Our Davie Pepper

“THERE’S the little brown house!” cried Davie, just as if he had never seen it. “And Joel has had a party!” all in the same breath.

“Joel has had a party,” hummed Phronsie in Mrs. Brown’s lap, “a beyewtiful party,” her pink sunbonnet flying back with the jolts of the old white horse over the rough road.

Mrs. Pepper’s eyes grew suddenly bright. “You have been so very good to us, dear Mrs. Brown,” she said, leaning over to whisper the words.

The farmer’s wife held Phronsie closer, but did not trust herself to speak.

“At least,” she said, clearing her throat, “you’ll come again.”

“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Pepper was about to reply, but David screamed, “There’s Joel—Oh, do let me get out!”

“Whoa!” cried the farmer, and Davie was out, over the wheel in a twinkling, and rushing up to Joel sitting on a big stone by the roadside, and the very picture of woe.

“Oh, Joel!” cried David, flinging himself up against him, “what’s the matter? Mamsie—he’s sick,” flying back to the wagon and wringing his hands.

“Don’t worry your ma. She’ll get out as soon as she can,” said Mrs. Brown.

Mrs. Pepper was already out at her side of the wagon, and reaching Joel on his stone. The happy expectant look had gone from her eyes, but she still smiled.

“He’s sick, Mamsie,” cried Davie frantically, and kneeling down to seize Joel’s hands.

“I’m not,” declared Joel in a dudgeon, “sick one single bit. I didn’t catch him and he’s gone.”

“Who has gone, Joel?” Mrs. Pepper put her hands on his two shoulders. “Look up and tell Mother.”

Joel raised his black eyes and cried wrathfully, “And he took your gold beads, Mamsie.”

“Oh, Joel, not those!” For once Mother Pepper forgot herself and her hands dropped to her side. The little thin string of gold beads was all she had to hand down to Polly as a link from the past.

“I’ll go after him some more,” screamed Joel wildly, and jumping from his stone. He had an awful feeling at his heart, for Mamsie had never given up like that before.

“No, no, Joel,” Mother Pepper managed a smile, and seized his sleeve.

“What’s the matter?” asked the farmer’s wife, clumsily picking her way up to them over the thick uneven grass, and still holding Phronsie’s hand.

“Nothing so very bad,” said Mrs. Pepper.

“Nothing so very bad!” echoed Joel, turning big eyes up to his mother.

“No,” said Mrs. Pepper cheerfully, “as long as nobody is sick. Where is Polly?” she asked, a white line beginning to show itself around her mouth.

“She’s gone after Ben, and she told me to stay here and tell you,” said Joel gloomily, “And I was going after the burglar some more,” he added in an injured tone. “I’m going now.” He leaped away, and in another second would have been around the bushes and out of sight.

“Joel!” Mother Pepper’s voice was low, but it brought him back. “I need you now.” She took his little brown hand, “You can help me so much.”

“I’ll help you, Mamsie,” said Joel, feeling very tall and important. “You don’t have to come, Davie; Mamsie’s got me,” he said over his shoulder, as Davie crowded up.

“Oh, I want Davie; we shall both need him,” said Mrs. Pepper.

“You can come,” said Joel patronizingly, and striding off, clinging to Mrs. Pepper’s hand.

Davie lifted his face that had become quite downcast with this dreadful trouble coming to Mamsie, and then, too, not being wanted to help, and trotted after.

The farmer’s wife not having heard the word “burglar,” grasped Phronsie’s hand tighter yet. “Come, child,” she said, “an’ you an’ me’ll find out what’s ben goin’ on.”

“We’ll find out,” Phronsie cried with a little gurgle of delight, skipping along by the clumsy footsteps, “and I’ll show you my little brown house.”

“So you shall, you sweet lamb, you,” exclaimed Mrs. Brown, yet with a heavy heart against the hour when she and the farmer would be in the big wagon and on the Maybury road, going home, just those two.

Once in the old kitchen, the story came out, with many jerks from Joel, as he often stopped to bemoan the loss of a chance to capture the burglar, and the positive assurance that he could have beaten him to nothing if he had only been there.

“My senses!—your gold beads!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. She had sat down in Mrs. Pepper’s calico-covered rocking chair, and now she lifted both hands in dismay. “How you can, Mis Pepper, take it so easy!”

“Just think, all the children are well,” said Mrs. Pepper with a smile.

“I know,” said Mrs. Brown, “but gold beads is gold beads.”

David, seeing Mother Pepper’s smile, brightened up a little, as he sat on the floor at her feet, as the story went on. Phronsie was going about, patting everything with loving little fingers, and humming softly to herself, so she didn’t hear how Joel’s party had been interrupted by an uninvited guest in the bedroom. And how Polly had run out in “Old Father Dubbin’s” rig after Joel in hot chase to catch the visitor, who had jumped out of the window, without any one’s getting a sight of him.

“And then Polly made me go and watch for you, while she went for Ben.” All Joel’s injured feelings now blazed out again. “And she told me not to stir till you came, or she got back. I could have caught him just as easy.” Joel doubled up his little brown fists manfully.

“Polly was just right,” said Mother Pepper, “and you are a good boy, Joel. Mother is so glad she can trust you.”

Joel’s indignation changed to a smile that showed his little white teeth—just as Farmer Brown, having tied “Jingo” to a post in the fence, walked in. “Well, did you have a good party, Joe?” he asked breezily, not knowing anything about burglars or any other trouble.

“And did you like th’ custard pie?” cried Mrs. Brown, gazing about for any evidences of the feast.

Joel ran up to the big chair. “We haven’t had it.”

“Oh, well, you’ve had other things to think about beside custard pie,” said the farmer’s wife. “Well, I s’pose likely that Polly put it away.”

“I know where she’s put it,” Joel pranced over to swing the door of the old cupboard wide open. “Here ’tis!” He stood on his tiptoes, clinging to the upper shelf where the big custard pie, with a pitcher of weak lemonade and some teacups stood, ready to be summoned when Polly should decide that the proper time for refreshments had arrived.

“I’m going to get it down now!” cried Joel, jumping up to reach it with wild little hands.

“No, no, Joel,” said Mrs. Pepper.

And the farmer’s wife cried, “For mercy’s sake, Mr. Brown, lift that pie down, or that boy will smash it.” So the big custard pie was safely taken from the shelf and set on the table.

“Dave, see—the custard pie!” screamed Joel, waving frantically for David to come.

“There’s somethin’ in th’ pitcher,” said the farmer, handing down the lemonade. “I guess that’s for th’ party.” So he set that on the table, too.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pepper. “Mr. Atkins gave Davie a couple of lemons the other day. And Polly has made this for Joel’s party.”

“I want it now—my party,” cried Joel, and pulling out the table-drawer to get the big knife. Then he suddenly stopped. “I’ve got to wait for Polly,” he said.

“You better wait till your big brother gets here, too,” said the farmer, pointing with a thumb over his shoulder in the direction he supposed Polly and Ben would appear.

“Yes, so I say,” cried Mrs. Brown, swaying comfortably back and forth in the rocking chair.

“They’re never coming,” declared Joel, in anguish at any proposed postponement of the cutting of the pie. Still he must see Polly before it was cut.

“I wouldn’t wonder ef they was comin’ down th’ road this very minute,” said Mrs. Brown.

“You better run an’ see,” added the farmer.

So Joel tore himself away from the pie, and dashed out and down to the gate, Davie at his heels.

“Ef we can help you, Mis Pepper,” said the farmer, “we’ll stay—but ef so be there’s nothin’ my wife an’ me can do, why, we must be streakin’ it for home.”

“We don’t need to start jest yet, Pa,” objected his wife, all her eyes following Phronsie.

“Now, Ma, you won’t be a bit spryer to go, ef you set for another hour. I’m a-goin’ ef we can’t help Mis Pepper.”

“Maybe we can help her,” said Mrs. Brown, clinging to any straw that might delay the setting out for home.

But Mrs. Pepper shook her head—so far as any assistance was concerned. “I wish you could stay,” she said. But this Mr. Brown wouldn’t do, so the farmer’s wife, seeing that there was no help for it, got slowly out of her chair, and the leave-taking began. And just as they were finally in the big wagon, up rushed Polly and Ben and Joel.

“Anybody seen th’ feller?” asked the farmer of Ben.

“No, sir,” said Ben, setting his teeth together hard.

“Sho now, that’s too bad,” said Mr. Brown sympathetically, and flicking his whip over Jingo’s back. “Well, I s’pose th’ Badgertown folks’ll keep on th’ lookout for him.”

“Don’t say any more, Pa,” said his wife with a nudge, “for mercy’s sake!”

“Hem!” Mr. Brown cleared his throat, opened his mouth; then thought better of his determination to speak, and shut it with a snap.

“Good-by.” Mrs. Brown, with no eyes for any one but Phronsie, looked back until the turn of the road made it impossible to see any one, or even the little brown house.

“Now we must have the party and Joel’s pie,” said Mrs. Pepper, when the disconsolate little group was back in the kitchen. “And you may get the knife, Joey.” But first, there was a little talk between Polly and Joel and Mother Pepper. When it was all over, she said, “Yes, Polly, you and Joel may have some of the pie, and Joel must cut it now.” And no one peering in at the window would have thought that the chief treasure of the house had been seized that afternoon by a cruel hand.

They didn’t want any supper that night because of the custard pie and the lemonade. And after Phronsie was fast asleep in the trundle-bed, and the two boys were tucked safely away in the loft, Polly and Ben curled up on the floor, either side of her big chair.

“I can’t think, Mamsie,” began Ben, “who it could be.” He wrinkled up his round face in distress.

“No,” said Mrs. Pepper, “we can’t think. But oh, Polly child.” She put her hand on Polly’s brown hair and her voice trembled.

“Mamsie,” cried Polly, “don’t feel badly. I don’t mind—so very much.” She longed to put her head on her mother’s lap and cry, for she felt no bigger than Phronsie. Oh, the years that she had loved those beads, ever since she was a little girl and Mrs. Pepper had taken them out and told her that she was to have them when she was grown up, and then every time that this was done, and before the beads were wrapped up in the soft paper and put back in the drawer, the words of the father, who had died when Phronsie was a baby, would be said over again.

“Always remember, child,” Mrs. Pepper would say, “what your father told you. ‘You must be good, Polly, to be worthy to wear Grandma’s beads.’”

And Polly had always said, “I will.” And now the beads were gone—oh, could she bear it!

But she looked at Mother Pepper’s face, and what father had said meant, she very well knew, “help Mother,” so she swallowed the sobs that were almost out. And Ben, as he looked at her, set his teeth and concluded to do the same thing.

“Tell us about Mr. Brown’s farm,” said Ben, as soon as he could speak. “We want to hear about it, Mamsie.”

So Mrs. Pepper began, and set the whole day before them from beginning to end.

“Oh, I am so glad,” said Polly, with a long breath, “that Davie had a good time—because he didn’t want to go without Joel.”

“Joel is going to have a chance,” said Mother Pepper, “and you, Ben, and you, too, Polly, for we’re all invited to spend a day there before very long.”

“Isn’t that fine!” cried Polly, forgetting for a moment her dreadful trouble, and she clapped her hands. And Ben was so pleased at that, that he actually smiled.

“And now you must get to bed, both of you.” Mother Pepper looked up at the old clock on the shelf. “Dear me, who would think it was so late!”

It was all of an hour after, and Mrs. Pepper, who had been sewing by the light of the candle, to make up for the time spent in the visit of that day, let the work drop in her lap, and she was lost in thought.

Suddenly a noise like a little mouse at work in the corner, struck upon her ear, to be followed by another not at all like one to be laid to a mouse, and then a distinct, though soft, rap was heard.

She got out of her chair, and went over to the big green door and opened it.

“Why, Jimmy!” she exclaimed, “is your mother sick?”

An awkward, overgrown boy leaned against the door-casing, and covered his face with his hands.

“Tell me about it,” commanded Mrs. Pepper, “or I can’t help you.”

The boy caught his breath, then gasped, “’Tain’t that—Mother’s all right.”

“Then it is something about yourself,” said Mrs. Pepper kindly. “Now, Jimmy, you want me to help you, or you wouldn’t have come at this time of the night.”

“I’ve been walking up and down,” said Jimmy. “First, I waited till they were all abed, ’xcept you, and—” then he broke down.

“Well, now that you have come, you must tell me your trouble, or I can’t help you,” said Mrs. Pepper decidedly.

For answer, he ran his hand in the pocket of his shabby jacket, and pulling out something, timidly presented it—and Mrs. Pepper’s fingers were over Polly’s gold beads that Great-Grandmother Pepper had left her.

“Oh, Jimmy!” all the gladness over their coming back couldn’t stop the pain, “how could you!”

“I don’t know,” he gasped, and he looked so distressed that Mrs. Pepper hastened to say, “You didn’t think, Jimmy, you didn’t, how—”—“wicked,” she was going to say, when he burst out, “Yes, I did—I saw you through the window take ’em out of the bureau one time, and roll ’em up again and put ’em back. And I—I—wanted to go to the circus—it’s coming to Cherryville next week, and—and—”

It was no use, he couldn’t go on with Mrs. Pepper’s black eyes on him, but cowered worse yet against the door-casing.

“But you’ve brought them back,” at last Mrs. Pepper made herself say, “that was good of you, Jimmy.”

“I—I couldn’t keep ’em. You’ve been awful nice to Mother. Don’t tell her,” he brought himself up in sudden terror. “You won’t—oh, you won’t, Mrs. Pepper!” he begged, shaking all over.

“I won’t, Jimmy,” promised Mrs. Pepper. “Now see here, my boy, you’re almost a man—and I’m going to see you make a man that we all in Badgertown will be proud of.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Now run home and hop into bed.”