“So I will,” cried Polly merrily, rushing back to her chair and the sewing. “Oh, it’s so splendid that Ben’s back! We’ve got a whole hour now before Mamsie’s to be home. Now, then,” as the group huddled up around her. “Once upon a time, long years ago, there was one of the richest kings and queens that the world has ever seen. Why, they had so much money that nobody had ever counted it; they hadn’t time, you know. And it kept coming in until the bags of gold pieces filled up all one side of the courtyard, and they had to build great sheds to put the rest in.”
“Where’d it come from?” broke in Joel abruptly, unable to keep still at thought of such a state of affairs.
“Oh! the things they sold in the whole kingdom were so many,” said Polly; “there were millions—no, billions of bushels of corn, and wheat and rye and silks and ribbons and butter and cheese, and laces and artificial flowers and candy, and”—
“Oh, my!” cried Joel, smacking his lips.
“Like the pink sticks old Mrs. Beebe gave Phronsie the day she hurt her toe?” queried David, his mouth watering at the remembrance.
“Yes, the very same,” said Polly.
“Now, you children mustn’t interrupt every single minute,” commanded Ben; “if you do, Polly and I will go off into a corner, and she will tell me the story. And Phronsie—we’ll take her, because she hasn’t said a word.”
“Oh, we won’t—we won’t again, will we, Dave?” cried Joel, with a punch on that individual’s back.