"And, Polly, will you play the band?" cried Joel, who had been so busy getting his various animals planned for and ready, that the music was left out of the reckoning.
"Dear me, Joe!" exclaimed Polly, in consternation. Yet she felt quite flattered. "We haven't any table out here, except the stone one," glancing at it, "and my fingers won't make any noise on that. So I don't see how we can have the band." Polly always made her fingers fly up and down on the kitchen table while she sang, pretending it was a piano and she was a great musician, for it was the dearest wish of her heart to learn to play on a piano.
"Ben can get us a board, I know," cried Joel, confidently; so he ran off to find him in the woodshed, for Ben was home to-day, chopping wood. And pretty soon Joel came running back, proclaiming that Ben had said yes, if Polly would play, that the board should be all ready.
"O dear me!" cried Polly. "Well, then, I must hurry and go in and practise," as she called drumming on the kitchen table; she said this with quite an important air, as she hurried into the house.
"Ben's going to be the elephant, isn't he, Joel?" she asked, turning around in the doorway, for Joel changed his animals about so often it was difficult to keep track of them.
"No," said Joel, "I'm going to be that."
"Why, I thought you were to be the bear," said Polly, in surprise.
"I am, and Mr. Tisbett's black horses, and--"
"You can't be two horses, Joe," said Polly. "Dear me. Ben must be one of them."
"Well, I'm going to be Bill, anyway," said Joel, in alarm. "Ben can be Jerry. And I'm going to be Mr. Tisbett and make 'em go."