“Oh, there weren’t any trees!” said Polly quickly; “there was just one; but we played there were ever and ever so many, so we called it an Orchard.”
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Percy and Van together.
“It was an apple-tree,” said Joel; “and there weren’t any apples on it either, only we used to play there were.”
“O Joel!” exclaimed Polly, “have you forgotten? Don’t you remember one year that we got some?”
“Mean old things!” declared Joel; “and so hard, they’d almost break your teeth.”
“Well, you and Dave managed to eat them,” said Ben, laughing.
“Because we couldn’t get any others,” said Joel; “and they were only about a dozen of them, I guess.”
“That was better than nothing,” said Polly. “Well, you see we did have apples on the tree sometimes, so we could call it an orchard; and when we had our work done, we could go out there and play. And Phronsie could always take Seraphina and stay there ever so long, because it was just a little way back of the kitchen-door; so you see we thought a great deal indeed of our Orchard.”
“Tell us what you used to do out in your Orchard?” begged Van abruptly; “every single thing.”