Five Little Peppers Midway Part 40

"Oh! you come along," cried Van, laying hold of his jacket. "See here,"

dropping his voice cautiously, as he towed him successfully out, "let's give Joe a chance to see a burglar; he wants to so terribly."

"What do you mean?" asked Percy, with astonished eyes, his hands still in his pockets.

Van burst into a loud laugh, then stopped short. "It'll take two of us," he whispered.

"Oh, Van!" exclaimed Percy, and pulling his hands from their resting places, he clapped them smartly together.

"But we ought not, I really suppose," he said at last, letting them fall to his sides. "Mamma mightn't like it, you know."

"She wouldn't mind," said Van, yet he looked uneasy. "It would be a great comfort to every one, to take Joe down. He does yarn so."

"It's an old grudge with you," said Percy pleasantly. "You know he beat you when you were a little fellow, and he'd just come."

"As if I cared for that," cried Van in a dudgeon, "that was nothing. I didn't half try; and he went at me like a country sledge-hammer."

"Yes, I remember," Percy nodded placidly, "and you got all worsted and knocked into a heap. Everybody knew it."

"Do you suppose I'd pound a visitor?" cried Van wrathfully, his cheeks aflame. "Say, Percy Whitney?"

"No, I don't," said Percy, "not when 'twas Joe."

"That's just it. He was Polly's brother."

At mention of Polly, Percy's color rose, and he put out his hand. "Beg pardon, Van," he said. "Here, shake, and make up. I forgot all about our promise," he added penitently.

"I forgot it, too," declared Van, quieting down, and thrusting out his brown palm to meet his brother's. "Well, I don't care what you say if you'll only go halves in this lark," he finished, brightening up.

"Well, I will," said Percy, to make atonement.

"Come up to our room, then, and think it out," cried Van gleefully, flying over the stairs three at a bound. "Sh--s.h.!.+ and hurry up!"

Just then the door-bell gave a loud peal, and Jencks the butler opened it to receive a box about two feet long and one broad.

"For Miss Phronsie Pepper," said the footman on the steps, holding it out, "but it's not to be given to her till to-morrow."

"All right," said Jencks, taking it. "That's the sixth box for Miss Phronsie that I've took in this morning," he soliloquized, going down the hall and reading the address carefully. "And all the same size."

"Ding-a-ling," Jencks laid the parcel quickly on one of the oaken chairs in the hall, and hurried to the door, to be met by another parcel for "Miss Phronsie Pepper: not to be given to her till to-morrow."

"And the i-dentical size," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, squinting at it as he went back to pick up the first parcel, "as like as two peas, they are."

Upstairs Polly was at work with happy fingers, Alexia across the room, asking every third minute, "Polly, how does it go? O dear! I can't do anything unless you look and see if it's right."

And Polly would turn her back on a certain cloud of white muslin and floating lace, and flying off to Alexia to give the necessary criticism, with a pull here and a pat there, would set matters straight, presently running back to her own work again.

"You see," she said, "everything must be just right, for next to Mamsie's wedding, this is to be the most important occasion, Alexia Rhys, that we've ever known. We can't have anything too nice for Phronsie's getting-well party."

"That's so," said Alexia, twitching a pink satin bow on the handle of a flower-basket. "O dear me! this bow looks like everything! I've tried six different times to make it hang down quite careless and refined.

And just to provoke me, it pokes up like a stiff old thing in my face.

Do come and tie it, Polly."

So Polly jumped up again, and laying determined fingers on the refractory bow, sent it into a shape that Alexia protested was "too lovely for anything."

"Are you going to have a good-by party?" asked Alexia after a minute.

"I suppose so," said Polly. "Grandpapa said I would better, but O dear me, I don't believe I can ever get through with it in all this world,"

and Polly hid her face behind a cloud of muslin that was slowly coming into shape as a dress for one of Phronsie's biggest dolls.

"It will be dreadful," said Alexia, with a pathetic little sniff, and beginning on a second pink bow, "but then, you know, it's your duty to go off nicely, and I'm sure you can't do it, Polly, without a farewell party."

"Yes," said Polly slowly, "but then I'd really rather write little notes to all the girls. But I suppose they'll all enjoy the party," she added.

"Indeed they will," declared Alexia quickly. "O dear me, I wish I was going with you. You'll have a perfectly royal time.

"I'm going to work hard at my music, you know," declared Polly, raising her head suddenly, a glow on her round cheek.

"Oh! well, you'll only peg away at it when you've a mind," said Alexia carelessly, and setting lazy st.i.tches. "Most of the time you'll be jaunting around, seeing things, and having fun generally. Oh! don't I wish I was going with you."

"Alexia Rhys!" cried Polly in astonishment, and casting her needle from her, she deserted the muslin cloud summarily. "Only peg away when I have the mind?" she repeated indignantly. "Well, I shall have the mind most of the time, I can tell you. Why, that's what I am going abroad for, to study music. How can I ever teach it, if I don't go, pray tell?" she demanded, and now her eyes flashed, and her hands worked nervously.

"Oh! nonsense," cried Alexia, not looking at the face before her, and going on recklessly, "as if that meant anything, all that talk about your being a music-teacher, Polly," and she gave a little incredulous laugh.

Polly got out of her chair somehow, and stood very close to the fussing fingers over the pink satin bow. "Do you never dare say that to me again," she commanded; "it's the whole of my life to be a music-teacher--the very whole."

"Oh, Polly!" down went the satin bow dragging with it Alexia's spool of silk and the dainty scissors. "Don't--don't--I didn't mean anything; but you really know that Mr. King will never let you be a music-teacher in all this world. Never; you know it, Polly. Oh! don't look like that; please don't."

"He will," said Polly, in a low but perfectly distinct voice, "for he has promised me."

"Well, he'll get out of it somehow," said Alexia, her evil genius urging her on, "for you know, Polly, it would be too queer for any of his family, and--and a girl of our set, to turn out a music-teacher.

You know, Polly, that it would."

And Alexia smiled in the most convincing way and jumped up to throw her arms around her friend.

"If any of the girls in our set," said Polly grandly, and stepping off from Alexia, "wish to draw away from me, they can do so now. I am to be a music-teacher; I'm perfectly happy to be one, I want you all to understand. Just as happy as I can possibly be in all this world. Why, it's what I've been studying and working for, and how else do you suppose I can ever repay dear Grandpapa for helping me?" Her voice broke, and she stopped a minute, clasping her hands tightly to keep back the rush of words.

"Oh, Polly!" cried Alexia in dismay, and beginning to whimper, she tried again to put her arm around her.

"Don't touch me," said Polly, waving her off with an imperative hand.

"Oh, Polly! Polly!"

"And the rest of our set may feel as you do; then I don't want them to keep on liking me," said Polly, with her most superb air, and drawing off further yet.

"Polly, if you don't stop, you'll--you'll kill me," gasped Alexia. "Oh, Polly! I don't care what you are. You may teach all day if you want to, and I'll help get you scholars. I'll do anything, and so will all the girls; I know they will. Polly, do let me be your friend just as I was.

O, dear, dear! I wish I hadn't said anything--I wish I had bitten my tongue off; I didn't think you'd mind it so much," and now Alexia broke down, and sobbed outright.

"You've got to say it's glorious to teach," said Polly, unmoved, and with her highest air on, "and that you're glad I'm going to do it."