"Thank you, Polly," said Mrs. Henderson, smiling down into the flushed face. "And I am so glad to know it, for Peletiah came home very frightened. Well, take your mother this. Stay, I better go and see her, I guess." So she went up to the little group back in the orchard, and heard all about Joel's accident from himself, as he wanted to tell it all, up to the time when they picked him up.
Mrs. Henderson wiped her eyes many times during the recital, then she drew Joel to her. "You must come over to see my new chickens some day."
"I'll go to-morrow," said Joel, sociably, "if Mamsie'll let me."
"Oh, Joey!" reproved Mrs. Pepper. "Please excuse him," to Mrs. Henderson, "he doesn't think what he is saying."
"So you shall, Joey," said the parson's wife, with a pleasant smile, "and bring the others with you. Let them come, Mrs. Pepper, do."
"Ben can't go, of course," said Mrs. Pepper, "and Polly can't, either," and her face grew sober, "for Mr. Atkins says I may get some more coats to-morrow morning, and she's getting so she helps me a good deal."
"Never mind," said Polly, trying to laugh. How she would love to see those new chickens!
"Polly shall come some other time," said Mrs. Henderson, with a kindly smile on her face. "To-morrow afternoon, Mrs. Pepper, at three o'clock, please let them come over."
So the next afternoon Joel, with many injunctions to be good, escorted the other two children to Parson Henderson's, Mrs. Pepper and Polly watching them from the door stone as they trudged off down the road, Phronsie clinging to Joel's hand, and David on the other side.
"She's a parson's wife, now!" said Mrs. Pepper for the fiftieth time, as the children turned the bend in the road, and wiping her eyes she went back into the house to pick up her sewing and go to work. "Well, Polly, you and I will have a fine time to fly at this now."