“Oh, dear me!” sighed little Dick, quite overcome with longing; “how I do wish we could have little stone seats!”
“And a stone table,” added Van enviously.
“And a whole Orchard,” finished Percy, “just like the Peppers.”
Meantime Polly was hurrying on. “Well, when we saw all those lovely things that Ben had done,—Phronsie spied them first,—we just danced around him, and we held our hands together tight, so he couldn’t get out of the ring, and we all courtesied and bowed, and thanked him as much as we could.”
“I should think you did,” said Ben, laughing.
“Then we made him take the best seat in honor of it all,” went on Polly.
“And Polly made a speech of thanks,” said Joel; “it was prime. And Ben said ‘Much obliged for the speech.’”
“And then we set about giving our play,” said Polly quickly.
“Our what?” asked the Whitneys.
“Why, our play,” said Polly; “didn’t you know that was what we were going to do that hot afternoon, when we decided to go out in the Orchard? Well, I must tell you; we were going to act a little play.”