Our Davie Pepper

“YES, it beat all,” said Mr. Atkins, “how he come in and begun looking around—”

“You mean th’ Doctor,” interrupted Deacon Blodgett, reaching over for a scrap of cheese to put on his cracker. He knew the story, having heard it a good dozen times, but he wanted some of the other ears to be introduced to it.

“Who am I a-talkin’ of, ef ’tain’t Doctor Fisher?” said Mr. Atkins irritably.

“Of course,” said the Deacon, helping himself to another cracker to top off the cheese.

It had just begun to drizzle, the light rain keeping customers within the store, and at such a time Mr. Atkins opened his cracker-box and laid out his cheese-knife. He was delighted at the chance of village gossip, and besides they would all more than make up by their orders for the price of the entertainment.

“Yes, he come in, and he looked around this way and that, an’ I kep’ still, for th’ Doctor, you all know, has a way of his own, an’ he would explain in good time, an’ pretty soon he says, ‘Ain’t any Pepper children around, hey?’

“An’ I says ‘No,’ an’ he took one more good look, for he says, ‘I’m not so sure about Joel, for he can get everywhere in just about a minute,’ an’ I says, ‘Yes, I know that, but Joel is to home, for he came tearin’ in here half an hour ago, an’ he said he must hurry an’ git some corn meal, for he’d got to help Polly.’ An’ I waited on him quick, I tell you, an’ he tore off.

“‘I guess I’m safe then—’ said Dr. Fisher. ‘Well, I want to see a stove.’

“‘A stove!’ says I.

“‘I said a stove,’ said Dr. Fisher, quite calm. ‘Come now, let’s see if you’ve got one to suit.’

“‘I’ve got a perfec’ beauty,’ says I, an’ so I had—ordered a new one for old Miss Pringle an’ then she didn’t take it—said her old one acted better after all, an’ she’d concluded to try it a spell longer. So me an’ th’ Doctor went out to the ‘Extension’ [the shed where the storekeeper kept his stoves when he had any, and the pots and pans required by the village housekeepers]. ‘Ain’t that splendid?’ says I, pointing to it.

“Th’ Doctor danced around that stove—you know how he steps off on the tips of his toes when he’s pleased—an’ set his spectacles a dozen times to get a better view, an’ finally he says, ‘Don’t you s’pose she’d like it?’ I never see him so anxious about anythin’.

“‘Why don’t you get your sister to come an’ pick it out for herself?’ I says, finally. He kep’ a-dancin’ around so.

“‘’Tain’t for my sister,’ he says; ‘it’s for Polly Pepper.’

“‘O my land!’ says I.

“‘Yes, it would go to any one’s heart to see that little girl.’

“Dr. Fisher stopped dancing and faced me quite severe. ‘Why—well, I don’t know what to say when I think of her. An’ now her eyes—’

“Well then, th’ Doctor whips out that big handkerchief of his, an’ he blows his nose—pretended he’d got an awful cold—till you’d’a’ thought ’twas Gabriel’s trump, an’ then he says, ‘I’m goin’ to send her a new stove in place of that broken-down old thing that Ben stuffs up with putty, an’—’

“An’ I says, ‘O my land, I didn’t know that!’ an’ I was all struck of a heap to think I might ’a’ give Polly a stove, an’ eased up things a mite for the little-brown-house folks, an’ th’ Doctor grabs my arm, an’ he says, ‘It’s to be kep’ quite secret. Be sure, Atkins, you don’t let a soul know,’—an’ I said I wouldn’t, cross my heart, an’ all that. An’ then I put my foot in it, for I says, ‘Let me give half o’ that stove, Doctor.’

“I tell you, he was real mad then. Did you ever see th’ little Doctor mad? Well, he swelled up till he actually looked big, an’ his eyes—my gracious! they was so fierce, I says, ‘’Xcuse me,’ an’ then he ca’med down, an’ told me th’ stove was to go that afternoon. An’ then he paid me, an’ bolted out as if he’d ben caught doin’ somethin’ bad.”

“Hem!” Deacon Blodgett snipped off another crumb of cheese, looking around to see the effect on the group.

A woman over behind the sugar-barrel burst out, “He’s awful good, Dr. Fisher is. He cured my Jenny of pneumony, an’ he never took a cent o’ pay for it.” She wiped her eyes with her apron.

“Beats all how he takes care o’ those old-maid sisters o’ his’n,” broke in Farmer Jones. “It’s bad enough to have one old maid fastened on you—but two—” he gave a long whistle, “that’s worse’n pisen.”

“Mebbe th’ Lord’ll let him shift ’em pretty soon—they do say there’s a rich wid’wer over to Stockton shinin’ up to Sarah, an’ that’ll be a chance for th’ Doctor to get free.”

“Hoh! well, Sarah ain’t Laviny, an’ she’s homely as a hedge-fence.”

“Sarah Fisher always said whoever took her, must take Laviny, too. They hain’t never ben separated, an’ they never will be.”

“Hoh!” said Farmer Jones again. “Well, th’ little Pepper gal didn’t go blind, after all.”

Mr. Atkins pounded on the counter with his red fist, so that the group jumped. “Blind!” he roared, “Polly Pepper blind? Well, I guess not. Th’ Lord wouldn’t let sech a thing happen, an’ so He got Dr. Fisher to take care of her eyes. Oh, my soul an’ body! there’s somethin’ in th’ world for that girl to do. I dunno what ’tis, but she’s got to have a pair o’ eyes to do it with.”

“Hem!” said Deacon Blodgett again. “Well, now do tell us how th’ stove got there, Atkins.”

“You’d orter hear Davie tell it,” the storekeeper chuckled with glee, and rubbed his hands together—then chuckled again. “I made him go over it one day—you know he helps me keep store.”

“What, that scrap of a boy? You’re jokin’, Atkins,” said one of the men.

“I ain’t jokin’, Tom,” Mr. Atkins drew himself up and declared; “Davie may be a scrap of a boy, but he’s worth more’n some men. An’ it beats all how he can tell th’ truth. An’ I never see nothin’ like it for manners he has—he can keep shop real elegant,” the storekeeper wound up in pride.

“Somethin’ different from Joel,” laughed Tom.

“Well, now, Joel’s all right,” declared Mr. Atkins.

“I’d ruther have Joel,” said Tom. “David is such a meek little mouse.”

“David Pepper ain’t sech a meek little mouse as you think,” said Mr. Atkins decidedly.

“That’s so,” said Farmer Jones. “Remember the burglar in this very shop here, Tom.”

“To be sure!” said Tom, “I forgot that he was th’ boy.”

“Them two boys is as diffrunt as can be,” said the storekeeper, “but they can’t be beat, neither one on ’em. And don’t you never let any one call David a meek little mouse, Tom Sanders. He’s little, but he’s got a mighty lot o’ grit aboard. Why, here he comes now!” he cried joyfully.

Every one whirled around as the door opened and David Pepper walked in.

“Well, well, Davie,” said Mr. Atkins, as David went up to the counter, “so you came to help me keep store, did you? Why, I didn’t ’xpect you to-day, as it rains. Well, I’m glad you’ve come though.”

“I can sweep up the ell,” said Davie, “that you said yesterday I was to do this morning,” and he hurried off for the broom.

“So I did—so I did,” replied the storekeeper, “an’ that made you come in the rain?”

“Yes,” said David, his mind intent on the broom and the dust-pan.

“Well, see here—hold on a bit,” called Mr. Atkins. “Come here, David. Now—” as David hurried back, “I want you to tell us how the stove Dr. Fisher gave Polly got to the little brown house as a surprise. Set up on th’ sugar-barrel an’ tell us, Davie.”

All the color in David’s body seemed to rush into his little round cheek, as he stood there holding the broom. He looked helplessly around, and his eyes fastened on Deacon Blodgett pleadingly.

“I would, Davie,” said the Deacon kindly. “It’s a rainy day an’ we’d like to hear it—an’ ’twould make us like th’ Doctor better.”

To make everybody “like th’ Doctor better” seemed to Davie a thing to do. Every bit of the color went out of his cheeks. He set down the broom, and with a catch in his breath, he mounted the sugar-barrel and folded his hands in his lap.

“Dr. Fisher gave Polly the stove,” he began solemnly.

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Atkins quickly. “We all know that, Davie. Now tell us all about how it got into the little brown house an’ was set up. Begin at th’ very beginnin’, Davie.”

“I would, Davie,” said Deacon Blodgett encouragingly.

David drew a long breath and began again—while the circle crowded up around the sugar-barrel.

“Mamsie told us to stay in the bedroom, and to play something. She said we might make just as much noise as we wanted to, for Polly mustn’t hear things in th’ kitchen, and we mustn’t come out until she called us. And Polly said, ‘Oh, can’t we play in the kitchen because the bedroom is so small?’ and we wanted to play ‘Old Father Dubbin,’ because Phronsie—”

“Who’s old Father Dubbin?” interrupted Tom, the young farmer.

“He isn’t anybody,” said Davie, shaking his head. “Polly made him up, and we play him when she lets us.”

“Oh,” said Tom, “I thought ’twas somebody in Badgertown—new folks, mebbe, who’d moved in.”

“Go on, Davie,” begged the woman, whose daughter Jenny had been cured of pneumonia by Dr. Fisher, and she pressed further into the circle.

“Mamsie said, ‘No, Polly, you must all stay in the bedroom until I call you,’ and Mamsie patted Polly’s head, on top of the bandage, and—”

“Bandage?” repeated another of the men in the listening group.

“Yes, don’t you see Polly’s eyes were tied up.” Davie’s voice trembled, and he had hard work, as the remembrance of it all swept over him, to keep the tears back.

“Oh, I forgot,” said the man, “she was blind.”

“Oh, no, no!” cried David in a sharp little cry, and he tried to spring from the barrel. Oh, couldn’t he get home to Polly, and hold her close and forget that she had ever had her eyes tied up! Then the tears came.

Deacon Blodgett laid both large hands on the small lad. “Well, Davie, you know she wasn’t blind,” he said in a hearty voice.

“No, she wasn’t,” said Davie, smiling through his tears.

“Now tell how the stove got in,” said Jenny’s mother, with a black look for the man who had said “blind.”

“Yes, tell us,” they all took it up.

“Well, we were playing Old Father Dubbin,” Davie had wiped his tears on the big handkerchief that Deacon Blodgett laid in his lap, “and Polly she was ‘Old Father Dubbin,’” then he laughed, “and she had almost caught Joel, when we heard an awful big noise out in the kitchen, and Joel said he was going out there.”

“I reckoned you wouldn’t keep Joel in,” laughed one of the men.

“Oh, he didn’t run out,” Davie hurried to say, and he shook his light waves of hair convincingly. “Joel stopped wanting to go out when Polly said ‘No, you mustn’t—Mamsie said we were to stay here.’ And then Ben came in. Mamsie kept him in the kitchen, and he had a big stick—oh, as big as this,” David spread his arms, “and he said he wanted to be Old Father Dubbin, and Polly said she was glad, and Ben pounded on the floor, and chased us all, and I got under Mamsie’s bed, and Phronsie, too.” Here Davie gave a gleeful laugh that showed all his little white teeth. “And Joel chased Ben and tried to get the stick, and Polly laughed and clapped her hands and said, ‘Old Father Dubbin will get you, Joey!’—and it was awfully nice.” Davie drew a long breath and clasped his hands ecstatically.

“Well, now, the stove,” Jenny’s mother pressed closer; “tell about Dr. Fisher’s stove.”

Davie’s blue eyes shone as he continued, “And then the door opened, and Mamsie came in, and she said, ‘Come, children—why, where are Davie and Phronsie?’ and Joel said, ‘They’re under the bed,’ and Mamsie laughed and said, ‘Wait, till they come out, for we must all go into the kitchen together.’ And Joel helped Phronsie out, and Ben said, ‘Well, Old Father Dubbin has got you, Dave,’ and he pulled me out by the legs.” Here Davie laughed long and loud, and it sounded so gleeful that everybody joined in till the old store rang with the noise, and Mrs. Atkins ran in, her sweeping-cap on her head, to see what could be the matter.

When she found that Davie Pepper on the sugar-barrel was telling something, she joined herself to the group, in time to hear him say, “And Joel cried, ‘It’s a sto—’ and Mamsie said, ‘Hush, Joel!’—and Ben said, ‘Don’t you dare to say a word, Joe Pepper!’—and Polly said, ‘Oh, what is it, Mamsie?’ and Mamsie said, ‘Children, be quiet.’ And Joel stuffed the towel in his mouth, and we all were still as mice, and Polly said, ‘Oh, I do wish I could see!’” Here Davie’s face became very grave, and his voice fell.

“Well, she did see,” said Deacon Blodgett in a loud voice. “Now, hurry and tell us, Davie boy.”

“Yes, she did,” said Davie, bobbing his light, wavy hair till it fell over his forehead again, and the smile ran up his round cheeks. “Mamsie said, ‘Now, Polly, I’m going to take off your bandage.’ And she did!” Davie drew a long breath and clasped his hands. “And the stove was there!” he cried; “Dr. Fisher’s stove was there—it was—it was!” He sprang off from the sugar-barrel, made his way through the group, and ran over to the farther end of the store, all the circle whirling around to watch him; “just like this, in the corner,” he got down on his knees and patted the floor.

“What did Polly do?” cried Jenny’s mother in an awe-struck voice.

David hopped to his feet, and flung back the soft waves of hair that had tumbled over his forehead again, and faced them all with shining eyes. “Polly kissed it!” he said.