“Yes, I know,” said Polly, quickly, glad to help him over the hard places, “one of the hens.”
“No, not the hen,” snorted Joel, in scorn, and raising his black head; “Dave was that, and I was the rooster—that big one, you know, Polly.”
“Yes, I know,” nodded Polly, quite pleased that he could be diverted even for a moment; “and so you picked up the cake from the floor. Was that it, Joe?”
“Yes,” down went Joel’s head again. “I didn’t know it was Phronsie’s, and now I can’t give it back,” he wailed, in a fresh burst.
“Um, mm—” Polly was lost in thought for a minute. What could she do to make up for this dreadful loss? She never could get another piece of cake to replace it. Such windfalls as this one, which Mrs. Atkins had given her the other day, didn’t happen often. And Polly, remembering how she had turned back on her way home from her errand to the store, when the wife of the storekeeper who lived in the ell, had rapped with her thimble on the window, and then with the words, “I had comp’ny to tea las’ night, an’ I want you should have this to eat on th’ way home, child,” she had put the precious portion in Polly’s hand, and Polly had run every speck of the way home, deciding to put it away to give to Phronsie sometime when it should most be needed, for the bit wasn’t large enough to be divided between the three “children,” as Polly and Ben always called the others. And now, only to think what trouble had come from it all!
“You must tell me all about it, Joey.”—Page [305].
“I’ve eat it,” Joel kept saying, in a steady refrain, and feeling it very cold comfort indeed to be brought to the “Provision Room,” by Polly, with no help to give. “O dear me!” he wailed on.
“I’ll tell you, Joel,” Polly exclaimed, and she gave a little jump from the stool so suddenly, that he nearly tumbled over on his back, “what you can do. It will be splendid, I think. Now, understand, Joel, you oughtn’t to have eaten up that cake when you found it. I gave it to Phronsie.”
“Where’d you get it?” demanded Joel, in great surprise.