Read Ebook: Five little Peppers in the Little Brown House by Sidney Margaret Heyer Hermann Illustrator

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Ebook has 2442 lines and 87113 words, and 49 pages

FACING PAGE

SO POLLY HAD HER FLOWERS AFTER ALL, AND SHE DRESSED THE PIE GAYLY WITH THEM 20

EVERY ONE OF THE FOUR PAIRS OF HANDS WAS GATHERING UP THE PIECES, OH, SO FAST! 74

"O DEAR, THAT'S MY FAULT!" CRIED BEN, IN GREAT DISTRESS 124

"LET ME SEE--I WANT TO SEE 'FROM A FRIEND'!" SCREAMED JOEL 198

AND THERE WAS PHRONSIE FAST ASLEEP 254

"YOU MUST TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT, JOEY" 306

"OH!" SCREAMED SOMEBODY 394

POLLY PEPPER'S CHICKEN PIE

To begin with, it was the most remarkable chicken that was to have made the famous pie for Thanksgiving. But alas! A sad mishap befell the Pepper family.

In the first place none of the family ever knew where it came from. Ebenezer, or Ben, as he was usually called, found it one day in a swamp, down by the meadow as he was digging sweet-flag to sell, in order to get some money to buy a pair of boots for the coming winter. It was not hurt, only it couldn't get out. The wonder is, how it ever got there. However, Ben didn't stop to think of that; he must set to work to get Master Chick out. So, forgetting flag-root in his eagerness, he took an old fence rail, and by dint of poking and urging it, and tumbling around in the bog till he was pretty wet himself, he at last had the satisfaction of obtaining his prize.

It proved to be a fine black chicken, a shanghai, and grasping it tightly under one arm, its eyes protruding with fright, Ben flew home, and bursting into the door of the Little Brown House, astonished them all by thrusting the long-legged black fowl before their faces, nearly upsetting Polly as he did so, who was helping her mother pull out the basting-threads of the coat Mrs. Pepper had just finished on the edge of the twilight.

The chicken gave a shrill scream, and this was the first introduction to its future home.

"Goodness me, Ben!" ejaculated Polly, "you scared me 'most to death, and you've broken my box."

"What is it?" exclaimed Mrs. Pepper; "is it a crow?"

"Ho! Ho! Crow, Mother?" replied Ben, holding the chicken firmly by one leg, "It's the--well, the most beautiful bird you ever saw! Hey, Polly, look!" he flapped the shanghai over Polly's brown head as she disconsolately groped around on the kitchen floor for her scattered spools, and the cover of her cherished box.

"I don't care for any old birds, Ben Pepper. See there!" and she brought to light from under her mother's chair the dilapidated cover.

"Oh, Polly, I'm real sorry. Come, I'll give you half of the chicken. See, he's real big, and won't he grow into a buster! And then, perhaps,--hooray, Polly; why, then we'll have him for Thanksgiving, and you can make your pie, you know."

"Will you really, Ben?" relented Polly, as she sat on the floor.

"Yes, certain true, black and blue!" solemnly said Ben.

"Hooray, then!" screamed Polly, "and, Bensie, I'll make the crust awfully thick, and it'll be 'most all drumsticks," and she danced a whirligig in the middle of the old kitchen floor.

"Queer kind of crust, I should think; drumstick crust," retorted Ben.

"Let me see," said Mrs. Pepper, laying down her work. "Oh, yes, it's July now. Yes, you'll have to wait four months. But perhaps you can't have it at all, for if the chicken belongs to anybody round here you must give it back. Let me see it, Ben," and his mother grasped the leg of the bird, which all this time was squawking dismally, and amid the groans from Ben, and the wails from Polly, she repeated: "yes, if you can find out where it belongs, you've got to carry it back."

"For shame, Polly," said Mrs. Pepper, sternly, "the chicken doesn't belong to you, and I should rather you'd never taste a morsel of chicken pie than to get one underhand. But put him away now, children," she said in a kinder tone, as she saw the sorrowful faces before her; "he can sleep in the box the gray goose had in the shed, for to-night anyway, and then in the morning we'll send him home if he's got any to go to."

"And we won't have anything left but the old gray goose," mourned Polly; "I wish the old thing was dead, I do!"

"Why, Polly Pepper! And then we wouldn't have anything," said Ben, preparing to take his chicken out to its quarters for the night.

"Well, I don't care," said Polly, as she followed; "I'm tired of seeing her round, anyway."

Now, all this time, the younger Peppers were away by chance from the old kitchen, or there would have been more of an uproar still, over the advent of the chicken. The two small boys were busy on the edge of Farmer Brown's cow-yard, where in a dirty pool of water they were having the highest glee over the sailing of a boat, composed of one of Polly's old shoes with a rag for a sail. Well was it for the chicken that they were missing at the reception, else it would have been almost torn to death with delight. And Sophronia, or Phronsie, had been put to bed early this afternoon, so she was tucked away fast asleep under the gay, patched bedquilt of the old crib.

There was no father in this Pepper household. He died when Phronsie was a baby, and Mrs. Pepper struggled along bravely, making coats to put bread into her own and her children's mouths. And the children, healthy and rugged, and happy-go-lucky, came up or "scrambled up," as Mrs. Pepper said, and fairly made the little old brown house ring with their cheery life.

Polly was ten, and Ben one year older, and it was the one great ambition of their lives "to help Mother." The only thing in which Ben could really boast superiority over Polly, aside from his being a boy while she was only a girl, was the fact that once on a great and memorable visit with his father to a neighboring farm, he had eaten a piece of chicken pie; oh, so perfectly splendid! And to Polly, who had never tasted or even seen one, he dilated upon it, till she was nearly wild with curiosity and longing at the delightful vision he brought up.

"Oh, Ben, was it good?" she would say the five-hundredth time, as in some interval when work "slacked up," perhaps when they crouched at dusk on the kitchen floor, the wink of fire from the old stove lighting up their absorbed little faces, they imagined or played they had all their fancied dreams or wildest wishes realized.

"Yes, you better believe!" Ben smacked his lips; "seem's if I taste it now!"

And Polly would shut her eyes, and give herself up to the delicious thought till she had to hop up to put the children to bed, or to help Mother in the many ways in which she knew so well how to save her steps. And now here was a fine chicken come right to their very door!

The Pepper family had no cow, nor pig, nor even a chick. The only thing of life in the animal kingdom belonging to the household was an old gray goose; too old and tough to benefit any one by her death. She was just as cross as she could be, or at least she might have amused the children and been of some comfort. She had grown for ever so long in her present quarters, wandering around the poor Little Brown House and shed, picking up a scanty living and taking thanklessly all the bits that the children still conscientiously fed her.

Polly and Ben had glorious visions of the day when they would "buy Mammy a cow," and many were the talks and plans as to exactly what kind it should be. But nothing ever came their way, until this black chicken appeared right in the old kitchen, and all for Thanksgiving, too! That is, if they could keep him; for Polly and Ben, albeit the conflict within, conscientiously obeyed the commands of their mother and made inquiries far and near as to the ownership of Master Shanghai. Nobody knew anything of him, and he seemed indeed to have dropped down from the clouds. Clearly he was to remain at the Peppers', and, as day after day passed by and they were not forced to give him up, their spirits rose, until the gayety over the future festival assumed the jolliest aspect. They already saw in imagination the glorious pie completed, and decking the festival board which Polly declared "must be trimmed with flowers."

"Whew! Where are you going to get flowers?" demanded practical Ben.

"I don't care; we must!" persisted Polly. "Folks always have them at a party, and we'll get them someway; you'll see."

But although Ben always stanchly pinned his faith to whatever Polly said, on this occasion he only gave a little sniff. It was too good to be true.

So time passed on. The chick was fed, often by the scrimping of Polly's, or Ben's, or Joel's, or David's, or little Phronsie's plate, or, as it frequently happened, by all of them, each stealing out secretly to do it. Consequently he grew and throve famously, his thin frame filling out, until he enjoyed his new quarters so well that he confided in a burst of delight one day to the old gray goose his pleasure and delight at the attention he was receiving.

"Humph!" said the old goose, with a knowing look, "you don't know as much as you will in a short time, say in November."

Now what these mysterious words of the cross old goose meant, or even what November was, the chicken was unable to tell, having never in his short life seen a November; so he went to work, digging and scratching over the old stony ground, and soon forgot all about it.

But as time passed on, the hints of the goose grew broader and deeper, till at last the shanghai, politely but plainly one day, asked her to explain and tell him exactly what she did mean. This was the week before Thanksgiving, a cold, dreary afternoon, and the two inhabitants of the old worn shed were perched on a rail shivering with the cold, and engaged in a conversation that caused Shanghai to shiver even more with fright. Inside the house, the fun had commenced.

The plans were all made, it is true, weeks before; but there remained that mysterious consulting and "talking over" which is half the pleasure, and at last it was decided that Ben could actually go up to the store to-night when he carried home Mr. Atkins's coat, and buy half a pound of raisins for the pudding. For Mrs. Pepper, seeing the joy and excitement of the children, scrimped and twisted her scanty earnings till she could contribute to the feast, and "you shall have the pudding, children," an announcement which was received with a perfect babel of delight. And Joel stood on his head in the corner, and waved his feet in the air, unable to express his joy in any other appropriate way.

Now, nothing remained but to kill the black chicken, which Ben was to do on the morrow morning, for Polly declared, as that would be Saturday, it must be done that day, "and then we shan't have to think it's got to be done, over Sunday, you know, Bensie, dear."

The feathers, David said, must be for a pillow to put at the mother's back when she sewed; a proposition that made Mrs. Pepper beam an appreciative smile, for Davie was "Mother's boy."

"And, oh, Ben, you can't think how perfectly elegant the crust is going to be! Mamsie, now, don't I know?" and Polly began a rapid jargon of the directions her mother had given her of the way they made chicken pies when she was a girl.

Poor woman! Very few had come in her way during her married life. Thankful enough was she when bread and milk were plentiful; and of late years mush and brown bread took the place of more elaborate fare.

"Oh, and I say," broke in Joel, "I'm going to have the wishbone--so there!"

"No, you mustn't, Joel; Davie's younger," said Polly, decisively.

"Well, Phronsie's youngest," retorted Joel.

"Yes, you're right there," declared Ben. "Phronsie, you're the girl for the wishbone. Do you hear, Puss, and you must wish with me," tossing her up in the air.

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