The Adventures of Joel Pepper | Page 9

Polly?" he cried, the pink color all over his cheek.
"Dear me!" cried Polly, merrily, "the very idea of a boy trying to help who hasn't finished his breakfast. Go back and eat every bit of that mush and molasses, Davie dear; then, says I, we'll see what you can do."
"I'll be through in just a minute, Polly." David ran back and clambered into his chair, plying his spoon so fast that Polly cried in dismay, "Oh, Davie, you'll choke yourself!"
"No, I won't," said Davie, with a very red face, and swallowing hard, "it's all slipping down. There, see, Polly. I'm all through; truly I am." He got out of his chair again, and ran up to her.
"So you are," said Polly, glancing approvingly at the bare bowl. "Well now, I'll tell you, Davie, what you can do. You know that pile of old nails that Deacon Brown said Ben might have? Well, 'tisn't nice, you know, to play all day, so you may pick over some of 'em, and get the good ones out. Ben will be so surprised, even if you don't get but a few ready."
"I'm going to work all the morning at 'em," declared little Davie, gladly, hopping off toward the door.
"No, I don't want you to work but a little while," said Polly, decisively, and picking up the breakfast dishes to wash. "You can have most all to-day to play in. And then some other day, when there isn't any other work to do, you can pick over some more; and pretty soon, before you know it, they'll all be done, and Ben'll be so surprised, for they'll be ready when he wants to mend the woodshed."
"I don't want to pick over any crooked old nails," proclaimed Joel, loudly, and knocking his heels against the pantry door. "I sh'd think Deacon Brown might have given us some good ones."
"For shame, Joel!" said Polly, hurrying across the floor with the pile of dishes; "it's fine of him to give us these. And there are lots of good ones amongst 'em."
"You told me not to say 'lots,' the other day," said Joel, with a sharp look out of his black eyes to see if Polly would relent.
"So I did," she cried, and the color flew over her cheek. "Dear me, it is so hard not to say things that you don't like to hear other people say."
"Well, I don't want to pick over old rusty nails," said Joel, ignoring this remark, "and it's real mean, Polly Pepper, to make me, when I want to go and play!" And he kicked his heels worse than ever.
"I don't make you," said Polly, pouring the hot water into the dish-pan and dashing in the soap, "but I shouldn't think it was nice to go out to play right after breakfast. You might work an hour, and then you'd enjoy the play all the better."
"I'd enjoy the play now. And a whole hour, too!" cried Joel, in a dudgeon. "Why, Polly Pepper! a whole hour!"
"That's right, Davie," said Polly, smiling brightly at him, as the little fellow ran out into the woodshed. Then she began to sing, without looking at Joel.
"A whole hour," shouted Joel. But Polly kept a cold shoulder toward him, running up and down in a merry song till a little bird outside the window trilled away as hard as he could, to keep her company.
"A whole hour--" Joel ran up and pulled her dress. "It's as mean as it can be to make me work a whole hour, Polly Pepper!"
"Chee--chee--chee," called the little bird, and away Polly sang, splashing the dishes up and down in the hot soap-suds, till the old kitchen seemed full of merry bustle. Joel regarded her closely for two or three minutes, and then went slowly out.
David was up on top of the wood bin in the shed, and tugging at the box of nails that Ben had put on one of the beams.
"I can't get it down," he said. "Come help me, Joel, do."
But Joel kicked his feet on the woodshed floor. So little David gave another pull at the box, wavered, and clutched wildly at the air, and before Joel could speak, came tumbling down, and after him, the heavy box, spilling the nails as it fell. He lay quite still, and Joel only stopped to take one look.
"Oh, Polly, Dave's killed, I guess," he screamed, rushing into the kitchen, his face working fearfully.
Polly stopped her song in mid-air, and turned quite white. "Oh, no, I guess not," she said with a gasp, as she saw his face. Then she remembered Phronsie. "Come out here, Joe," and she gently pushed him out into the little entry.
"I guess I'll go, too," said Phronsie, who had been humming a soft refrain to Polly's song,