"What?" asked Polly, quickly. "You keep saying it's fine, and don't tell us what you've been doing. That isn't polite," she added, for Polly was quite particular as to her manners, and liked to be very genteel before the other children.
"Oh, I've been riding in Miss Parrott's coach," said Joel, trying to appear as if this were an everyday occurrence, and eating on as if nothing had happened. Miss Parrott lived in an old ancestral house, about two miles from Badgertown. She was very rich, but kept entirely to herself, and drove about in an ancient coach, the envy of all the villagers. "And I called you all to come, and you wouldn't."
"Oh, Joel Pepper!" cried Polly, greatly shocked to think of the splendid chance they all had missed, and dropping the big spoon with which she was serving the mush, "you never called us one single bit!"
"No, you never did!" added David, solemnly, and looking at Polly with all his eyes.
"Never did!" echoed Phronsie, shaking her yellow head positively. "Polly, I want some more mush, I do."
"Yes, I did, too," spoke up Joel, loudly.
"Joel!" reproved Mother Pepper.
"Well, I did, Mamsie," repeated Joel, in a very injured tone. "I called just like this, 'come quick! and ride in Miss Parrott's coach;' so there!"
"O dear me!" cried Polly, passionately, sitting back in her chair, "I'd rather have gone in that coach than have done anything else, and now you've been, and we never'll get a chance again. Never in all this world!"
"How did it happen, Joel?" asked Ben. "Do tell the whole story from the beginning."