“It’s no use—I must get over to the little brown house at once.” She took down her sunbonnet from its nail in the entry and stopped to put her head in the study doorway.
“You’ll be surprised to see the kitchen if you go out there,” she said, “and the morning work not done.”
“Jerusha isn’t here, so no matter,” said the parson, looking up from next Sunday’s sermon with a smile.
“I can’t keep away from those poor Pepper children, since you heard down at the store that their mother was away last night at Miss Babbitt’s.”
“Almira, I’m glad enough that you’re going over to see Polly. I thought it would be as much as my life was worth to suggest it till those breakfast dishes were washed.” He laughed now like a boy.
“There are some things more important than breakfast dishes,” observed his wife grimly. Then she hurried off, cross-lots, to the little brown house.
Nobody was in the old kitchen; that she saw through the window. So she hurried around the house and there under the scraggy apple-tree was Polly before the big tub on its bench, scrubbing away on a pile of clothes and trying to sing, but it was a quavering little voice that the parson’s wife heard.
“Go and get your little tub, Phronsie,” said Polly, breaking off from the poor little song, “and wash Seraphina’s clothes.”
“I want my Mamsie.” Phronsie, a picture of woe, stood quite still under a sheltering branch of the old apple-tree.
“Oh, Phronsie,” said Polly, trying to speak gayly, “just think of Seraphina, poor dear, wanting her clothes washed. Only think, Phronsie!”