends | Page 7

flapping
shoe, then the other, gave a scornful laugh, and brushed her hand across
the sharp eyes. "Promise now, black and blue, 'I promise true, hope to
die if I do'. Hurry up! Do you promise?" she cried sharply.
"Yes," said Phronsie, hugging Clorinda tightly.
"All right. Now for Gran!" She shut her teeth tightly and was off and
through the big gateway.
"I've got my child," said Phronsie, putting up a sleepy hand to pat
Clorinda's head, but it fell to her side, while her yellow hair slipped

closer over her flushed cheek. She tried to say, "Clorinda, we've got
home, and my foots are tired," swayed, held her child tighter to her
bosom, and over she went in a heap, fast asleep before her head
touched the soft grass.
Polly Pepper, hurrying home from Alexia's, ran in by the gateway, and
down by a short cut over the grass, her feet keeping time to a merry air
that had possessed her all the afternoon. "How fine," she cried to
herself, "our garden party will be!--and we've gotten on splendidly with
our fancy things this afternoon. It will be too perfectly elegant for--"
the flying feet came to a standstill that nearly threw her over the
sleeping figure, the doll tightly pressed to the dirty little pinafore and
the flushed cheeks.
"Oh, my goodness me!" cried Polly, down on her knees. "Why,
Phronsie, just look at your pinafore!" But Phronsie had no idea of
looking at anything, and still slept on.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Polly, in consternation, "whatever in the world
has she been doing! Well, I must get her up to the house."
"Hullo!" It was Jasper's voice. Polly flew up to her feet and hulloed
back. He took a short cut, with a good many flying leaps, across the
grass. "Oh, Polly, I've been looking for you!"
"Just see there." cried Polly, pointing tragically to the little heap.
"Well, dear me!" said Jasper. "Why, Polly"--as his eyes fell on the
soiled pinafore and the little face where the tears had made muddy
streaks.
"I know it," said Polly. "Did you ever in all this world, Jasper! What do
you suppose she has been doing?"
"Oh, making mud pies, perhaps," said Jasper, unwilling to worry Polly;
"don't look so, Polly. Here, we'll carry her to the house."
"Lady-chair," said Polly, the worry dropping out of her eyes at the fun

of carrying Phronsie in. But Phronsie was beyond the charms of
"lady-chair" or "pick-a-back," her yellow head bobbing so dismally
when they lifted her up, that Jasper at last picked her up in his arms,
and marched off with her.
"You bring the doll, Polly."
So Polly ran along by his side with Clorinda dangling by one arm.
Mother Fisher said never a word when she received her baby, but
wisely soothed and washed and tucked her away in bed; and little
Doctor Fisher, as soon as he got home, viewed her critically through his
big spectacles, and said, "The child is all right. Let her sleep." Which
she did, until every one of the household, creeping in and out, declared
she could not possibly sleep any longer, and that they must wake her up.
This last was from Polly.
"What do you suppose it is, Mamsie?" she asked, for about the fiftieth
time, hanging over Phronsie's little bed.
"Nothing," said Mrs. Fisher, with firm lips. Polly must not be worried
by unnecessary alarm, and really there seemed to be nothing amiss with
Phronsie, who was sleeping peacefully, with calm little face and even
breath. "It's the best thing for her to sleep till she's rested."
"But what could have tired her so?" said Polly, with a puzzled face.
"That's just what we can't find out now," said her mother, diving into
her basket for another of Van's stockings. "Oh, here is the mate. When
she wakes up, she'll tell us."
"Well, Joanna is going, isn't she, Mamsie?" asked Polly, deserting the
little bed to fling herself down on the floor at Mrs. Fisher's feet, to
watch the busy fingers.
"Yes, she is," said Mother Fisher decidedly.
"I'm so very glad of that," said Polly, with a sigh of relief, "because you

know, Mamsie, she might go off again and leave Phronsie when she
ought to be watching her."
"Say no more about it, Polly," said her mother, setting even, firm
stitches, "for Mr. King is very angry with Joanna; and you needn't be
afraid that Phronsie will ever be left again, until we do get just the right
person to be with her. Now you better go out and forget it all, and busy
yourself about something."
"I've got to practice," said Polly with a yawn, and stretching her arms.
"I haven't done a bit this whole afternoon, and Monsieur