“Then you won’t go after Polly to bring her back?” David didn’t dare to breathe, as he asked it, but hung on Joel’s answer.
“No,” said Joel magnificently, “she can stay.”
Times were pretty hard in the little brown house about these days, and Mother Pepper had all she could do to have it look as if any ray of sunshine had ever hopped in. If the work hadn’t pressed so, it would have been much worse. But night after night the three boys dragged themselves up to bed in the loft, too tired to do anything but tumble on to the shakedowns and get ready for the next day. For there was all Polly’s work to do, and as much of it as they could accomplish to save Mother was eagerly sought by them all.
And Phronsie, lost to everything but that Polly was gone, refused to be comforted, and hung around her mother’s chair, or mourned for Polly when Mrs. Pepper went down to the store, or was away to help Mrs. Blodgett.
David, who took upon himself the task of amusing her, was almost in despair. He had given up going to help Mr. Atkins in his store to stay at home and take care of her. He even tried to tell stories, and racked his brain to think how Polly would relate one. But he couldn’t make any headway in getting her to stop crying, “I want Polly.”
At last one day Grandma Bascom waddled in.
“O me—O my!” she exclaimed, sitting heavily down on the first chair. There sat Phronsie on the floor, the very picture of woe, and crying into her pinafore. David was squatting in front of her, frantically trying to draw a picture on his slate and explain it by a story.
Phronsie got up and went over to Grandma’s chair.
“I want Polly,” she said, the tears trailing down her little cheeks.
“Yes, I know,” said Grandma, who seemed to understand, even if she couldn’t hear very well, and patting her yellow hair. “Oh, you poor creeter, you!” she said to Davie.