Five Little Peppers Midway Part 27

"Perhaps Joel and Phronsie will think as we do," said Polly. But her heart said No.

"All right if they do," said Mr. King easily, "but unless you come and tell me it is their own choice, why, I shall just go on with my plans as mapped out," he added obstinately. "Thomas," as that functionary appeared in the doorway, "take the letters to the post at once; you will find them on my writing table."

"All right, sir."

"I'll give you till to-morrow to find out," said Mr. King. "Now come and kiss me, Polly dear. You'll see it's all right after it's over, and be glad I had the sense to keep my mind about it."

Polly put up her lips obediently. But it was a sad little kiss that was set upon his mouth, and it left him feeling like a criminal.

And running out, she met her difficult task without a moment of preparation.

"Halloo, Polly!" whooped Joel, rus.h.i.+ng around an angle in the hall, "Grandpapa promised me that I might go out with him, to give the supper orders, and all that kind of nonsense."

Polly's heart stood still.

"Joel," she began, seizing his jacket with trembling fingers, "come up into my room a minute."

"What's up?" cried Joel with curiosity; "some more mysteries? There's nothing but whisperings, and secrets, and no end of jolly understandings, ever since Mamsie commenced to marry Dr. Fisher. Go ahead, I'll come."

"And Phronsie, too," said Polly, seeing the yellow head emerge from the breakfast-room doorway.

"Come on, Phron," sang out Joel, "up in Polly's room--she wants you,"

and the three hurried off.

"Now, Joel," said Polly, closing the door and facing him desperately, "you are Mamsie's own boy."

"I should think so," said Joel, "I'm not anybody's else. Is that all you brought me up here to say?" thrusting his hands in his pockets and looking at her.

"And you can make her happy, or just as miserable as I can't say what,"

went on Polly incoherently.

"What in the world are you firing at?" demanded the boy, visions of certain pranks at school unpleasantly before him. "Don't shoot over my head, Polly, but keep somewhere near your mark," he advised irritably.

Phronsie surveyed the two with wide eyes, and a not wholly pleased manner.

"Mamsie does not want a big wedding," declared Polly, going to the heart of the matter, "but dear kind Grandpapa thinks it will please us children, and so he wants to give her one."

"And so it will," cried Joel, "please us children. Whoop la! give us your hand, Phronsie, this is the way we'll dance afterwards at the party."

"I don't want to dance," said Phronsie, standing quite still in the middle of the room. The morning sun shone across her yellow hair, but no light came into the large eyes. "Polly wants something, first; what is it, Joel?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Joel, poised on a careless foot, and executing a remarkable pas seul. "I don't believe she knows herself.

Polly is often queer, you know, Phronsie," he added cheerfully.

"Tell me, Polly, do," whispered Phronsie, going over to her.

"Phronsie," said Polly very slowly, "Mamsie doesn't want a big party in the evening to see her married, but to have a cunning little company of friends come in the morning, and"--

"Ugh!" cried Joel in disgust, coming down suddenly to both feet.

"It will please Mamsie best," went on Polly, with a cold shoulder to Joel. "And I never should be happy in all this world to remember that I helped to make my Mamsie unhappy on her wedding day."

Phronsie s.h.i.+vered, and her voice held a miserable little thrill as she begged, "Oh! make her be married just as she wants to be, Polly, do."

"Now that's what I call mean," cried Joel in a loud, vindictive tone back of Polly, "to work on Phronsie's feelings. You can't make me say I don't want Mamsie to have a wedding splurge, so there, Polly Pepper!"

Polly preserved a dignified silence, and presented her shoulder again to his view.

"You can't make me say it, Polly Pepper!" shouted Joel shrilly.

"Oh, Phronsie!" exclaimed Polly in a rapture, throwing her arms around the child, "Mamsie will be so pleased--you can't think. Let us go and tell her; come!"

"See here!" called Joel, edging up, "why don't you talk to me?"

"I haven't anything to say," Polly condescended to give him, without turning her head. "Come, Phronsie," holding out her hand.

"Wait a minute."

"Well, what is it?" Polly's hand now held Phronsie's, but she paused on the way to the door.

"I guess I can give up things as well as she can, if I know Mamsie wants me to," said Joel, with a deeply injured manner.

"Mamsie doesn't want any of us to give up anything unless we do it as if we were glad to," said Polly. For her life, she couldn't conceal a little scornful note in her voice, and Joel winced miserably.

"I--I wish she wouldn't have the big party," he whined.

"I thought you wanted it," said Polly, turning to him.

"I--I don't. I'd rather Mamsie would be happy. O, dear! don't look at me so."

"I'm not looking at you so," said Polly. "You acted just as if you had your heart set on the party."

"Well, it isn't. I'll--I'll--if you say party to me again!" and he faced her vindictively.

"Joel Pepper!" cried Polly, holding him with her brown eyes, "do you really mean that you are glad to give up that big evening party, and have the little teeny one in the morning?"

"Yes," said Joel, "as true as I live and breathe, I do!"

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Polly, and seizing his arm, she led off in a dance, so much surpa.s.sing his efforts, that Phronsie screamed with delight to see them go. When they could dance no more, Polly, flushed and panting, ran out of the room, leaving the two to find out as best they might, the cause of the strange demeanor.

"Grandpapa," Polly rus.h.i.+ng over the stairs, met him coming up to Mrs.

Whitney's room, "Joel says it's the little morning wedding--please; and Phronsie too!"

The old gentleman gave no sign of his defeat, beyond a "Humph! and so I'm beaten, after all!"

And Dr. Fisher never knew all this.

Mamsie's wedding-day! At last it came! Was any other ever so bright and beautiful? Phronsie thought not, and thereupon she impeded the preparations by running up to kiss her mother every few moments, until such time as Felicie carried her off to induct her into a white muslin gown. Polly, here, there, and everywhere, was in such a rapture that she seemed to float on wings, while the boys of the household, with the exception of Jasper, lost their heads early in the day, and helplessly succ.u.mbed to all demands upon them.