“Of course you do,—so we all do; and that’s the only way we can hear it by keeping quiet. Well, go on, Polly, please.”
So Polly began again: “Well, the pumpkins grew and grew. First they were green, you know, and funny little things, and the vines quite covered them. And then they grew bigger, and swelled all up fat and round, and ran their heads through the green leaves; and the frost came one night, and bit the grass and all the tender things everywhere, and the next morning when all the Stebbinses ran out, it didn’t seem as if there was anything in the world but big yellow pumpkins. All the vines were just puckered and shrivelled up. But the pumpkins were just as proud as could be; and they said, ‘Now we’ve got the whole world to ourselves.’
“And Farmer Stebbins went up and down among them all, rubbing his hands just like this;” and Polly looked so like him that everybody burst out laughing; “and he said, ‘Now, says I, my fine pumpkins, we’ll put you in a pile very soon, and when your coats get yellow, away you go to market.’”
“What did he mean?” demanded Percy.
“Be still, and she’ll tell you,” said Jasper.
“And sure enough, what do you think. Every single one of those million pumpkins soon found himself in a great big pile against the barn, and there they were to stay until the farmer said they were yellow enough. Then away they would drive to the market!
“Well, one cold night everybody had gone to bed in the farmhouse, and even Snap the great brindled dog was asleep, and all was as still as it could be, when one yellow pumpkin up top of the very tip of the pile whispered, ‘Hist!’ and every other pumpkin listened with all his might to hear what he was going to say.
“‘We are all very foolish,’ said the Tip Top Pumpkin, ‘if we stay here to be carted off to that old market, where somebody comes along to buy us to carry us home to eat up.’
“‘What can we do?’ cried all the others straight through the big pile.