“Tell about how Phronsie run off after th’ monkey,” said Mr. Beebe.
“That always makes me feel bad whenever I tell it,” said Mrs. Beebe, with a sigh, “’cause it brings back what a dretful thing it was. Why, we thought we’d lost her!” She leaned forward suddenly in her chair, and the color in her cheek like that of a winter apple, seemed suddenly to fade.
“You!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodsell, in astonishment. “Why, she warn’t noways related. Why did you take on about it, pray tell?”
“Don’t you understand,” began Mrs. Beebe.
“No, she don’t,” declared the little shoemaker irritably, “and what’s more, she won’t, ef you sh’d set there till the day o’ judgment.”
“But she must,” Mrs. Beebe pointed off her words with the fingers of one pudgy hand marking them off on the palm of the other, “We all—everybody in Badgertown sets a sight by those Pepper childern, an’ Phronsie—well there,” she lifted up a corner of her apron and wiped her eyes.
“Well, go on,” said Mrs. Goodsell.
“An’ one day, we don’t ’xactly know how, Phronsie followed an organ grinder—he had a monkey an’ he stopped an’ played in th’ Peppers’ yard—th’ little brown house, you know.”
Mrs. Goodsell nodded. “Yes, go on.”
“An’ when he went down th’ road, Phronsie went after him. Polly had hurried back to work, an’ Mis Pepper was down to the parson’s helpin’ Mis Henderson, an’ the boys was a workin’.”