“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Henderson, cheerily, “but you never can guess what it is you are going to help about, so I will tell you. We’re going to set up some things in the garret.”
“Oh, may I go in the garret?” cried Polly, stopping short in her excitement, “and Phronsie, too—may we, may we?”
“Yes, indeed,” laughed the parson’s wife, quite as excited, “and we are going to do ever so many things up there. Fix up an old chest for one—dear me, I don’t know what we shall find wants doing when we get up there.”
“Phronsie, we are going up garret!” cried Polly, her eyes wide with anticipation. All her life she had longed to have a garret to go into to see its hidden treasures at least once; to play in one every day was beyond her wildest dreams. Now she was really to see one for herself!
Mrs. Henderson stopped to get a broom and a dust-pan; she already had a little whisk brush and a small brown-paper parcel in her hand.
“Oh, let me carry them,” cried Polly, eagerly.
“You may help,” said Mrs. Henderson, giving her the dust-pan and little brown-paper parcel, so Polly picked her way over the stairs, helping Phronsie up carefully.
“Well, here we are!” The parson’s wife stopped to take breath at the top of the stairs, and set down her broom. “It wants setting up I think,” she exclaimed.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” cried Polly, her cheeks aflame, and peering on either side. How she longed to explore the dim recesses and cunning little hiding-places under the big beams where the slanting roof ran down to the eaves. And what delightful chances of fun were hidden behind the broken-backed chairs and other dilapidated furniture set away for some convenient mending time! And those funny bundles of dangling things, she found out afterward they were herbs, hanging from the beams, and on nails along the wall! And oh! there was a big bluebottle buzzing like everything and knocking his head against the small-paned window.
“A spider has got him!” cried Polly, running over to set him free. And the fat little black spider, not liking that at all, ran off like lightning, till such time as she could dart out of her hole, and mend her broken web in which to catch another fly.