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

"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.

"No, no, I spoke for you, Phronsie," screamed Joel. "Say you'll wish with me."

"What is it, Ben?" said little Phronsie; "what is a wissbone?"

"Oh, you little goose," began Joel, but Polly gave him a pinch to make him stop.

"Let her alone, Joel," said she. "Phronsie, you'll see when Thanksgiving comes, and that's next week. Come and see, now, if the flour is all right."

And Polly spun along to the little old cupboard in the corner, the whole troop at her heels, to inspect the precious materials. The flour had been measured out certainly a week or more, and there it stood in the bag in the old yellow pudding-dish. Everything was in readiness. There was the lard near by in a cracked bowl, and to the five pairs of happy, expectant eyes directed to these festive preparations, no sight could have been more delightful.

"Well, children," said Polly, as she shut the cupboard door fast with an important air, "we must get up early in the morning, there'll be so much to do. Now, Phronsie, it's time for you to go to bed."

"Oh, no, I'm not one bit tired," protested Phronsie, in an injured tone. But while Polly went to bring the little flannel nightgown to undress her by the kitchen fire, Phronsie's little yellow head bobbed ominously, and she nearly fell off her stool, so that Ben had to carry her in his arms into the bedroom, after all.

All this while, in the thick dreary November twilight, the old gray goose and the black chicken were talking busily. The old goose was so jealous and determined to make the last hours of the chicken very miserable, that she dilated at length and with great exactness on the dreadful fate that awaited him on the morrow; and painted in fearful words the awful ending of being baked in pieces in a pie!

"I've seen 'em!" she declared, with the air of one who knew what she was talking about. "Year after year, hens and chickens, yes, and geese, too, stepping around in the morning, oh, so happy and smart, and then at evening they would go past here to market all stiff and stark, with their heads off, and Mr. Brown's boy holding 'em by their legs! All for pies, and so that people may eat themselves sick. And they call that a Thanksgiving!"

How the chicken shook! It almost fell from its perch; but it was very dark, so the old goose couldn't see very well. Shanghai wouldn't, for all the world, have had her jealousy rewarded by a sight of the terror she had inspired, so he controlled himself like a brave little fellow, and although his heart was beating dreadfully, he commanded his voice enough to ask, "Well, why weren't you, then, baked in a pie along with the others?"

"What,--why--well," stammered the goose, "they were going to kill me time and again, but, well, the fact is, they thought so much of me they couldn't bear to."

In spite of its fright, the black chicken couldn't help laughing softly to himself as he sat there on the rail.

"Well, come, you'd better go to bed," snapped the old goose; "they'll come for you bright and early in the morning. I heard 'em saying so."

"Why, where will you go?" demanded the old goose, sticking out her long neck in amazement.

"Yes, and be stuck again in a bog for your pains," scornfully hissed the old goose, seeing it was useless to remonstrate further. The black chicken had hopped off from the rail, and, its long legs going at a pretty smart pace down the hill, it was soon out of sight.

Brightly rose the sun next morning, clear and cold. The air smelt of everything spicy and suggestive of the approaching holiday. Ben sharpened the old hatchet, the other children running away, for at the last minute they declared they didn't want the chicken killed. They'd rather go without the pie. But Mrs. Pepper and Ben talked until they made them see it was no worse than if they had bought the chicken. Fowls had to be killed and eaten, and they couldn't afford to keep the black chicken any longer. And the mother stopped Phronsie's screams as she ran to hide her head in her lap, and wiped away the tears that ran down the little cheeks. Joel and David relented at last, and joined Ben as he hurried out of doors. And Polly, as she began to wash the breakfast dishes to be ready to help pick the chicken, tried to be gay, and to hum a scrap of a song to reassure Phronsie, when Joel burst into the old kitchen and after him, little Davie.

"'Tisn't there!" shouted Joel. "No, 'tisn't either!" gasped little David.

Polly whirled around with the dish-cloth in her hand, and stared. "What?" she exclaimed.

"No, 'tisn't, I say," screamed Joel, and then he began to cry as hard as he could.

"Come, boys, quick, and help me look for him," and he seized Joel's arm. "The chicken's gone," he explained to the distressed group.

Joel gave a louder scream at that.

"Stop, Joel," said Polly. "Oh, isn't it under the shed, Ben?" and she rushed out, dish-cloth in hand, followed by Mrs. Pepper and all the others.

"I don't believe he's there," said Ben, gloomily, and so it proved. Neither there, nor in any other hiding-place, no matter how long and thoroughly they searched, could they see the black chicken. There was the old gray goose as usual, stalking around and stretching her long neck to see everything, while the children flew hither and thither calling the chicken. They searched adjoining meadows, and little David ran down to the brook to see if he had fallen in there.

At last, toward noon, tired and hot, they were obliged to give up all hope. And a most distressed little bunch of children went slowly into the Little Brown House; and oh, dismal enough, a pouring rain set in, splashing the small-paned window as if crying with them.

"Don't you see you're making Mamsie feel bad?" whispered Polly, hoarsely, to Joel, and she pointed over to the corner where Mrs. Pepper was trying to sew.

Little David, at that, went behind the door and struggled to keep back the tears. "I can't help it," sniffled Joel; "now we can't,--we can't,--"

"Be still," said Polly, pulling his sleeve, and turning her back on the old cupboard, where the flour bag stood up so smartly, all ready in the old yellow bowl. "Oh!" Then she gave a jump into the middle of the floor.

"Oh, what is it?" they all screamed. Little Davie ran out from behind the door to hear.

"Why," and Polly's brown eyes grew very big, "oh, let's have the old gray goose!"

"The old gray goose!" they all echoed, dreadfully disappointed, while Joel cried harder than ever, and little Davie slipped off toward the door again.

"I shouldn't think you'd say so," said Ben, in disapproval, and wondering at Polly, for she always helped out in any trouble.

"Well, now, I think Polly's plan is a very good one," said Mother Pepper, over in her corner. "You can't get the chicken, and you must have your pie; it's as good as commenced, and the old goose ought to be killed anyway; she's getting so cross, it isn't safe to have her around after she bit Sally Brown the other day. So, as Polly says, why not try it? There'll be a pie anyway."

"Oh, Mamsie!" cried Polly, flying over to her with rosy cheeks to throw her arms around her neck. "I'm so glad you think it's right to try it," smothering a sigh at thoughts of the pie they might have had.

"Indeed, I do, Polly," said Mrs. Pepper, with a little pat on the brown head; "there, child, now run off to your work," and she picked up her needle to make it fly faster than ever.

"It won't be chicken pie," said Joel, disconsolately, who had wiped his black eyes at these first signs of cheer.

"Well," said Ben, stoutly, and swallowing hard, "if we can't have chicken pie, why, we must take the next best, and that's goose," and he pretended to laugh heartily at his joke.

"And," said Polly, running back to the little bunch of Peppers in the middle of the kitchen, for Davie wisely concluding since Mamsie thought Polly was right, everything was coming out well somehow, had hurried back to the others, "it's all we've got left; but why didn't the old goose run away, I wonder!"

The idea of the old gray goose running away, set them all into such a fit of laughter, that when they came out of it, the affair was as good as settled. The chicken pie was to be goose pie, and such a goose! The tables were turned decidedly; the old goose, huddling into the shed from the November rain and chuckling to herself, had called down on her own head a sure retribution.

The old gray goose was killed. Polly went bravely to work as if the pleasure of making the most beautiful chicken pie in all the world was before her. And the "children," as Polly and Ben always called the three younger ones in the Pepper brood, laughed and sang and danced about, through all the preparations when they couldn't help them forward, and almost forgot they had ever intended to have a chicken pie.

And they had a pudding on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, yes, and a famous one it was! And at the last minute, old Mrs. Beebe, whose husband kept a little shoe-shop in Badgertown Centre, stopped in their old wagon, with some beautiful asters.

"Here, children, 's some posies for your table. I've got more'n I want; I'm real sorry you had such a time about your pie." And afterward, in the midst of the festivities at home, she broke out, "I declare, I was 'most beat to see them little dears behave so nice, and flyin' round pretendin' they'd rather have a tough old goose than not."

So Polly had her flowers after all, and she dressed the pie gayly with them, stifling a sigh as she put them over the old goose; and they laughed and ate, to be sure, not so much as if tender chicken had been on their plates. However, it turned out better than they had expected, Polly having persistently boiled it before it was cut up to be baked in the pie. And so they hurried over that part of the repast; they were all in such a hurry to get to that elegant pudding. That was just magnificent, and done to a turn; and to Joel's great delight, fairly beaded with plums. Wasn't it splendid, though!

But at last the feast was all over, and they finally pushed back their chairs, leaving the biggest part of the goose pie untouched.

"Now," said Phronsie, "where's my wissbone, Polly? I want my wissbone, I do."

"Oh, darling," cried Polly, catching her up from the high-chair, "you'll have to wait for next Thanksgiving for that. 'Tisn't our fault you can't have it, Phronsie; the black chicken ran away with it."

PHRONSIE'S NEW SHOES

Polly was working hard to make the fire burn. Something was the matter with the old stove that morning. There had been a big crack for some time at the back that let in the air alarmingly; but Ben had stuffed this up with putty the week before, and it had done very well; but just as Polly had washed up the breakfast dishes this morning, and was going to put her pans of bread into the oven, out tumbled the putty, the old black stove grew cold, and everything came to a standstill. The truth was, the poor old stove was about worn out.

"O dear!" said Polly, "now what's going to be done! Why couldn't it have waited, and Ben's away, too!"

She flew around for something to stop up the hole with; she couldn't find any putty, of course, but nothing else appeared. So she got down on the floor before it and rattled the dampers, and put in more wood. She was kneeling in front of it, her face very red with her exertions, and trying to push a refractory smouldering log of wood into a more "burnable" position, when Phronsie emerged from the bedroom with a very injured expression. "Oh, Polly, I'm so hungry!"

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