And “Oh, Mamsie!” echoed little Davie, with very red cheeks. How his blue eyes shone!
“And we’ve never seen a circus,” broke in Polly, passionately. “Never in all this world—oh, Ben!” With that Polly flung her arms around Ben’s neck, and burst out crying.
Ben’s ruddy cheek turned quite white. “Don’t, Polly,” he said hoarsely, and patted her back with an unsteady hand.
Mrs. Pepper took Joel’s little brown hand in her steady one.
“She’s going to give us some money, and we’re going!” screamed Joel, in a transport, to the others. Phronsie, at this, stopped her capering about the middle of the kitchen floor to come up with wondering eyes.
“No, Joel,” said Mrs. Pepper. Her voice shook, but she steadied it as she went on, and gathering up the coins she began to put them into the old black stocking again. “Mother can’t let you have this money, for it wouldn’t be right,” she added firmly.
Then it was that Polly broke away from Ben’s shoulder and sat down despairingly. And amid Joel’s howls and little Davie’s sobs the money was all shaken down into the toe of the stocking, tied up, and Mrs. Pepper went into the bedroom with it.
“Polly, you oughtn’t to,” said Ben, going over to her. Joel had thrown himself down on the old floor to give himself up to an abandonment of grief, and little Davie had crept alongside him to lay his wet cheek next to Joel’s stormy one. Phronsie stood still, looking from one group to the other in grave wonder.
“Oh, I know it,” cried Polly, gustily, as she began to cry and twisting her fingers dreadfully, “but we’ve—never—seen—seen—a circus.”
“I know it,” said Ben, with a twinge. How many times, ever since he had seen the flaming red and yellow posters in Mr. Atkins’s store, he had determined to take some of the money earned by chopping wood for Deacon Blodgett and doing chores at the parsonage, and go off to the circus with Polly,—yes, he surely couldn’t go without Polly, for he wouldn’t enjoy it a bit without her! And then, every single time, he found himself bringing home that same money to put it into Mother Pepper’s hand. And she had smiled and said, “Did anybody ever have such a comfort as you are, Ben!” And now Mamsie had gone into the bedroom so sorrowfully, and Ben shivered as he remembered how white her face was.