“Pshaw, now!” exclaimed Mr. Beggs, pausing to regard her ruefully. “Ye can’t?”
“No,” said Polly. She couldn’t trust herself to look at the dear, delightful tin things hanging all down the side of the cart. What a lovely music they must make jingling together as the old horse jogged along on his way! And the brooms stuck up at the corners, and smelling so nice and new, and the quantities of other things, they might be the most beautiful in all the world hidden within, that Mr. Beggs would take out when customers were ready to buy. And she must give it all up!
“Pshaw, now—yer Ma won’t care, an’ I ain’t a-comin’ this way agin this summer.” Mr. Beggs didn’t take his foot from the trace while he argued it out. “An’ I’m goin’ all down round about here, an’ home by the Hollow.”
“O dear!” Polly turned off and threw herself down on the grass just beside the road. “I must go,” she cried passionately to herself. “I’ve never been, and I can’t get the chance again.” Then Mamsie’s face seemed to hop right up before her, saying only one word, “Polly.”
“So run along an’ git your bunnit, an’ bring th’ little gal.” Mr. Beggs, seeing everything now fixed to his satisfaction, mounted his cart, and took up the well-worn leather reins.
“No,” said Polly. She was standing by the cart now. “I can’t go, Mr. Beggs. I thank you, sir, very much, but Mamsie wouldn’t like it; that is, I can’t ask her.” The brown eyes seemed to say more than the words, for the ragman, giving a long whistle to vent his regrets, clacked to the old horse, and away the red cart rumbled down the dusty road, leaving Polly standing on the grass by its side.
And the two little boys, hurrying around by the back way, found her so, just as the red cart turned the corner of the road.
“Joel!” cried Polly, turning around. “Oh, I thought you’d gone to dig flag-root.”
“So we did,” grumbled Joel, “but Davie forgot the knife.”
“I did, Polly,” confessed little Davie, hanging his head.