"Well, set it on tight," said Polly, "and you're a very naughty boy, Joel, and always making a fuss over the bread pail."
Joel didn't hear her, as he was busily engaged in cramming the cover on the pail, and in a minute or two he came up with his pockets full of dry bread, and his chubby face beaming with satisfaction.
Polly tried again, without avail, to thread her needle, and at last, as he ran out with a good whoop, she laid it down and put her head back against Mamsie's big chair in which she was sitting. "O dear," she sighed, "how I wish I could go off to-day and play just once! How good it must be in the woods!"
"Don't you suppose you'll go when you are a big woman?" asked Phronsie, laying down Seraphina, where she sat on the floor, and regarding her gravely. "Ever, Polly?"
"O dear me, yes," said Polly, twitching up her head again, and picking up the needle and thread. "And I'm a bad, naughty girl, Phronsie, to fret," she added, her ill-humor flying. "There, now you've concluded to go in, have you?" this to the eye of the needle.
"You're never bad, Polly," said Phronsie, taking up Seraphina once more, feeling that everything was right, as she had seen Polly smile, and beginning to tie on a remarkable bonnet upside down.
"Yes I am, Pet, often and often," said Polly, with very red cheeks, "and I ought to be put in the corner."
"Oh, Polly,--put in the corner!" cried Phronsie, in a tone of horror. "Why, you couldn't be. You're Polly!"
"Well, I need it," said Polly, shaking her brown head, while the needle flew in and out merrily. Suddenly she laid it down. "I must go out and tell Joel I'm sorry. I was cross to him. I'll be back in a minute," and she sped off.
When she came back she looked very sober.