“Good?” exclaimed Jasper, heartily; “I should say it was! I just love it all, Polly.”
“Phoo!” cried Joel, crowding in between, “that’s nothing. We’re going to have ever so many more; the shelves’ll be all rammed, crammed full.”
Little Davie who couldn’t possibly get nearer than the outside edge of the group, stared with all his might.
“What do you mean, Joel?” gasped Polly, hanging to the door of the old cupboard.
“We are,” declared Joel, delighted to see the impression he had made, and pushing his way out to the middle of the kitchen to thrust his hands in his little trousers’ pockets and strut up and down the old floor, “and they won’t be such old things neither. They’ll be spick-span new, every single one of ’em; plates and plates and plates—yes, sir!”
“Joel Pepper!” exclaimed Polly, deserting Jasper and the old cupboard to rush over and seize his jacket sleeve, “what are you talking about? We aren’t ever going to have anything new.”
“We are, too,” declared Joel, and facing her.
“O dear me!” cried Polly, “what do you mean?”
“We’re going to have everything new,” declared Joel, confidently.
Then he took his little brown hands out of his trousers’ pockets and waved them triumphantly around the old kitchen. “We’re going to have a sofa like the minister’s for Mamsie, and Dave and me’s going to have a table and a gimlet and some jack-knives, and—and a piano. Oh, Polly, you’re going to have a piano,” and Joel pranced about joyfully, “and our ship’s going to bring ’em!”