Joel was just going to scream “No—no!—don’t let it come to an end, Polly,” when he remembered in time; and she ran on gayly, “And Johnny was hopping up and down, feeling dreadfully but trying to get up a last charge, and Jack was screaming, ‘We’ve beaten you—hurrah for my men!’ when a dozen boys jumped over the fence, and dashed right into the battle-field.
“‘The circus-carts are coming down this street,’ screamed every single one of ’em; ‘come on!’
“The tin soldiers, of course, supposed, in the din of battle and all that dreadful smoke, that a terrible charge from the wooden soldiers had come, set on by those perfectly dreadful boys; and the wooden soldiers thought that the boys were helping the tin soldiers; so each side started to run away from the other; and the tin soldiers ran the fastest because they were thinner and lighter, so they didn’t find out their mistake until too late, and they all fell into the fish-pond at the bottom of the garden. Meanwhile, after Johnny and Jack had climbed the fence and were off at the corner of the street with the twelve boys, Jane came out with seventeen little cakes with pink on top, and not finding any one, she placed the tray on the seat under the grape-vine. And the black cat, the largest one at Johnny’s house, you know, the one with the green eyes, came stepping softly up, and smelt them all over. Then she yowed for the neighbor’s gray cat, with whom she was quite sociable, and they ate them all up, every crumb.”
[V.]
CHRISTMAS AT THE BIG HOUSE.
“You must know, children,” said Polly, most impressively, “that there was to be a Christmas at the Big House.”
“Christmas!” Each of the three younger Peppers, “the children,” as Polly and Ben called them, set up a shout at the magic word. Ben set his teeth together hard, and listened. No one of them had ever seen a Christmas, or knew in the least what it was like, only from what Jasper had told them. And now Polly was to draw from her imagination, and give them a story-Christmas. No wonder at the babel that ensued.
“The Big House,” began Polly, “had ever and ever so many windows and doors to it, and it set back from the street; and there was a road up for the carriages, and another for folks to walk up—oh, and there were lots of children that belonged to the house, as many as we are,” and Polly glanced around on the bunch of little Peppers. “Well, you know the Big House had always had a Christmas every year whenever it came around; they had hung up their stockings and had trees, just like what Jasper told us of; and all sorts of nice things they’d tried time and again, so what to do this Christmas, why, none of them could think. At last Jenny, she was the biggest girl, proposed that each child should write out what he or she wanted to do most of all, and not let any one else see what was written, but fold the paper, and tuck it into Grandpapa’s white hat in the hall. Grandpapa always wore a tall white hat whenever he went out, and when he was at home the hat stood on its head on the hall-table. And no one was ever allowed to touch that hat. So the children knew it would be a perfectly safe place to drop the papers in; and then, when all were in, even the baby’s, because Jenny would write hers for Mehitable, that was the baby’s name, why Grandpapa would take the hat, and turn out all the papers and read them, and decide what they better do in order to keep Christmas. Well, every single child in the Big House had written on his paper, and put it carefully into Grandpapa’s big white hat, and [Grandpapa had taken out all the papers]; the children had seen him as they peeked out of the door into the hall, and then he went away into another room and shut himself in.
