“You promised,” cried Van in a loud, vindictive voice. “Now, Polly Pepper, you did, just as true as anything.”

“Well, she didn’t promise she’d tell it now,” said Jasper. “You two boys would tire her to death, if you had your way. Polly, I wouldn’t oblige them; they’re perfect tyrants.”

“Well, she did promise,” repeated Van positively, and shaking his brown head; “and when she says she’ll do anything, Polly Pepper always does it,” he brought up triumphantly.

“Yes, I did promise them, Jasper,” said Polly, stifling a sigh, as she thought of the hole in her time that the story would cut. “So I’ll do it, boys.”

“Oh, goody!” exclaimed Percy, who had kept still through fear of not standing well in Jasper’s eyes. Van turned a somersault in the middle of the library floor, and came up bright and smiling, but speechless.

“Let her off, boys,” begged Jasper, seeing Polly’s face; “she’ll tell you just as good a one some other time.”

“No, no,” howled Van in alarm; “it’s got to be now. You said so, Polly, this very morning at breakfast,—that you’d tell it just as soon as you got through with your music-lesson, so there!”

“And so I will, Vanny,” said Polly brightly. “I’m going to begin it this very minute; that is, as soon as you’ve called Joel and David and Phronsie and Ben. We couldn’t ever in all this world have a story without them.”

“We might without Joel,” said Van, making lively progress toward the door, having certain reasons of his own for a cooling off toward that individual since the contest in strength with the fists of the little country lad.

“For shame!” cried Jasper after him; “we all want Joel.”

“Van doesn’t like Joel since Joe beat him,” said Percy pleasantly, who dearly loved to take Van down.

“Well, I could have beat him as easy as not,” shouted back Van, rushing out into the hall with a very red face to execute his errand; “but he was company, and I didn’t want to hit hard.”

“Ha,—ha!” laughed Percy in derision, and doubling up in amusement.

Polly stood quite still, and looked at him long and intently. As far back as she could remember no one had ever talked so in The Little Brown House! and over her came at this moment an intense longing to be back in the dear old kitchen, where all was bright and cheery and sunny. Percy, being unable to get away from her gaze, grew very red and uncomfortable. At last he said, “Van is such a nuisance,” as he fidgeted from one foot to the other. Still Polly didn’t say anything.

“And he’s always boasting of what he can do.” Percy now was in such distress that he had no more words at his command, and he looked ready to cry, as he stood helplessly before her. But there was no chance for Polly to say anything; for in burst Joel and David, with Phronsie flying along in the rear, Van having gone to look up Ben, both of them presently making their appearance.

“Now, that’s good of you, Polly,” said Ben, beaming at her; “for it’s raining so dismally it’s just the thing to have a story.” So that Polly felt quite cheered, and glad already that she was to tell the story.

“Isn’t it?” cried Van quite importantly. “Well, I made her.”

Percy made a movement involuntarily, as if he were about to speak; but thinking better of it, he went to the outside of the group, and sat down quietly on the corner of the sofa, the others drawing up chairs and crickets to a circle around Polly.

“Well,” said Polly with a flourish—then she looked over and saw Percy. “Oh, come over here!” she cried to him. “Here, Jasper, let Percy sit next;” so Jasper moved away from Polly’s side; and pretty soon Percy, dragging up a chair, was sitting close to Polly, and she was smiling down at him as if nothing had happened.

“Now, I thought I would tell you about the old gray goose,” she began, but a shout interrupted her. “Oh, that’s fine!” cried Van, when the noise died away.

“Because it rains just about as badly as it did on that November day when the black chicken ran away and spoiled our Thanksgiving pie,” said Polly, with warm little thrills at her heart to see the happy faces before her; “so you see it’s just the time to have the story.”

“Do begin,” urged Percy, unable to keep still longer.

“Well, the old gray goose had lived with us, you know, ever since I could remember,” ran on Polly; “so she was awfully tough—why, we never thought of killing her to eat”—

“But you did,” cried little Dick with big eyes; “you said so, Polly Pepper.”

“Dear me, yes!” said Polly, bobbing her brown head; “but that was afterward, when we had to. But before the black chicken ran away, why, no one ever in all this world thought of killing that old gray goose to eat. Well, she was so old and tough, and she had grown cross, and one day she bit Sally Brown.”

“Tell about it, Polly, do!” begged Van, Percy so far forgetting all unpleasantness that he begged eagerly too.

“Yes,” said Polly; “I am going to. Well, you know Sally Brown was Deacon Brown’s daughter, and she lived in”—

“Did her father let you take the big green wagon when Phronsie had her new shoes?” asked Van abruptly.

“Yes, he did.”

“Oh! I do so wish we had a Deacon Brown, who would let us have a big green wagon and go off to places,” said Percy enviously.

“Well, ’twouldn’t be Badgertown, I can tell you that,” said Joel, swelling up importantly, delighted to see Percy’s face.

“No, you needn’t expect to have such good times as the Peppers had in their Little Brown House,” said Jasper decidedly; “because you can’t, no matter where you are. I know, for I’ve been there.”

“Jappy always feels so big,” said Van irritably, “because he’s seen The Little Brown House. Well, do go on, Polly,” he added quickly.

“So I will,” said Polly with a merry laugh, “if you boys will let me; but you interrupt me so all the while that sometimes I don’t know where I am.”

“I should think so too,” said Jasper. “Polly, I wouldn’t tell them another thing unless they’d promise to keep still.”

Thereupon such an alarm lest Polly should stop altogether seized the group, that everybody kept still as Polly ran on,—

“Well, you see, Sally Brown lived in a big red house; her father was awfully rich, and he had two barns—oh! and a big henhouse, and a great pen, where the pigs were kept.”

At this there was every appearance of an outbreak, but a glance at Jasper made them clap their hands over their mouths.

“Yes; oh! and there were cows, and sometimes cunning little calves, and everything just nice and splendid at Deacon Brown’s, till you couldn’t think of anything he didn’t have. Why, they had milk every single day to drink—the Brown children had. Well, one day Sally Brown’s mother sent her to our house to ask Mamsie to come over to help Mrs. Brown to make soft soap.”

“What!” exclaimed both Whitney boys together. But Jasper shot them such a keen glance from his dark eyes that they both ducked simultaneously without another word.

“Yes,” said Polly, hurrying on. “You see, Mamsie was always so very glad whenever anybody wanted help about anything, because we were very poor, you know, and the money got us some Indian meal and molasses.”

“Oh!” said the boys.

“Well, Sally Brown says she ran across the meadows—you see, Deacon Brown’s house was off on the road to Cherry Brook, and so whenever we went to the Brown’s, or they came over to see us,—that is, we children,—why, we would run ’cross lots, and”—

“What’s ’cross lots?” broke in Van.

“Ha, ha! don’t know what ’cross lots is,” laughed Joel heartily.

“For shame, Joe!” said Ben, and—“Why, Joey, how could they know what ’tis to run ’cross lots, when they’ve never lived in the country,” said Polly.

“Well, ’cross lots is just prime!” exclaimed Joel lustily; “it’s to jump and race and tear and holler over the grass and the corn, and through folks’ orchards, and over the stone walls, lickety split—whoop-la!”

He jumped up, and began prancing through an imaginary race; down the long apartment, steering clear of the oaken furniture and damask furnishings, with a keen eye for the distance.

“Come on, Dave,” he shouted over his shoulder, “let’s show them what it’s like;” while the Whitney boys sat transfixed with longing at every step.

“No, you don’t, Joe,” commanded Ben sharply, “in the house. Stop this minute;” and little Davie said quietly, “We ought to wait till we get out-of-doors.”

“Well, come on out now, then,” cried Joel, whirling around in his tracks, and looking like a race-horse held up against his will.

“Why, Polly’s telling about how our old gray goose bit Sally Brown,” said David, getting closer to Polly; “we can’t now, Joey.”

“I don’t want to hear about Sally Brown,” grumbled Joel, very much out of sorts; “and I wish the old gray goose had bit her worse, I do.”

“O Joey!” reproved Polly; “think how good Deacon Brown was to us, and Mrs. Brown too.”

“Well, Sally wasn’t,” said Joel shamefacedly, digging his toes into the soft carpet. “She bit me once, and scratched my face.”

“Well, then, I suppose you were bad to her,” said Ben coolly. “So come back, Joe, and don’t interrupt this story again. Besides, it’s raining like everything.”

“Well, we can go on the veranda,” said Joel; but he came reluctantly back and sat down again.

“Well, so Sally ran ’cross lots,” said Polly, picking up the narrative again; “she told us all about it, you know; and she says she never saw the old gray goose till just as she ran into the lane, down by Grandma Bascom’s. And the first thing she heard was a ‘Hiss—hiss!’” exclaimed Polly, suddenly stretching up her neck as much like a goose as possible, so that every one of her auditors jumped; and the Whitney boys looked at the door involuntarily, as if expecting to see an old gray goose walking in, at which they all laughed right merrily, so that old Mr. King popped his head in the door to see what it all meant.

“Sally Brown is biting the old gray goose,” piped out Phronsie, flying to him, at which they all laughed worse than ever; so that it really seemed as if Polly never would finish that story in the world.

At last everything quieted down, and Polly was under way again in the midst of the narration. “So just as she turned into the lane down by Grandma Bascom’s, ‘Hiss—hiss!’ came something after her; and looking over her shoulder, she saw our old gray goose running on its sticks of legs as fast as it could, with its long neck stuck out straight at her, and screaming and hissing like everything. Oh, dear me! and Sally was so frightened she couldn’t run another step; and so she just sat down on the grass, and covered up her eyes with her two hands.”

“She always was a silly,” declared Joel in scorn; “why didn’t she just turn and stare at that old goose? That’s the way I’d done, and then, says I, I’d taken a stick and run after her, and whacked her over the head.”

“And what did the old gray goose do then?” demanded Van Whitney, with one ear out for what Joel would have done.

“Why, that dreadful old bird just climbed up into Sally Brown’s lap, and nipped a little bit of her arm into her bill, and bit it. And Sally squealed perfectly awfully; and Grandma Bascom heard her, and she came out of her door, and shook her broom at the old gray goose, so then she went away”—

“Who did—Sally?” asked Percy with a puzzled air.

“No, the old gray goose did,” said Polly; “she took her sticks of legs out of Sally’s lap, and she pulled her long neck in, and went off; and Sally came crying over to us, and”—

“And she always was a silly,” said Joel again with a snort of disdain, “and a cry-baby too.”

“And Mamsie tied up Sally’s arm with opodeldoc,” said Polly, glad she could do so well with the long word.

“What’s opodel, and the rest of it, Polly?” asked Percy, who was always uncomfortable if he couldn’t get the smallest detail of a story.

“Oh! I don’t know,” said Polly, wishing very much that she had learned all about it so as to be able to tell now; “it’s green stuff, like herbs, you know; and Mamsie always soaked some, and tied it on us when we got hurt.”

“I thought you said Phronsie had her toe tied up in worm something,” said Percy in a literal way, “when it was pounded.”

“Wormwood? Oh, yes, so she did,” said Polly. “Well, Grandma Bascom gave us that; I suppose we didn’t have any opodeldoc in the house that day. But sometimes Mamsie would have wormwood too, because we used to get hurt, some of us, pretty often, of course, and we had to be tied up, you know, till we got well.”

“What were you tied up to?” broke in little Dick with big eyes.

“Oh! we weren’t tied up,” said Polly with a little laugh; “I mean our fingers and toes were tied up when they got cut and pounded.”

“Oh!” said Van.

“Why, it’s cleared off!” screamed Joel, springing up and pointing to the window; “see the rainbow! Come on Dave, now let’s run ’cross lots out-doors!”