“Who did—Sally?” asked Percy with a puzzled air.
“No, the old gray goose did,” said Polly; “she took her sticks of legs out of Sally’s lap, and she pulled her long neck in, and went off; and Sally came crying over to us, and”—
“And she always was a silly,” said Joel again with a snort of disdain, “and a cry-baby too.”
“And Mamsie tied up Sally’s arm with opodeldoc,” said Polly, glad she could do so well with the long word.
“What’s opodel, and the rest of it, Polly?” asked Percy, who was always uncomfortable if he couldn’t get the smallest detail of a story.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Polly, wishing very much that she had learned all about it so as to be able to tell now; “it’s green stuff, like herbs, you know; and Mamsie always soaked some, and tied it on us when we got hurt.”
“I thought you said Phronsie had her toe tied up in worm something,” said Percy in a literal way, “when it was pounded.”
“Wormwood? Oh, yes, so she did,” said Polly. “Well, Grandma Bascom gave us that; I suppose we didn’t have any opodeldoc in the house that day. But sometimes Mamsie would have wormwood too, because we used to get hurt, some of us, pretty often, of course, and we had to be tied up, you know, till we got well.”
“What were you tied up to?” broke in little Dick with big eyes.