“‘Get out this minute,’ roared the little cross old driver, ‘or I’ll tumble the stage over, ma’am.’
“So she got out with a great deal of trouble, and set her cage, with the parrot in it, all tied up in a newspaper, except a hole in the top for him to breathe by”—
“Please don’t let them spill out his cracker, Polly,” said Phronsie anxiously.
“No, I won’t, Pet. You see, the little thin man stuck it in very tight in the bars over the seed-cup, Phronsie.”
“Polly, I like that little thin man very much, I do,” declared Phronsie in a burst of enthusiasm.
“So do I, Phronsie. Well, and then the other passengers all got out; they had to, you see, because the cross little stage-driver was screaming and roaring at them, you know, and last of all the three boys with the chicken-pie-basket got out. And they set it on the grass, very carefully under a bush by the roadside; and then they ran with all the rest of the people to see what the matter was with the stage-coach. Everybody ran but the big black dog.”
“Now I know that he is going to eat up the boys’ grandmother’s chicken-pie,” cried Joel—“oh, dear me!”
“Hush,—don’t tell things till I get to ’em, Joe,” cried Polly, who dearly loved to announce all the startling surprises in her stories with as much of a flourish as possible.
“Well, I most know he is,” said Joel, subsiding into a loud whisper. “Ain’t he, Polly?”