Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Part 8

"Oh no, I'm not," responded Ben, cheerfully, who knew what measles were; "wipe up, Polly; I'm all right; only my head aches, and my eyes feel funny."

But Polly, only half-rea.s.sured, controlled her sobs; and the sorrowful trio repaired to mother.

"Oh, dear!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Pepper, sinking in a chair in dismay, at sight of Ben's red face; "whatever'll we do now!"

The prop and stay of her life would be taken away if Ben should be laid aside. No more stray half or quarter dollars would come to help her out when she didn't know where to turn.

Polly cleared off the deserted table--for once Joel had all the bread and b.u.t.ter he wanted. Ben took some of Phronsie's medicine, and crawled up into the loft, to bed; and quiet settled down on the little household.

"Polly," whispered Ben, as she tucked him in, "it'll be hard buckling-to now, for you, but I guess you'll do it."

MORE TROUBLE

"Oh, dear," said Polly to herself, the next morning, trying to get a breakfast for the sick ones out of the inevitable mush; "everything's just as bad as it can be! they can't ever eat this; I wish I had an ocean of toast!"

"Toast some of the bread in the pail, Polly," said Mrs. Pepper.

She looked worn and worried; she had been up nearly all night, back and forth from Ben's bed in the loft to restless, fretful little Phronsie in the big four-poster in the bedroom; for Phronsie wouldn't get into the crib. Polly had tried her best to help her, and had rubbed her eyes diligently to keep awake, but she was wholly unaccustomed to it, and her healthy, tired little body succ.u.mbed--and then when she awoke, shame and remorse filled her very heart.

"That isn't nice, ma," she said, glancing at the poor old pail, which she had brought out of the "Provision Room." "Old brown bread! I want to fix 'em something nice."

"Well, you can't, you know," said Mrs. Pepper, with a sigh; "but you've got b.u.t.ter now; that'll be splendid!"

"I know it," said Polly, running to the corner cupboard where the precious morsel in the blue bowl remained; "whatever should we do without it, mammy?"

"Do without it!" said Mrs. Pepper; "same's we have done."

"Well, 'twas splendid in Mrs. Henderson to give it to us, anyway," said Polly, longing for just one taste; "seems as if 'twas a year since I was there--oh, ma!" and here Polly took up the thread that had been so rudely snapped; "don't you think, she's got ten of the prettiest--yes, the sweetest little chickens you ever saw! Why can't we have some, mammy?"

"Costs money," replied Mrs. Pepper. "We've got too many in the house to have any outside."

"Oh, dear," said Polly, with a red face that was toasting about as much as the bread she was holding on the point of an old fork; "we never have had anything. There," she added at last; "that's the best I can do; now I'll put the b.u.t.ter on this little blue plate; ain't that cunning, ma?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Pepper, approvingly; "it takes you, Polly." So Polly trotted first to Ben, up the crooked, low stairs to the loft; and while she regaled him with the brown toast and b.u.t.ter, she kept her tongue flying on the subject of the little chicks, and all that she saw on the famous Henderson visit. Poor Ben pretended hard to eat, but ate nothing really; and Polly saw it all, and it cut her to the heart--so she talked faster than ever.

"Now," she said, starting to go back to Phronsie; "Ben Pepper, just as soon as you get well, we'll have some chickens--so there!"

"Guess we sha'n't get 'em very soon," said Ben, despondently, "if I've got to lie here; and, besides, Polly, you know every bit we can save has got to go for the new stove."

"Oh, dear," said Polly, "I forgot that; so it has; seems to me everything's giving out!"

"You can't bake any longer in the old thing," said Ben, turning over and looking at her; "poor girl, I don't see how you've stood it so long."

"And we've been stuffing it," cried Polly merrily, "till 'twon't stuff any more."

"No," said Ben, turning back again, "that's all worn out."

"Well, you must go to sleep," said Polly, "or mammy'll be up here; and Phronsie hasn't had her breakfast either."

Phronsie was wailing away dismally, sitting up in the middle of the old bed. Her face p.r.i.c.ked, she said, and she was rubbing it vigorously with both fat little hands, and then crying worse than ever.

"Oh me! oh my!" cried Polly; "how you look, Phronsie!"

"I want my mammy!" cried poor Phronsie.

"Mammy can't come now, Phronsie dear; she's sewing. See what Polly's got for you--b.u.t.ter: isn't that splendid!"

Phronsie stopped for just one moment, and took a mouthful; but the toast was hard and dry, and she cried harder than before.

"Now," said Polly, curling up on the bed beside her, "if you'll stop crying, Phronsie Pepper, I'll tell you about the cunningest, yes, the very cunningest little chickens you ever saw. One was white, and he looked just like this," said Polly, tumbling over on the bed in a heap; "he couldn't stand up straight, he was so fat."

"Did he bite?" asked Phronsie, full of interest.

"No, he didn't bite me," said Polly; "but his mother put a bug in his mouth--just as I'm doing you know," and she broke off a small piece of the toast, put on a generous bit of b.u.t.ter, and held it over Phronsie's mouth.

"Did he swallow it?" asked the child, obediently opening her little red lips.

"Oh, snapped it," answered Polly, "quick as ever he could, I tell you; but 'twasn't good like this, Phronsie."

"Did he have two bugs?" asked Phronsie, eying suspiciously the second morsel of dry toast that Polly was conveying to her mouth.

"Well, he would have had," replied Polly, "if there'd been bugs enough; but there were nine other chicks, Phronsie."

"Poor chickies," said Phronsie, and looked lovingly at the rest of the toast and b.u.t.ter on the plate; and while Polly fed it to her, listened with absorbed interest to all the particulars concerning each and every chick in the Henderson hen-coop.

"Mother," said Polly, towards evening, "I'm going to sit up with Ben to-night; say I may, do, mother."

"Oh no, you can't," replied Mrs. Pepper; "you'll get worn out; and then what shall I do? Joel can hand him his medicine."

"Oh, Joe would tumble to sleep, mammy," said Polly, "the first thing--let me."

"Perhaps Phronsie'll let me go to-night," said Mrs. Pepper, reflectively.

"Oh, no she won't, I know," replied Polly, decisively; "she wants you all the time."

"I will, Polly," said Davie, coming in with an armful of wood, in time to hear the conversation. "I'll give him his medicine, mayn't I, mammy?"

and David let down his load, and came over where his mother and Polly sat sewing, to urge his rights.

"I don't know," said his mother, smiling on him. "Can you, do you think?"

"Yes, ma'am!" said Davie, straightening himself up.

When they told Ben, he said he knew a better way than for Davie to watch; he'd have a string tied to Davie's arm, and the end he'd hold in bed, and when 'twas time for medicine, he'd pull the string, and that would wake Davie up!

Polly didn't sleep much more on her shake-down on the floor than if she had watched with Ben; for Phronsie cried and moaned, and wanted a drink of water every two minutes, it seemed to her. As she went back into her nest after one of these travels, Polly thought: "Well, I don't care, if n.o.body else gets sick; if Ben'll only get well. To-morrow I'm goin' to do mammy's sack she's begun for Mr. Jackson; it's all plain sew-in', just like a bag; and I can do it, I know--" and so she fell into a troubled sleep, only to be awakened by Phronsie's fretful little voice: "I want a drink of water, Polly, I do."