“Ugh—ugh—ee!” cried Joel explosively. Then he ducked, and came up red and shining, his lips tightly pressed together.
“You’re such a good boy, Josey!” exclaimed Polly. “Now, you see how perfectly elegant it is to tell stories without having to stop every minute to explain things. Well, and there were Jack Mullen’s wooden soldiers all standing up to fight, with Jack as proud and stiff as he could be, back of them. They weren’t as nice as Johnny’s, because, you see, Jack had left his out in the rain the night his mother gave a party—he forgot to take ’em in—and the paint was all washed off, and one soldier had his legs chipped off a bit where Jack’s little cousin had tried his new knife on it, so he went lame; and another one had his gun smashed where it got stepped on by the hired man when Jack dropped it in the barn one day. But they were brave as they could be, and there they were all ranged up in battle-array when Johnny brought out his soldiers.
“‘Hoh-hoh-hoh!’ cried Johnny, prancing along, driving his soldiers down the path; their swords and guns were clanking, and they looked so smart in their scarlet coats and caps with the nodding plumes. ‘My men can beat yours any day, Jack Mullen!’
“‘You’ll see,’ cried Jack, firing up. ‘Let’s get ’em to work, that’s all I say;’ and he stuck his hands in his pockets, and laughed long and loud.
“Johnny went around among his men, and whispered something in each ear. It sounded like ‘cakes;’ and then every soldier nodded real pleased, and smacked his lips, and”—
Here there was tremendous excitement among the children, but Polly pretended not to see it; and only stopping to bite off her thread, she hurried on, “And suddenly Johnny screamed, ‘Wait a minute,’ and off he dashed and ran into the kitchen. ‘Jane—Jane! I must have sixteen—no, seventeen cakes to-day. Make ’em big, Jane, and put pink on top, same as my Sunday ones.’”
“Gee!” screamed Joel. But Davie, in alarm lest Joe should be sent off to the Provision Room and just in the most splendid part of the story, jumped off from his chair, and flung his arms around him in distress.
“‘Hurry up!’ roared Jack after him; ‘else I’ll begin the battle, and shoot every one of your men’s heads off. Bang—Bang!’” Here Polly put down the big sack a minute, and thrust up an imaginary gun to her shoulder to show exactly how Jack Mullen looked. Ben dropped the washboard, and came out of his corner to look at her.
“And sure enough,” said Polly, with kindling eyes, “he was at it when Johnny got back, red and breathless, from his run from the kitchen. So of course his tin soldiers had a perfectly awful time from the very beginning. Oh, you can’t think, children, how they did have to fight! And don’t you believe they were crowded off inch by inch down that perfectly beautiful garden-path under the grape-vine arbor, until there was only one little corner to stand on for a place of defence. And the guns banged, and the cannon roared, and the smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and in and through it all were the scarlet coats and caps with the nodding plumes of the little tin soldiers. And every one of ’em was as brave as could be, and saying ‘cakes’ to himself. But there must come an end, and”—