“I do think this is just the nicest place, Mamsie,” she burst forth in the midst of flying about to do the belated morning work, left in order to get the children ready for their visit.
“So it is, Polly,” nodded Mrs. Pepper; “it’s home, and the Little Brown House is—”
“The very sweetest place,” finished Polly, in another burst, and guilty of interrupting.
And just then there was a little scrabbling noise outside the door, and the latch was lifted, and in stumbled Joel, and after him Davie holding fast to Phronsie’s fat little hand. Mrs. Pepper dropped her work, and sprang up, her face very pale, for she didn’t see any one but the two boys, and Polly let the tea-kettle she was carrying over to fill the dish-pan, clatter down to the floor—and away raced the hot water.
“Oh, goodness!—Oh, here’s Phronsie!” cried Polly, all in the same breath. Then she sprang over the puddle of hot water to throw her arms around the little figure, but Mrs. Pepper was there first.
“Phronsie would come home,” said Joel, in a loud, injured key. “Her sunbonnet’s untied, and she wouldn’t let me or Davie tie it up—she wanted Polly to.”
“Please, Polly,” begged Phronsie, holding up her hot little chin, and hanging with both hands to the strings of the pink sunbonnet, “tie me up, ’cause I must hurry to go and see my dear sweet Mr. Beebe and my dear sweet Mrs. Beebe.”
“She’s been saying that all the way back,” said Davie, sitting down on the kitchen floor, “and we couldn’t hurry to go and see ’em, ’cause she made us come back for Polly to tie up the strings.”
“And now we’ve got to go clear back there,” cried Joel, wrathfully; “I mean to run every step of the way this time.”
“Oh, no, Joe, you mustn’t,” said Mrs. Pepper. “You’ll be a good boy and take hold of Phronsie’s hand, and walk nicely, or else you’ll have to stay at home.”