“I should think she did,” responded the boy quickly. “I wish she was my sister,” he finished longingly.
“Well, I don't,” quickly replied Ben, “for then she wouldn't be mine; and I couldn't think of being without Polly! Was your father angry about—about—'the gingerbread boy'?” he asked timidly, trembling for an answer.
“Oh dear,” cried Jasper, tumbling over on the grass, “don't, don't! I shan't be good for anything if you make me laugh! oh! wasn't it funny;” and he rolled over and over, shaking with glee.
“Yes,” said Ben, immensely relieved to find that no offence had been taken. “But she would send it; Polly tried not to have her, and she most cried when Phronsie was so determined, cause she said your father never'd let you come again—”
“Twas just lovely in Phronsie,” said the boy, sitting up and wiping his eyes, “but oh it was so funny! you ought to have seen my father, Ben Pepper.”
“Oh, then he was angry,” cried Ben.
“No indeed he wasn't!” said Jasper; “don't you think it! do you know it did him lots of good, for he'd been feeling real badly that morning, he hadn't eaten any breakfast, and when he saw that gingerbread boy—” here Jasper rolled over again with a peal of laughter—“and heard the message, he just put back his head, and he laughed—why, I never heard him laugh as he did then! the room shook all over; and he ate a big dinner, and all that afternoon he felt as good as could be. But he says he's coming to see the little girl that baked it for him before we go home.”
Ben nearly tumbled over by the side of Jasper at these words—“Coming to see us!” he gasped.
“Yes,” said Jasper, who had scarcely got over his own astonishment about it, for if the roof had suddenly whisked off on to the church steeple, he couldn't have been more amazed than when he heard his father say cheerily: “Well, Jasper my boy, I guess I shall have to drive over and see your little girl, since she's been polite enough to bake me this,” pointing to the wild-looking “gingerbread boy.”
“Come in and tell 'em about it,” cried Ben, radiantly, picking up his potatoes and salt. “It's all right, Polly!” he said in a jubilant voice, “for here's Jasper, and he'll tell you so himself.”