“Now,” said Polly, as they shut the door tight, “don't you go to looking at the cupboard, Joey, or mammy'll guess something.”
“Can't I just open it a little crack, and take one smell when she isn't looking?” asked Joel; “I should think you might, Polly; just one.”
“No,” said Polly, firmly; “not one, Joe; she'll guess if you do.” But Mrs. Pepper was so utterly engrossed with her baby when she came home and heard the account of the accident, that she wouldn't have guessed if there'd been a dozen cakes in the cupboard. Joel was consoled, as his mother assured him in a satisfactory way that she never should think of blaming him; and Phronsie was comforted and coddled to her heart's content. And so the evening passed rapidly and happily away; Ben smuggling Phronsie off into a corner, where she told him all the doings of the day—the disappointment of the cake, and how it was finally crowned with flowers; all of which Phronsie, with no small pride in being the narrator, related gravely to her absorbed listener. “And don't you think, Bensie,” she said, clasping her little hand in a convincing way over his two bigger, stronger ones, “that Polly's stove was very naughty to make poor Polly cry?”
“Yes, I do,” said Ben, and he shut his lips tightly together.
To have Polly cry, hurt him more than he cared to have Phronsie see.
“What are you staring at, Joe?” asked Polly, a few minutes later, as her eyes fell upon Joel, who sat with his back to the cupboard, persistently gazing at the opposite wall.
“Why, you told me yourself not to look at the cupboard,” said Joel, in the loudest of stage whispers.
“Dear me; that'll make mammy suspect worse'n anything else if you look like that,” said Polly.
“What did you say about the cupboard?” asked Mrs. Pepper, who caught Joe's last word.
“We can't tell,” said Phronsie, shaking her head at her mother; “cause there's a ca——” “Ugh!” and Polly clapped her hand on the child's mouth; “don't you want Ben to tell us a story?”