“‘Betserilda,’ she said, ‘what do you suppose I’ve done? Speak.’
“‘I don’t know,’ said Betserilda.
“‘That’s a good girl, because if you’d said you did know, you’d be a naughty girl, because it all came out of my head. I’ve engaged the band, and we’re going to dance.’”
The Whitney boys clapped their hands and shouted approval.
“Betserilda said nothing, because, you know, she couldn’t speak unless Lucy Ann told her she might. ‘You may talk now,’ said Lucy Ann, ‘and say, “What a good idea.”’ So Betserilda said at once, ‘What a good idea.’
“‘Isn’t it?’ cried Lucy Ann, quite delighted.”
“Was Lucy Ann really to have a band play? And where did she get it?” cried Percy and Van together.
“Yes, indeed,” said Polly; “she was—a real true cricket-band. She’d engaged every one of the black crickets; and she commanded them to stop chirping, so as to save their music till evening. And every one said he would; and one of them said he’d bring some cousins that were visiting him, called fiddlers, and”—
“Oh! there isn’t any cricket called a fiddler,” cried Van.
“There is a black bug down by the seaside with a fiddle up over his shoulder,” said Polly. “I saw a picture of him in Parson Henderson’s book before I told this story in the little snow-house, so there, Van!”