“Well, there wasn’t any more putty. Oh! I forgot to tell you that Ben was away at his work, so he couldn’t fix it, and besides, there wasn’t any.”
“Why didn’t you take some cotton wool?” cried Van.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Polly with a little laugh, “we never had cotton wool. That would have been splendid—most as good as having a new stove. But sometimes Davie used to give us a boot-top, and”—
“A boot-top!” cried both of the Whitney boys together.
“Yes, when anybody gave him an old boot-top, he’d save it for the stove; the bits of leather stuffed it up just finely, and”—
“I’d have given a boot-top too, if I’d had it,” said Joel grimly; and his chubby face lengthened.
“Oh! Joel was splendid too,” said Polly, turning a radiant face on him; “he gave things too, and helped to do the stuffing. I don’t know what I should ever have done in all this world without those two boys;” and she beamed at them. “Well, I must hurry, or you never will hear about Phronsie’s new shoes. Oh! where was I?”
“Why, you were stuffing up the old stove to make it burn,” said all the Whitney boys together. “Don’t you know, Polly Pepper?”
“Oh, yes! Well, and I was in the midst of it, when Phronsie came out of the bedroom and said, [‘Oh! I am so hungry, Polly.’] Dear me, and there I was; my hands were just as black as could be, and Joel and David were away, you know, and so Phronsie begged to go to the Provision Room herself to the bread-pail that always hung under the steps, and I told her she might.
