Five Little Peppers and their Friends | Page 6

eyes on the lady of quality opposite.
"Oh, yes, it is," said the Dukess, "an' you orter go on an' say, 'An' all them perfectly beyewtiful flowers, I never see any so fine!'"--pointing to the empty spools in between the eatables.
"But they aren't flowers," said Phronsie.
This occasioned so much discussion that there was no lack of conversation, and was the reason that steps over the stairway were not heard. The door was thrown open, and an old, stout, sodden woman, in a dirty, green shawl and battered bonnet stood transfixed with amazement in the entrance. She hadn't a pleasant eye beneath her straggling, white hair, and her first words were not altogether agreeable nor appropriate at five-o'clock tea.
"So this is the way," she said gruffly, "when I sends you out, Rag, to pick up somethin' you eat me out o' house an' home with brats you bring in"; for she hadn't seen through the dirt on Phronsie's face and clothes what manner of child was present.
The Dukess twitched off the nightcap, and sprang up, upsetting the tin coffeepot, which rolled away by itself, and put herself over by Phronsie, covering her from view. In passing, she had grasped the doll off from the barrel and hidden her in the folds of her tattered gown with a quick, sharp thrust.
"'Tain't nothin' 'f I do have some fun once in a while, Gran," she grumbled. She pinched Phronsie's arm. "Keep still." And while the old woman swayed across the room, for she wasn't quite free from the effects of a taste from a bottle under her arm, which she couldn't resist trying before she reached home, Phronsie and Rag were working their way over toward the door.
"Stop!" roared the old woman at them, in a fury, and she held up the nightcap. Involuntarily Rag paused, through sheer force of habit, and stood paralyzed, till her grandmother had come quite close.
"Hey, what have we got here?" She eyed Phronsie sharply. "Oh, well, you ain't acted so badly after all; maybe the pretty little lady has come to see me, hey?" and she seized Phronsie's small arm.
"Gran," cried Rag hoarsely, waking up from her unlucky paralysis, "let her go; only let her go, an' I'll--I'll do anythin' you want me to. I'll steal, an' pick an' fetch, and do anything Gran."
The old woman leered at her, and passed her hand to the beads on Phronsie's neck; and in doing so she let the little arm slip, that she might use both hands to undo the clasp the better. One second of time--but Rag, knowing quite well what could be done in it, seized Phronsie, rushed outside, slammed the door, and was down over the rickety stairs in a twinkling, through the dirty courtyard and alley--which luckily had few spectators, and those thought she was carrying a neighbor's child--around a corner, darting here and there, till presently she set Phronsie down, and drew a long breath,
"Oh, my eye!" she panted, "but wasn't that a close shave, though!"

II
PHRONSIE
"There now, here you are!" There was a little click in the girl's throat. Phronsie looked up.
"Yes, and your child, too." Clorinda and all her pink loveliness was thrust into her own little mother's arms, and the sharp, black eyes peered down upon the two. "I've brung you home, and you're on your own grassplot, same's you were." Still she stood in her tracks.
"I'm sorry I brung you to my house; but you've had a five-o'clock tea, and now you're home, an' got your child." Still she did not stir.
"Well, I've got to go. Say, don't you call no one, nor tell no one, till I've had time to shake my feet down street." She thrust out one 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