“And if a monkey should eat mine,” said Joel, just as well pleased, “I guess Miss Parrott will give me one. I don’t want yours, Dave.” With that David clapped on his cap again, and Joel seizing him about the waist, they spun round and round the kitchen, getting in the way of Polly’s broom, and hindering dreadfully. All of a sudden, down fell David, and Joel on top of him.
“I didn’t make him,” cried Joel, in dismay and hopping up, as Polly threw down the broom and ran over.
“He didn’t make me,” gasped Davie, getting up. The new cap had fallen off long before, and Polly had picked it up to hang it carefully on a nail. “It was my shoe.”
“Your shoe?” repeated Mrs. Pepper over by the window. “What is the matter with your shoe? Come here, David.” She laid down the sewing in her lap, as David scuffed across the floor.
“Well, that does need mending,” she said, as David put his small foot in her lap.
“I’m so sorry,” he began.
“Well, now, Mother is so glad that you didn’t get hurt with your shoe so bad as that,” she said cheerily. “Now you must get right down to Mr. Beebe’s and ask him to sew it up.”
“And mine needs mending, too,” cried Joel, hopping over on one foot to her chair. “I want to go to Mr. Beebe’s.”
“No, Joel,” said Mrs. Pepper, with a laugh, “your shoes are perfectly sound. There now, Davie, go right down to the shoe-shop and ask Mr. Beebe if he will please to sew it up now—because you haven’t any other shoes—and walk carefully, child, else you’ll make it worse, and besides, you might fall.”
“Now isn’t it nice that Davie has a new cap?” cried Polly, going to the window, broom in hand, to watch him as he passed down the road. Joel had run out to go as far as the gate with him, then he had turned back to the woodshed, for Mrs. Pepper had said he must pick up some kindlings.