“And I guess if one of you will feel in my pockets,” he said at last, when his wife clapped to the cover of the empty basket, “p’raps maybe, now, you’d find something you’d like.”
“Let David,” said Joel, swallowing hard.
“No, let Phronsie,” said little David.
So Phronsie went up to old Mr. Beebe, who lifted her into a chair, to be on a level with the pockets in his great-coat, and oh, oh! first she drew out slowly a pink stick, and then a great thick white one of peppermint candy! And then, midst a babel of thanks from the Five Little Peppers, and one or two kisses from old Mr. and Mrs. Beebe, away the big empty basket and the two good people went to their wagon.
“I’m sure,” said Polly to herself, long after they had danced and danced around the table with its good things, “none of them care for the little duck now; so I can fly to my sewing, and have a good time to pick it out, and do it right.” So she settled herself in the old chair in the corner, the children in great excitement still circling around the gifts which they were not to touch till Mamsie got home.
“I choose that,” said Joel, smacking his lips; “that big fat doughnut, all crisp and brown. O whickets!”
“Joel,” said Polly over in her corner, “what did you say?”
Joel hung his head. “And I choose that,” said Davie, pointing to some gingerbread, dark and moist, while he carefully licked the remnant of pink stick in his hand, for Phronsie had insisted on sharing her candy with them all, the minute the Beebes had gotten into their green wagon, “what do you choose, Phronsie?”
“I like this,” said Phronsie, holding up a sticky wad of pink stick in her fat little hand, and smiling with a very much smeared face.