“And you’re very impertinent, too,” said Miss Jerusha; “a good child never is impertinent.”
Polly sat quite still; and Miss Jerusha continued:
“Now, I hope you will learn to be industrious; and when I come again, I will see what you have done.”
“You aren’t ever coming again,” said Joel, defiantly, “no, never!”
“Joel!” implored Polly, and in her distress she pulled up her bandage as she looked at him; “you know mamma’ll be so sorry. Oh, ma’am,” and she turned to Miss Jerusha, who was now thoroughly aroused to the duty she saw before her of doing these children good, “I don’t know what is the reason, ma’am; Joel never talks so; he’s real good; and—”
“It only shows,” said the lady, seeing her way quite clear for a little exhortation, “that you’ve all had your own way from infancy; and that you don’t do what you might to make your mother’s life a happy one.”
“Oh, ma’am,” cried Polly, and she burst into a flood of tears, “please, please don’t say that!”
“And I say,” screamed Joel, stamping his small foot, “if you make Polly cry you’ll kill her! Don’t, Polly, don’t!” and the boy put both arms around her neck, and soothed and comforted her in every way he could think of. And Miss Jerusha, seeing no way to make herself heard, disappeared feeling pity for children who would turn away from good advice.
But still Polly cried on; all the pent-up feelings that had been so long controlled had free vent now. She really couldn’t stop! Joel, frightened to death, at last said, “I’m going to wake up Ben.”
That brought Polly to; and she sobbed out, “Oh, no, Jo—ey—I’ll stop.”
“I will,” said Joel, seeing his advantage; “I’m going, Polly,” and he started to the foot of the stairs.
“No, I’m done now, Joe,” said Polly, wiping her eyes, and choking back her thoughts—“Oh, Joe! I must scream! my eyes aches so!” and poor Polly fairly writhed all over the chair.
“What’ll I do?” said Joel, at his wits’ end, running back, “do you want some water?”
“Oh, no,” gasped Polly; “doctor wouldn’t let me; oh! I wish mammy’d come!”
“I’ll go and look for her,” suggested Joel, feeling as if he must do something; and he’d rather be out at the gate, than to see Polly suffer.
“That won’t bring her,” said Polly; trying to keep still; “I’ll try to wait.”
“Here she is now!” cried Joel, peeping out of the window; “Oh goody!”
8
Joel’s Turn
“Well”—Mrs. Pepper’s tone was unusually blithe as she stepped into the kitchen—“you’ve had a nice time, I suppose—what in the world!” and she stopped at the bedroom door.
“Oh, mammy, if you’d been here!” said Joel, while Polly sat still, only holding on to her eyes as if they were going to fly out; “there’s been a big woman here; she came right in—and she talked awful! and Polly’s been a-crying, and her eyes ache dreadful—and—”
“Been crying!” repeated Mrs. Pepper, coming up to poor Polly. “Polly been crying!” she still repeated.
“Oh, mammy, I couldn’t help it,” said Polly; “she said—” and in spite of all she could do, the rain of tears began again, which bade fair to be as uncontrolled as before. But Mrs. Pepper took her up firmly in her arms, as if she were Phronsie, and sat down in the old rocking-chair and just patted her back.
“There, there,” she whispered, soothingly, “don’t think of it, Polly; mother’s got home.”
“Oh, mammy,” said Polly, crawling up to the comfortable neck for protection, “I oughtn’t have to minded; but ’twas Miss Jerusha Henderson; and she said—”
“What did she say?” asked Mrs. Pepper, thinking perhaps it would be the wiser thing to let Polly free her mind.
“Oh! she said that we ought to be doing something; and I ought to knit, and—”
“Go on,” said her mother.
“And then Joel got naughty; oh, mammy, he never did so before; and I couldn’t stop him,” cried Polly, in great distress; “I really couldn’t, mammy—and he talked to her; and he told her she wasn’t ever coming here again.”
“Joel shouldn’t have said that,” said Mrs. Pepper; and under her breath something was added that Polly even failed to hear—“but all the same, she isn’t!”
“And, mammy,” cried Polly—and she flung her arms around her mother’s neck and gave her a grasp that nearly choked Mrs. Pepper, “ain’t I helpin’ you some, mammy? Oh! I wish I could do something big for you? Aren’t you happy, mammy?”
“O dear me—happy!” cried Mrs. Pepper, straining Polly to her heart, “whatever has that woman—whatever could she have said to you? Such a girl as you are, too!” cried Mrs. Pepper, hugging Polly, and covering her with kisses so tender, that Polly, warmed and cuddled up to her heart’s content, was comforted to the full.
“Well,” said Mrs. Pepper, when at last she thought she had formed between Polly and Joel about the right idea of the visit, “well, now we won’t think of it any more; ’tisn’t worth it, Polly, you know.”
But poor Polly! and poor mother! They both were obliged to think of it. Nothing could avert the suffering of the next few days, caused by that long flow of burning tears.
“Nothing feels good on ’em, mammy,” said Polly, at last, twisting her hands in the vain attempt to keep from rubbing the aching, inflamed eyes that drove her nearly wild with their itching, “there isn’t any use in trying anything.”
“There will be use,” energetically protested Mrs. Pepper, bringing another cool bandage, “as long as you’ve got an eye in your head, Polly Pepper!”
Doctor Fisher’s face, when he first saw the change that the fateful visit had wrought, and heard the accounts, was very grave indeed. Everything had been so encouraging on his last visit, that he had come very near promising Polly speedy freedom from the hateful bandage.
But the little Pepper household soon had something else to think of more important even than Polly’s eyes, for now the heartiest, the jolliest of all the little group was down—Joel. How he fell sick, they scarcely knew, it all came so suddenly. The poor, bewildered family had hardly time to think, before delirium and, perhaps, death stared them in the face.
When Polly first heard it, by Phronsie’s pattering down-stairs and screaming: “Oh, Polly, Joey’s dre-ad-ful sick, he is!” she jumped right up, and tore off the bandage.
“Now, I will help mother! I will, so there!” and in another minute she would have been up in the sick-room. But the first thing she knew, a gentle but firm hand was laid upon hers; and she found herself back again in the old rocking-chair, and listening to the doctor’s words, which were quite stern and decisive.
“Now, I tell you,” he said, “you must not take off that bandage again; do you know the consequences? You will be blind! and then you will be a care to your mother all your life!”
“I shall be blind, anyway,” said Polly, despairingly; “so ’twon’t make any difference.”
“No; your eyes will come out of it all right, only I did hope”—and the good doctor’s face fell—“that the other two boys would escape; but”—and he brightened up at sight of Polly’s forlorn visage—“see you do your part by keeping still.”
But there came a day soon when everything was still around the once happy Little Brown House—when only whispers were heard from white lips; and thoughts were fearfully left unuttered.
On the morning of one of these days, when Mrs. Pepper felt she could not exist an hour longer without sleep, kind Mrs. Beebe came to stay until things were either better or worse.
Still the cloud hovered, dark and forbidding. At last, one afternoon, when Polly was all alone, she could endure it no longer. She flung herself down by the side of the old bed, and buried her face in the gay patched bed-quilt.
“Dear God,” she said, “make me willing to have anything”—she hesitated—“yes, anything happen; to be blind forever, and to have
Joey sick, only make me good.”
How long she staid there she never knew; for she fell asleep—the first sleep she had had since Joey was taken sick. And little Mrs. Beebe coming in found her thus.
“Polly,” the good woman said, leaning over her, “you poor, pretty creeter, you; I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’—there, there, just to think! Joel’s goin’ to get well!”
“Oh, Mrs. Beebe!” cried Polly, tumbling over in a heap on the floor, her face, as much as could be seen under the bandage, in a perfect glow, “Is he, really?”
“Yes, to be sure; the danger’s all over now,” said the little old lady, inwardly thinking—“If I hadn’t a-come!”
“Well, then, the Lord wants him to,” cried Polly, in rapture; “doesn’t He, Mrs. Beebe?”
“To be sure—to be sure,” repeated the kind friend, only half understanding.
“Well, I don’t care about my eyes, then,” cried Polly; and to Mrs. Beebe’s intense astonishment and dismay, she spun round and round in the middle of the floor.
“Oh, Polly, Polly!” the little old lady cried, running up to her, “do stop! the doctor wouldn’t let you! he wouldn’t really, you know! it’ll all go to your eyes.”
“I don’t care,” repeated Polly, in the middle of a spin; but she stopped obediently; “seems as if I just as soon be blind as not; it’s so beautiful Joey’s going to get well!”
9
Sunshine Again
But as Joel was smitten down suddenly, so he came up quickly, and his hearty nature asserted itself by rapid strides toward returning health; and one morning he astonished them all by turning over suddenly and exclaiming:
“I want something to eat!”
“Bless the Lord!” cried Mrs. Pepper, “now he’s going to live!”
“But he mustn’t eat,” protested Mrs. Beebe, in great alarm, trotting for the cup of gruel. “Here, you pretty creeter you, here’s something nice.” And she temptingly held the spoon over Joel’s mouth; but with a grimace he turned away.
“Oh, I want something to eat! some gingerbread or some bread and butter.”
“Mercy!” ejaculated Mrs. Beebe. “Gingerbread!”
Poor Mrs. Pepper saw the hardest part of her trouble now before her, as she realized that the returning appetite must be fed only on strengthening food; for where it was to come from she couldn’t tell.
“The Lord only knows where we’ll get it,” she groaned within herself.
Yes, He knew. A rap at the door, and little David ran down to find the cause.
“Oh, mammy,” he said, “Mrs. Henderson sent it—see! see!”
And in the greatest excitement he placed in her lap a basket that smelt savory and nice even before it was opened. When it was opened, there lay a little bird delicately roasted, and folded in a clean napkin; also a glass of jelly, crimson and clear.
“Oh, Joey,” cried Mrs. Pepper, almost overwhelmed with joy, “see what Mrs. Henderson sent you! Now you can eat fit for a king!”
That little bird certainly performed its mission in life; for as Mrs. Beebe said, “It just touched the spot!” and from that very moment Joel improved so rapidly they could hardly believe their eyes.
“Hoh! I haven’t been sick!” he cried on the third day, true to his nature. “Mammy, I want to get up.”
“O goodness no! You mustn’t, Joel!” cried Mrs. Pepper, in a fright, running up to him as he was preparing to give the bedclothes a lusty kick; “you’ll send ’em in.”
“Send what in?” asked Joel, looking up at his mother in terror, as the dreadful thought made him pause.
“Why, the measles, Joey; they’ll all go in if you get out.”
“How they goin’ to get in again, I’d like to know?” asked Joel, looking at the little red spots on his hands in incredulity; “say, ma!”
“Well, they will,” said his mother, “as you’ll find to your sorrow if you get out of bed.”
“O dear!” said Joel, beginning to whimper, as he drew into bed again, “when can I get up, mammy?”
“Oh, in a day or two,” responded Mrs. Pepper, cheerfully; “you’re getting on so finely you’ll be as smart as a cricket! Shouldn’t you say he might get up in a day or two, Mrs. Beebe?” she appealed to that individual, who was knitting away cheerily in the corner.
“Well, if he keeps on as he’s begun, I shouldn’t know what to think,” replied Mrs. Beebe. “It beats all how quick he’s picked up. I never see anything like it, I’m sure!”
And as Mrs. Beebe was a great authority in sickness, the old, sunny cheeriness began to creep into the Little Brown House once more, and to bubble over as of yore.
“Seems as if ’twas just good to live,” said Mrs. Pepper, thankfully once, when her thoughts were too much for her. “I don’t believe I shall ever care how poor we are,” she continued, “as long as we’re together.”
“And that’s just what the Lord meant, maybe,” replied good Mrs. Beebe, who was preparing to go home.
Joel kept the house in a perfect uproar all through his getting well. Mrs. Pepper observed one day, when he had been more turbulent than usual, that she was “almost worn to a thread.”
“It wasn’t anything to take care of you, Joe,” she added, “when you were real sick, because then I knew where you were; but—well, you won’t ever have the measles again, I s’pose, and that’s some comfort!”
Little David, who had been nearly stunned by the sickness that had laid aside his almost constant companion, could express his satisfaction and joy in no other way than by running every third minute and begging to do something for him. And Joel, who loved dearly to be waited on, improved every opportunity that offered; which Mrs. Pepper observing, soon put a stop to.
“You’ll run his legs off, Joel,” at last she said, when he sent David the third time down to the wood-pile for a stick of just the exact thickness, which the little messenger declared wasn’t to be found. “Haven’t you any mercy? You’ve kept him going all day, too,” she added, glancing at David’s pale face.
“Oh, mammy,” panted David, “don’t; I love to go. Here Joe, is the best I could find,” handing him a nice smooth stick.
“I know you do,” said his mother; “but Joe’s getting better now, and he must learn to spare you.”
“I don’t want to spare folks,” grumbled Joel, whittling away with energy; “I’ve been sick—real sick,” he added, lifting his chubby face to his mother to impress the fact.
“I know you have,” she cried, running to kiss her boy; “but now, Joe, you’re ’most well. To-morrow I’m going to let you go down-stairs; what do you think of that!”
“Hooray!” screamed Joel, throwing away the stick and clapping his hands, forgetting all about his serious illness, “that’ll be prime!”
“Aren’t you too sick to go, Joey?” asked Mrs. Pepper, mischievously.
“No, I ain’t sick,” cried Joel, in the greatest alarm, fearful his mother meant to take back the promise; “I’ve never been sick. Oh, mammy! you know you’ll let me go, won’t you?”
“I guess so,” laughed his mother.
“Come on, Phron,” cried Joel, giving her a whirl.
David, who was too tired for active sport, sat on the floor and watched them frolic in great delight.
“Mammy,” said he, edging up to her side as the sport went on, “do you know, I think it’s just good—it’s—oh, it’s so frisky since Joe got well, isn’t it, mammy?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Pepper, giving him a radiant look in return for his; “and when Polly’s around again with her two eyes all right—well, I don’t know what we shall do, I declare!”
“Boo!” cried a voice, next morning, close to Polly’s elbow, unmistakably Joel’s.
“Oh, Joel Pepper!” she cried, whirling around, “is that really you!”
“Yes,” cried that individual, confidently, “it’s me; oh, I say, Polly, I’ve had fun up-stairs, I tell you what!”
“Poor boy!” said Polly, co
mpassionately.
“I wasn’t a poor boy,” cried Joel, indignantly; “I had splendid things to eat; Oh, my!” and he closed one eye and smacked his lips in the delightful memory.
“I know it,” said Polly, “and I’m so glad, Joel.”
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever get so many again,” observed Joel, reflectively, after a minute’s pause, as one and another of the wondrous delicacies rose before his mind’s eye; “not unless I have the measles again—say, Polly, can’t I have ’em again?”
“Dear me, no!” cried Polly, in intense alarm, “I hope not.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Joel, “I wish I could have ’em sixty—no—two hundred times, so there!”
“Well, mammy couldn’t take care of you,” said Ben; “you don’t know what you’re saying, Joe.”
“Well, then, I wish I could have the things without the measles,” said Joel, willing to accommodate; “only folks won’t send ’em,” he added, in an injured tone.
“Polly’s had the hardest time of all,” said her mother, affectionately patting the bandage.
“I think so, too,” put in Ben; “if my eyes were hurt I’d give up.”
“So would I,” said Davie; and Joel, to be in the fashion, cried also, “I know I would;” while little Phronsie squeezed up to Polly’s side, “And I, too.”
“Would what, Puss?” asked Ben, tossing her up high.
“Have good things,” cried the child, in delight at understanding the others, “I would really, Ben,” she cried, gravely, when they all screamed.
“Well, I hope so,” said Ben, tossing her higher yet.
“Don’t laugh at her, boys,” put in Polly; “we’re all going to have good times now, Phronsie, now we’ve got well.”
“Yes,” laughed the child from her high perch; “we ain’t ever going to be sick again, ever—no more,” she added, impressively.
The good times were coming for Polly—coming pretty near, and she didn’t know it! All the children were in the secret; for, as Mrs. Pepper declared, “They’d have to know it; and if they were let into the secret they’d keep it better.”
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Complete Text (Charming Classics) Page 7
