“Oh, dear me!” screamed Percy and Van together; “then, you didn’t have any chicken-pie. Why, Polly Pepper— And you said you had one!” While little Dick roared steadily, only the words, “chicken,” and “pie,” and “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” could be heard.
When the noise was quelled as best it could be, by Jasper and Ben, Polly was saying, “Well that was the very dreadful thing that happened, you know I told you about, and”—
“And didn’t you have anything?”—
“Any pie—any pie at all,” screamed and wailed the Whitney children, beside themselves with distress. So Polly hastened to reassure them. “There, there, don’t feel so, boys; you’ll see it all turned out beautifully, after all.”
“How could it,” exclaimed Van, horribly disappointed, “if you didn’t have any chicken-pie, after all?”
“You’ll see,” was all that Polly would tell him by way of comfort, as she hurried on.
“Well, ’twas a beautiful morning, wasn’t it, Ben,” cried Polly, “when you went out to kill the chicken?”
“Yes,” said Ben; “but what I remember most of all was, how you all screamed and cried, and said you’d rather go without the pie than to have the chicken killed.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the little bunch of Whitneys.